Roads that communicate with drivers and cars that communicate with each other already exist. Unfortunately, the technology usually has been available anywhere but the United States or in high-end vehicles few of us can afford. That changed this year with the democratization of intelligent-transit technology.

Here is something to tide drivers over while they wait for Google’s self-driving automobile: Web-enabled parking spaces that tell you when they’re empty. IPhone users in Los Angeles already have access to Parker, an app from San Francisco-based Streetline that tells you in real-time where to find clusters of free parking spaces.

According to a survey of 3,000 IBM researchers, the next five years will bring smaller, longer-lasting batteries, 3-D holograms, increasingly personalized GPS systems with real-time parking spot information, citizen scientists who donate personal data to scientific research, and computer heat repurposing–the heat from data centers used to, say, warm up buildings). Some of these predictions are already coming to fruition. Just last week, for example, Streetline released an iPhone app that offers real-time street parking information.

In conjunction with the City of Los Angeles, Streetline, a “smarter cities” consultant, has created an app called the Parker for iPhone App, which gives drivers real-time parking information.

At City Hall on Wednesday, officials unveiled an iPhone application — the first of its type — to help motorists find vacant parking spots in Hollywood, one of the most-visited places in the world. For an introductory price of $1.99, drivers will be able see which streets have open spots, as well as blocks that are closest to them with the most vacant spaces.

Parking in Hollywood can be a real nightmare. Now, there’s an app for that. “Parker for iPhone” was developed by a company called Streetline in partnership with the city of Los Angeles. For $1.99 you can find out where the vacant parking spaces are in Hollywood streets and garages.

A new iPhone application named “Parker” was unveiled Wednesday in the Mayor’s Press Conference Room at City Hall. The new app is the nation’s first-ever mobile application delivering drivers a faster and more convenient way to find open metered parking spaces. ”Parker for iPhone” costs $1.99 and gives Hollywood motorists a digital map pinpointing the city blocks with the most available spaces.

Parker for iPhone, a new app by Streeline Inc. developed in partnership with the Los Angeles Department of Transportation (LADOT) and Alan Cooper Design, gives drivers real-time data about available parking spaces in L.A.

Starting today, motorists in Los Angeles can get real-time information about availability of on-street parking through a novel iPhone application developed by the San Francisco company Streetline Inc. The $1.99 app, which was announced by Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and City Council President Eric Garcetti along with Streetline CEO Zia Yusuf, gives drivers access to maps showing nearby city blocks with more than four, more than two or less two parking spots.

A San Francisco startup called Streetline unveiled the app today in Los Angeles, where it’s tied into an existing network of sensors embedded in city streets and parking meters in the Hollywood area. As you cruise along Hollywood Boulevard, Parker can show you a real-time count of the number of empty parking spots on each nearby block, helping you find a precious empty space faster than you otherwise would.

City officials will unveil “Parker” – an iPhone app that will help you find open parking spots in Hollywood that are closest to your circling-about-in-a-frenzy location. In addition to the holy grail feature of actually helping you find a spot, the app will also give you information on time limits per space, the cost per space, and if the meter only takes coins or (phew!) if it takes your trusty ATM card. 

Real-time parking search is something of a holy grail for drivers in big cities–and now it’s available, at least to iPhone users in Hollywood, courtesy of a San Francisco-based startup called Streetline.

More recently, Yusuf’s company, Streetline Inc., was awarded the “World’s Smartest Start Up” by IBM. The organisation was competing among 650 innovative start-up companies. Streetline Inc. focuses on smart technology and smart living through the use of sensors to help provide solutions for easing traffic in congested cities and providing accurate data on pollution and temperature.

Roosevelt Island is quickly becoming a testing ground for pioneering transit-related projects. A high-tech parking sensor pilot program launching this December will deliver real-time parking information to drivers looking for spots. In the spring, the island may get a bike share program before the rest of the city does.

A new tool helps frustrated city drivers find elusive open parking spaces, meter maids find scofflaws and planners find the right price to charge for an hour of parking to reduce congestion. San Francisco-based Streetline, recently named IBM’s Entrepreneur of the Year, mounts low-cost sensors in parking spaces, retrofits existing meters and ties them into a mesh wireless network to draw a real time picture of which spaces are available, which cars need a ticket and how much to charge for parking.

Last month, the Roosevelt Island Operating Corp. announced plans to place these sensors underneath the 30 new parking spots next to Roosevelt Island’s subway and tramway. The organization hopes the new “smart” parking spaces, created by a company called Streetline, will help ease double-parking snarls and short-meter-time frustrations. By embedding sensors, Roosevelt Island will have the ability to assess its parking situation and make changes, like adding more parking spaces in certain areas or boosting fares in particularly congested areas.

IBM’s smartcamp global entrepreneur competition culminated in Dublin today with 9 startups from all around the world competing for the title of the “world’s smartest startup”. From 660 original applicants the final winner was Streetline, which helps cities track parking violations and drivers to find parking spots.

