computer science

Waze

Waze is a computer science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Waze rather than just read about it. In short: Waze Mobile Ltd, (; Hebrew: ווייז מובייל בע״מ) doing business as Waze (ווייז), formerly FreeMap Israel, is a subsidiary company of Google that provides satellite navigation software on smartphones and other computers that support the Global Positioning System (GPS). In addition to turn-by-turn navigation, it incorporates user-submitted travel times and route details while downloading location-dependent information o…

Key takeaways

Waze belongs to computer science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Waze to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Waze from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Waze Mobile Ltd, (; Hebrew: ווייז מובייל בע״מ) doing business as Waze (ווייז), formerly FreeMap Israel, is a subsidiary company of Google that provides satellite navigation software on smartphones and other computers that support the Global Positioning System (GPS). In addition to turn-by-turn navigation, it incorporates user-submitted travel times and route details while downloading location-dependent information over a cellular network. Waze describes its application as a community-driven initiative that is free to download and use. The software was originally developed in Israel by Waze Mobile, a company founded by Israeli entrepreneurs Ehud Shabtai, Amir Shinar, and Uri Levine, who are also veterans of Unit 8200. Funding for the initial project was provided by two Israeli venture capital firms, Magma and Vertex Ventures Israel, as well as by an early-stage American venture capital firm, Bluerun Ventures. In June 2013, Waze Mobile was acquired by Google for US$1.3 billion. The application generates revenue through hyperlocal advertising to an estimated 130 million users.

History

Development In 2006, Israeli programmer Ehud Shabtai founded a community project known as FreeMap Israel, which aimed to create (with the crowd-sourcing assistance of community users) a free digital mapping database of Israel compiled in the Hebrew language with ensured free content, updates, and distribution. In 2008, Shabtai formed a company called Waze to commercialize the initial project; in 2009, it was renamed to Waze Mobile Ltd. and gave birth to its tagline "Outsmarting Traffic, Together." coined by the company's first in-house communications hire, Michal Habdank-Kolaczkowski. In 2010, the company raised US$25 million in the second round of funding; an additional $30 million was raised in financing in the following year. The application was updated in 2011 to display real-time, community-curated points of interest, including local events such as street fairs and protests. By December 2011, Waze had employed 80 people, 70 of whom were based in Ra'anana, Israel, with the remaining 10 based in Palo Alto, United States. In November 2012, the company began to monetize its application, offering resellers and advertisers a web interface to advertise based on location, where a small icon appears when a phone is at a particular location, prompting the user to engage. It also offers television news stations a web interface to broadcast current traffic reports and alerts directly from the Waze application; the service had been in use by 25 American television news stations by June 2013. It has also been used in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, inside Rio's Operations Center since July 24, 2013, as well as in the American states of New York and New Jersey since 2012. In 2013, the GSM Association, a trade association of mobile network operators, gave Waze the Best Overall Mobile App award at the association's Mobile World Congress exhibition.

Google acquisition In June 2013, Waze was acquired by Google for $1.3 billion. Waze's then-100 employees received about $1.2 million on average: the largest payout to employees in Israeli high tech. As part of the acquisition, the Waze development team continued to operate in Israel as a separate entity from Google. At the time of acquisition, there were nearly 50 million Waze users. In June 2013, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) of the United States began a consideration of whether Google's acquisition of Waze was potentially violating competition law; Waze was among a very small group of competitors in the mobile mapping sector against Google Maps. The FTC later decided that it would not challenge the deal; the Office of Fair Trading of the United Kingdom and the Israel Antitrust Authority also launched an investigation, in which the acquisition was ultimately unchallenged. However, in 2020, the FTC announced that it would be re-examining Google's 2013 acquisition of Waze.

Overview Waze collects map data, travel times, and traffic information from users and transmits it to the Waze server, at no cost to Waze. Waze users ("Wazers") can report accidents, traffic jams, speed and police traps, and, from the online map editor, can update roads, landmarks, house numbers, etc. Waze sends anonymous information, including users' speed and location, back to its database to improve the service as a whole. Based on the information collected, Waze is then in a position to provide routing and real-time traffic updates. Waze can also identify the cheapest fuel station near a user or along their route, provided Waze has enabled fuel prices for that country. The fuel prices are reported and updated by users and/or other third parties in proximity to a station. This feature currently only supports gasoline and diesel pricing. Waze offers turn-by-turn voice navigation, real-time traffic, and other location-specific alerts. Waze encourages users to report traffic or road hazards through incentives such as acquiring points for their profiles.

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Waze

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Waze claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In computer science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Waze before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Waze ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Waze

In research: Waze appears in computer science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Waze in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Waze is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 2006 establishments in Israel, 2013 mergers and acquisitions, Android Auto software, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Waze outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Waze in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Waze means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Waze out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Waze in simple terms?

Why does Waze matter?

Because it connects several computer science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Waze?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Waze.