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Today, Microsoft announced their new traffic system.  Yawn right?  Well, maybe not.  Seems their new system has a trick up its sleeve that other traffic systems, cams or other don’t.

While driving into work, an MS guy thought he’d beat the freeway traffic and hit the city surface streets.  The result?  Predictably, they were worse.  From that came a machine system that “learns”. 

According to Microsoft, their traffic system that will be available from their maps.live.com site, dubbed Clearflow will apply machine learning of complex traffic problems.  They system looks at both highways and surface streets and routes the fastest.  They system claims to learn how long it takes the surface streets to back up once the highway does and computes the time differences.

Analysts fear us common folk won’t understand what MS is doing here and it will be just another route with traffic taken into consideration.

MS is rolling this out for 72 cities across the country.  Note the time and day, this is the dawn of the machines learning how to cripple us: traffic.

Read [New York Times]

The newest addition to Garmin’s travel assistant line, the nüvi 660, is bound to equal or surpass the sales achieved by its predecessors. Introducing a 4.3-inch touchscreen, integrated traffic capabilities, FM transmitter, a super-bright display and an integrated FM transmitter that broadcasts voice guidance, MP3, audio books and phone calls over the vehicle’s existing speakers. The nüvi 660 also incorporates past attributes like the GPS navigator, traveler’s reference, and digital entertainment features.

“Since we first introduced the nüvi family, customers have been drawn to it because of its elegance, size and features,” said Gary Kelley, Garmin’s vice president of marketing. “The nüvi 660 builds on the legacy of the nüvi 300-series while adding desirable enhancements like a wider screen and integrated traffic, which are two features that have never been packaged together before.”

With its large, touchscreen interface, the nüvi 660 makes it easier than ever to obtain voice-prompted, turn-by-turn directions; route calculation; and automatic rerouting if a motorist strays off course. The unit speaks street names, so drivers will know to “turn right on Main Street.” Garmin has also made it possible for customers to augment the pre-loaded maps with custom points of interest such as school zones and safety cameras.

Read [Garmin]