Humanizing GPS

The bridge fire and collapse in the Bay Area proved to be a major test for all those new GPS systems. But many firms stepped in and quicky reworked their computers to help commuters get around the damaged roadways:

If you went to Google, Yahoo, AOL or another mapping site to plot a route from San Francisco to Oakland in the hours after an oil tanker exploded, they would have sent you driving over a collapsed overpass engulfed in flames. But within 48 hours of Sunday’s accident, engineers at the major mapping sites had reprogrammed with alternate routes that added only a couple minutes to estimated drive times. That’s a big improvement from a couple years ago, when routing algorithms were only updated sporadically. Digital cartographers say the response to the Oakland disaster was a promising sign of what’s to come - up-to-the-minute detours and routing technology that takes into account not only major disasters but fender benders and traffic jams. (AP)