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Microsoft's got a smarter way to keep you out of snarls.
Today the company introduced its Clearflow technology to its Live.com site. It is an ambitious effort to add AI machine-learning techniques to the complex problem of predicting traffic congestion. A pile-up on a highway, for example, often sends cars spilling into surface streets to avoid the mess, tying them up as badly as the original jam. It's often faster to stay on the highway, rather than detour. But how would you know this? Clearflow makes predictions about these types of scenarios.
The technology is aimed squarely at traffic reporting utilities from Google, Yahoo and MapQuest, among others. It is integrated into the driving directions that Microsoft introduced last fall. It's a very complex system that uses algorithms to model hundreds of thousands of road segments.
Does it work? Read after the jump.
You can get live traffic reports from many places. And some GPSs such as Garmin's, use live traffic feeds from Microsoft. But it's usually up to you to find a detour--or to rote rules built into your GPS. These often fail to take into account the unintuitive fact that one frustrating jam might be the lesser of two evils.
One problem with the software is that traffic patterns can shift quickly. When seeking directions from your PC, the entire picture could change enroute. Microsoft needs to migrate the technology to it's Live Search Mobile service as soon as possible.
Clearflow is free and currently available for 72 U.S. cities.
