Google Ride Finder Announced

nthitz writes "Need a ride? Now Google has included the ability to lookup where taxis are in real time! The new service is called Google Ride Finder. Using a combination of Google Maps and Google Local you can see where certain taxis are at the moment. Currently there are only 11 major cities that are supported, and there are still only a few cab companies that are involved. The service is pretty cool, but if they don't add more cities/companies, who knows how well it will do. For more info check out Google's Blog."

Nice for Portable Devices?

[helioquake]

I guess this is wicked cool if you have a cool cell phone or PDA. I can definitely see the benefit in signing up for this service by a cab company.

Re:April 1st!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

There are three types of people in the world.

1. People who don't get April Fools jokes
2. People who get April Fools jokes, and laugh at them but don't tell.
3. People who get April Fools jokes and shout out "OMG I BET THATS AN APRIL FOOLS JOKE". They're incapable of running with a joke, they insist on pointing out the joke, and are also the same people who tell you your shoes are untied, and when you look go "HA HA GOTYA". They also get beaten a lot at school.

No, wait. Lame

[Dancin_Santa]

This is a taxi-finding service, not a ride-share service.

If I wanted a cab, I think I could have just called the cab company dispatcher or flagged one down. I'm not sure how booting my computer, looking up the site then requesting a cab is any faster than the current way of hailing a cab.

Sweet Idea - Practical?

[sjbe]

While only a few cab companies are participating and it's in select cities (mine is one fortunately) this looks to be a pretty neat little service. I don't know that it will be hugely valuable without more information and cab companies participating. A few ideas for how to use it come to mind.

• Obviously it could be useful to figure out which cab company to call based on who's closest for rides to the airport or for picking someone up. Also tells where particular cab companies tend to operate.
  
• Could be a way to track the location of someone if you know they are in a cab from a particular company. Voluntary of course but potentially useful.
  
• Simple way to know what cab companies operate in the area and who might be reputable.
  

Beyond that I'm not sure yet. If it gets integrated with traffic/weather reports or works on mobile devices it would be more useful. It's definitely a pretty cool hack no matter what.

Yeah but how to find net cafe?

[krishn_dev]

Mobile service providers, r u reading this? :-)

Re:Would be nice for public transportation!

[tonsofpcs]

Does this just follow the schedule and add a bit to appease you? or does this actually track the busses and calculate in real time based upon the driver's habbits, road conditions, speed, etc. how long it will take to get there?

Re:But seriously, is it useful?

[Jenguran]

To me, it's completely useless. When I need a cab, I'm face down on a bar somewhere with no internet access.

oh no,the US is the centre of the virtual universe

[jago25_98]

Another story that sounds great for an instant until you relise it's US only.

The internet...aggh!

Re:Google Gmail April Fools: Infinity and Beyond S

[opqdonut]

I seriously hope this one is an April Fools joke too: HTML formatting in gmail [google.com]. I can't believe they did it. the scourge of email has made its way into the best webmail there is.

Re:Rather than advertising for Taxi services...

[ediron2]

Its also called hitch-hiking. 9 parts cool, 1 part spooky nasty shit.

See authentication and validation. Also see 'found dead in a ditch'.

Google Local in Canada

[iopha]

Sorry to correct you, but I've used both Google Maps and Google Local to find businesses in Montreal, Canada. It was a terribly useful feature and I am quite pleased with it. I don't know where you are from, but I can confirm that up here, it works just fine :)

iopha