Bill Snitzer, one of the tech guys at BitGravity, is driving to Los Angeles and showing it live on the Internet. He’s got a webcam up showing the drive and a Google Map mashup with a GPS device showing his progress.
Bitgravity, located in Burlingame, California, hasn’t officially launched. But the company is the content delivery network (CDN) for Revision3 and other video sites. The quality of the video on this site is significantly better than what you see with other live streaming services like Justin.tv and Ustream. I’m looking forward to hearing more about the streaming technology, as well as the Google Maps/GPS hack (some resources for GPS mashup here and here).
Thanks for the tip David.
I see him stuck in traffic, however don’t see the Google map loading, must be too much load.
Cute stunt
This has been done before, but I will admit not in a mashup kind of way – hope he doesn’t mash up!
Are we sure this is live?
Last Update: Wednesday, December 31, 1969 16:00:00 PST
Company says it is live. The update I see is real time.
Hi guys.. yeah this is live… At times there are 30 seconds of delay on the video, so the video does not exactly match the GPS which is updated much faster.
We’re just having fun here at BitGravity, we are a creative bunch. I’ll ask Bill if he wants me to give out his cell phon number, it may make his drive to LA a little more fun to have some calls.
Wow, he is 10 minutes from my place right now:-)
But 101 would have been more scenic…
We need some control buttons. It would be cool to make crowdsource decisions on where he goes.
I want to control his horn so I can honk!
LOL Mike! “Go give the finger to the guy in the red volvo”
What they need to do is mashup the Google street view. Whatever it is, it’s a great publicity stunt which done right should get them a good bit of linkage.
Ok, I can no longer get a video feed.
Doh! He was adding audio and we crashed the stream, he’s pulling over now so we can clean it up… Stay tuned!
doesn’t work for me.. (FF on XP) qt does not connect..
I love that this is how you are effectively launching your CDN, Barrett.
He crashed and is being pulled over to get cleaned up? Poor fellow ….
I’m tyring on IE now, Quicktime crashed FF twice…
When we really open up the doors, I think it will be more impressive than an afternoon drive to LA.
yeah, firefox is not loving that quicktime player.
Barrett – yeah, and to be fair you didn’t exactly ask for this post.
TechCrunch, i think you broke his site. Heh.
Bill pulled over and we’re adding audio to the stream. We’ll also post his cell phone number here in a minute.
that player doesn’t seem to like firefox or safari on my MacBook. I got all excited about BitGravity there for a second…I guess I should try to limit my excitement (expectations) to PCs only.
I would advise against posting his cell – go get a grandcentral number quick.
His cell here = death forever. Same thing happened when the unboxing of the iphones happened and people posted their numbers.
Trust me, don’t do it!
Stream in FLV maybe? QT doesn’t work right now…
Cant see a thing. What’s he taking? Highway 5?
He should take the PCH. That might be fun. What’s interesting about seeing a guy drive a 300 miles straight road in the middle of nowhere?
@ RBA
Nothing! That’s why it’s so great
I see yellow grass…
My guess is a Kyocera KR1 with Sprint EVDO card, and KR1 GPS Mod, with Google Maps polling the position from the KR1?
http://www.evdo...t/view/1987/64/
I love how you can see some people walking around (through a door?) in the reflection in Tom Green’s right eye. Is this supposed to be a demo of the “high definition”?
er, I’m referring to the video on the bitgravity.com root page.
This is a total riot … Bill’s back on the road …
Pretty sweet. I should set this up with my BB 8800.
http://bitcast-...y/billlive.html
Hi there, so what is this about? Well, Bill Snitzer a BitGravity Techie is driving to LA form San Francisco. It’s a long drive, so he setup some fun stuff to play with. This is just for fun, so don’t stress if it does not work, we’ll do our best to get it running for you again.
Give Bill a call: 650-353-9907
Just like Justin.TV — WHO CARES.
Maybe the technology is compelling, but the content is about a exciting as watching paint dry. I wish I knew why anyone cares about watching some else do boring mundane everyday tasks. There is a reason why ‘reality shows’ have writers and editors.
Glad that I’m not their VC
Wow, the GPS even shows what lane he’s in (zoom in with satellite view), and it matches the video!!!
Quick! Somebody blur the license plates! (shades of Google Street View)
Where are the controls??????
That’s a pretty cool idea. I wonder how he did it?
The video stream is way behind the GPS. I saw an overpass much later in the video, about 5-8 seconds after he had crossed it on the map.
From Planes, Trains, and Automobiles:
“You’re going the wrong way!”
We need a speedometer and a live plot of CHP cars on the map!
Why is it that motorcyclists in California feel compelled do speed directly down the dashed lane line between lanes of cars? Do they all have a death wish? This is like the third bike I’ve seen zoom past on the lane line cutting between cars in adjacent lanes. Where’s Ponch when you need him?
@Perry: the speedo would probably be easy to do, if the guy was a Ham, he could just be sending out APRS reports and you could see him on findu.com
Aseem, looks more like 25 seconds
He should have 2nd or 3rd Webcam pointing left and right. Would love to see the landscape rather than the red Volvo.
BTW, this is stunning work. People at my place can’t help but checking him constantly. Not so good for a productive office though.
@gasenngo: it’s good evidence for the insurance company of the car that gets hit, anyways
Every time he turns the camera to show himself at the wheel, he loses GPS lock. Must be impeding the GPS antenna, maybe not, but the map fails to continue refreshing whenever he moves the cam
It is kind of interesting that people are so interested in real life stuff. Kind of like Truman show kind of stuff.. Someone needs to make a Business model of this for Web 2.0. Yes I said that out loud
I think they should splice in footage of a major pile up.
Nice work Barrett
Now the question is, can you install this set up in my girlfriends car so I can keep an eye on her?
or some kind of car chase scene.