Hailing A Taxi With The Push Of A Button

from the cool dept

Now here's one of the first wireless applications that I actually think is pretty cool (though, I'm not sure if it's actually worth using). The application is called Taxi and lets you hail a cab just by pushing a button on your mobile phone. It then uses location based technology to send the information to cab companies to go pick you up. There are some problems with this. I can see how it would be useful in areas where cabs are not plentiful, but in places like Manhattan, I don't really see how this beats raising your hand. There's also something about how it sends the request to a "marketplace" for cab companies and they compete over you, but I'm not quite sure how that works. If it just means they alert a lot of cab companies, and whoever gets there first wins, that would be cool (though it may upset cab companies who have to dispatch someone who won't get a fare). However, if there's something about competing on price, that would get too confusing, and probably waste too much time.

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