Congratulations to StreetLine Networks the IBM Global Entrepreneur of the Year and winner of the 2010 SmartCamp World finals in Dublin with a clever solution to that perennial problem — where is the nearest parking space?

It’s just been announced in the last hour that the winners of the second IBM SmartCamp is Streetline. As the Irish PM finished his speech and walked out of the convention centre in Dublin, followed by a huge media scrum (I think he has some pressing matters with the IMF) nine companies were holding their breath to see if they had won the title of “Global Entrepreneur of the Year” aka the Worlds Smartest Start-up.

Streetline is a San Francisco-based startup that wants to equip parking places with sensors and software so they can to talk to cars and the people who drive them.

Streetline is a San Francisco-based startup that wants to equip parking places with sensors and software so they can to talk to cars and the people who drive them.

In the first taste of a technology that could transform the way people park their cars in the city, Roosevelt Island is installing a system of sensors designed to make it easier for drivers to find a curbside spot—or get a ticket.

New York City is about to get a taste of what cutting-edge parking policy could look like over on Roosevelt Island. The island will soon be installing parking sensors under 29 spaces, local blogs Roosevelt Islander and Roosevelt Island 360 reported this week. By providing real-time data about what actually happens in those spaces, the sensors can help enforce parking laws, move toward smart and flexible curbside pricing, and prevent cruising and traffic congestion.

Power skills are valuable because they are, apparently, scarce. Executive coaches consistently tell me that successfully managing organizational dynamics is one of the biggest career challenges confronting otherwise technically talented and interpersonally skilled rising executives.

Just like regulatory commissions work hard to stay abreast of industry advances and breakthrough technologies to understand their impacts on ratepayers, so too must city planners and political leaders race to understand how new technologies can address existing problems as well as how to enable introduction of new solutions.

Two green technology startups were this year’s winners at the IBM SmartCamp in Silicon Valley.

Under a deal with the SFMTA, Streetline is installing about 9,000 sensors in city parking spaces, Yusuf told attendees at this week’s IBM Smart Camp startup competition.

CareCloud & Streetline share honors to Silicon Valley IBM SmartCamp and an opportunity to compete for “The Worlds Smartest Start-up” in Dublin this November

IBM executives Claudia Fan Munce, Gerald Mooney, and Deborah Magid spoke at the event about how Big Blue tries to foster relationships with startups, even if it isn’t investing directly in them. They said it’s good business to create relationships with companies in their early stages so that they can start business relationships as those companies become more mature.

Sensors and the applications that can run on them were the main focus of start-ups at SmartCamp, a global business plan contest sponsored by IBM.

The yearlong ExpressPark program will use new meters and pavement sensors to keep track of parked vehicles. Eventually, signs will guide drivers to empty spaces in city garages and lots.

If you’re tired of circling the block and hunting for a parking spot, a new technology may soon make those dreaded searches a thing of the past.

In our society, cars receive considerable attention and study — whether the subject is buying and selling them, the traffic congestion they cause or the dangerous things we do in them, like texting and talking on cellphones while driving. But we haven’t devoted nearly enough thought to how cars are usually deployed — namely, by sitting in parking spaces.

Using low-power wireless sensors in the pavement and electronically interfacing them with parking meters, Streetline expects to revolutionize the mundane business of parking a car.

The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency will roll out the first large-scale test of SFpark in the Hayes Valley neighborhood just west of City Hall with the installation of 190 high-tech meters, part of a two-year experiment to find out how pricing affects drivers’ parking choices in commercial corridors.

When parking expert Donald Shoup publicized his principle several years ago that cities should manage the demand for curbside parking by adjusting the cost so that there was always an available space, he probably didn’t think a large city like San Francisco would move from theory to practice so quickly, nor that the city’s SFPark pilot program would be as sophisticated as it is.

A San Francisco parking technology company said it has a new deal with Sausalito, which will use its systems to manage the city’s metered parking spaces. Streetline Inc.’s systems, which use a wireless sensor technology, allow cities to collect real-time information about which parking spots are occupied and when. Read more: Sausalito taps S.F.’s Streetline Inc. technology for real-time parking data – San Francisco Business Times

All city drivers dread the routine: reach downtown destination, hunt desperately for a parking spot, curse the driveways and fire hydrants. In San Francisco, however, parking is about to be made easier, thanks to a new network of GPS wireless sensors that will be installed next to the city’s parking meters. The sensors, designed by the local technology company Streetline, will beam data on parking availability to the offices of the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA), which, in turn, will make the information available to the public.

Parking is easy, but finding a place to park is not. A Global Positioning System or GPS can direct you to a restaurant or a freeway entrance — but not to the nearest open parking spot. But thanks to a San Francisco solution, that information will soon be available.

Two of California’s great cities are driving experiments in “smart parking spaces.”