WaZe

Waze Developer(s) Waze Mobile Stable release 3.7.6.0 (iOS);, 3.7.6.0 (Android);, 3.7.3.206β (Windows Phone 8);, 2.1.99 (Symbian);, 2.0.2.304 (Blackberry);, 2.1.99.114 (Windows Mobile 6.x); / Sept 17, 2013 Operating system Android, BlackBerry OS (beta), iOS, Windows Mobile 5-6, Windows Phone 8(β), Symbian, Maemo Type GPS navigation software License Software and Maps: Proprietary Website http://waze.com Waze (pronounced as ways) is a GPS-based geographical navigation application program for smartphones with GPS support and display screens which provides turn-by-turn information and user-submitted travel times and route details, downloading location-dependent information over the mobile telephone network. It was developed by the Israeli start-up Waze Mobile, which was acquired by Google in 2013 (although Israel, US and UK regulators were considering whether Google's purchase might violate anti-trust laws). Waze won the Best Overall Mobile App award at the 2013 Mobile World Congress, beating Dropbox, Flipboard and others. On June 11, 2013 Google completed the acquisition of Waze for a reported US$1.3 billion. As part of the deal signed, each of Waze's 100 employees will receive an average of about $1.2 million, which represents the largest payout to employees in the history of Israeli high tech. Waze supports Android, iPhone, Symbian, Blackberry 10, and Windows Mobile from version 5. In May 2013 a Windows Phone 8 beta version was made available on Windows Phone Store. In July 2013 Waze said that they were planning to support both iPhone and Android, and would consider supporting new platforms. As older platforms (Symbian, WM, Blackberry) do not support either a full native UI or other APIs they rely on, they could not support them, although existing versions would continue to work. Contents 1 History 1.1 Takeover by Google, , 2 Overview, 3 Safety risk, 4 Patents, 5 Licensing, 6 Sources, 7 References, 8 External links, History: Waze started from roots of open-source projects named FreeMap Israel, open-source project which mapped Israel using their users mobile- similar to today waze process. Waze Ltd. was founded in 2008 in Israel by Uri Levine, software engineer Ehud Shabtai, and Amir Shinar. The company was originally called LinQmap. In December 2011 Waze employed 80 people, 70 at Ra'anana, Israel and 10 in Palo Alto, California. In 2010, the company raised $25 million in the second round of funding. In 2011, the company, which plans to monetize through location based advertising and to expand into Asia, raised an additional $30 million in financing. Takeover by Google: Facebook and other companies were interested in purchasing Waze, but did not reach an agreement. In June 2013 Google bought Waze for $966M, adding a social data aspect to its mapping business In June 2013 the United States Federal Trade Commission started considering whether Google's purchase of Waze might violate competition law--Waze was one of very few competitors in the mobile mapping sector. As of August 2013 no decision had been made. The UK Office of Fair Trading and the Israel Antitrust Authority are also investigating. Overview: Waze differs from traditional GPS navigation software as it is a community-driven application which gathers some complementary map data and other traffic information from users. Like other GPS software it learns from users' driving times to provide routing and real-time traffic updates. It is free to download and use. People can report accidents, traffic jams, speed and police traps, and can update roads, landmarks, house numbers, etc. Waze also identifies the cheapest fuel station near a user or along their route. As of January 2012, the app had been downloaded 12 million times worldwide. In July 2012 Waze announced that it had reached 20 million users, half of them recruited in the previous six months. According to Yahoo! there were nearly 50 million Waze users as of June 2013. Waze can be used anywhere in the world but it requires a critical mass of users to have real utility; currently only 13 countries have a full base map, the others are incompletely mapped, requiring users to record roads and edit maps. As of 2013 Waze has a complete base map for the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Belgium, Israel (claimed to be the best map for that country), South Africa, Ecuador, Chile and Panama, but the company has plans to complete maps for other countries in Europe and elsewhere. In addition to turn-by-turn voice navigation, real-time traffic, and other location-specific alerts, Waze simultaneously sends anonymous information, including users' speed and location, back to its database to improve the service as a whole. This crowdsourcing allows the Waze community to report navigation and mapping errors and traffic accidents simply by running the app while driving. Waze uses gaming conventions to engage users and encourage them to provide more information, allowing them to "drive over" icons of cupcakes and other things to earn points. Waze also offers points for traffic or road hazard reports, which can be used to change the user's avatar, and to increase their status in the community. In 2011 Waze Mobile updated the software to display real-time, community-curated points of interest, including local events such as street fairs and protests. In June 2012 Waze launched an update to provide real-time fuel prices. As with all Waze real-time updates, prices are submitted by users. Since November 2012, in monetizing its app, Waze offers resellers and advertisers a web interface to advertise based on locations where a small icon will appear on a given location for an interested Wazer to engage into the ads offered by them. It also offers to TV news stations a web interface to broadcast current traffic reports and alerts directly from the Waze app; the service had been used by 25 TV U.S. news stations by June 2013 In June 2013, Waze introduced a global localization project that will enable future road closures and real-time traffic updates during major events in a given country, for example Tour de France. Safety risk: Some road-safety advocates have voiced concern over the prospect of more drivers using Waze, which they say has the potential to distract them with a flurry of icons and notifications and put them at greater risk of an accident. Patents: US Patent 7,936,284. System and method for parking time estimations. Issued May 3, 2011., US Patent 8,271,057. Condition-based activation, shut-down and management of applications of mobile devices. Issued Sep 18, 2012., Licensing: The Waze v2.x software was distributed under GNU General Public License v2, which did not extend to map data. FreeMap data published under open content licenses was available before the Waze project began, but Waze CEO Noam Bardin felt that Waze was fundamentally different from projects like OpenStreetMap and was wary of map data licensing that would restrict commercialization of the Waze service. Starting with Waze v3 the program switched to a proprietary license. Sources: The last open source client version for the iPhone and Android is 2.4.0.0, and for Windows Mobile 2.0. It borrowed the codes from RoadMap project in which Ehud Shabtai had contributed for the Windows PocketPC version.