More than a decade ago, IBM spent the dot-com boom making sure it made money selling to start-ups. In the current tech boom, it says there’s more to gain from partnering with the start-ups than just selling to them. In those days the Armonk, N.Y.-based computing giant scrambled to release a rack-mountable server that would meet the needs of dot-com companies, said Jim Corgel, who was then the general manager of IBM’s Net Generation business but now manages its relationships with independent software vendors and developers.

A panel of three IBM SmartCamp 2010 finalists, including Streetline CEO and President Zia Yusuf, discuss their companies and experience during SmartCamp.

BMW iVentures officially opened the doors to its New York office this week, and inaugurated their new space with a panel discussion on digital technology and mobility. The $100 million fund has already seeded UK-based Parkatmyhouse.com and MyCityWay, which will lease space in BMW’s trendy West Village office. The firm plans to invest primarily in urban mobility technologies to solve the transportation needs of the future. But the hot topic of the evening was, of all things, parking.

Gerry Mooney, General Manager of Global Smarter Cities at IBM, details how IBM and entrepreneurs are working together to reach the IBM vision of Smarter Cities 2.0.

I was in attendance at last night’s launch party for BMW i Ventures in Manhattan’s West Village. You can get a good idea of how serious this auto maker is in their new venture fund and startup incubator from their … hor d’oeuvres. There were at least 4 different pesto spreads–artichoke, basil, and a purplish beet mixture–which were documented with little cards. BMW understands Manhattan food culture, clearly. And based on the speakers, they definitely grok its number one gripe … parking and traffic.

NYC DOT is partnering with three tech firms – including Streetline, Inc. – to launch the Parking Availability Technology pilot, testing state-of-the-art equipment that will wirelessly transmit real–time parking information to users. DOT is embedding sensors in 177 parking spots along Arthur Avenue and East 187th Street in the Bronx that can detect whether a parking space is vacant. If successful, the pilot has the potential to ease congestion by giving information on how many spaces are available on a particular block, reducing the amount of time spent cruising for a spot.

Drivers hunting for elusive street parking soon will have instant access to a map showing availability in some parts of Downtown Indianapolis and Broad Ripple. The free application is called Parker — and sensors recently installed in nearly 500 parking spots that can pick up the app should go live by the end of January.

By 2050, the world’s population is projected to be more than 9 billion, with roughly 70% of people residing in urban areas. With more people flocking to cities, there is an urgent demand for smarter, more sustainable cities.

In the United States, buildings make up 70 percent of all energy use, and almost forty percent of all carbon dioxide emissions. Rethinking how buildings use energy is an essential issue of our time, and many have taken on the challenge of retrofitting energy hogs– to save money, to make cities more efficient, and to help the planet.

Forget street smarts. Roosevelt Island is getting smart streets. The 147-acre East River island hopes to create between 200 and 300 parking “smart spots” as part of an effort to attract more residents, tourists and a proposed engineering college, officials said. The island’s management team has just completed a year-long trial of 34 “smart spots” along West Drive near the island’s only subway station.

Streetline CEO Zia Yusuf interviewed for The CEO Show hour-long call-in special, which features some of Silicon Valley’s tech industry heavyweights each week.

What is a parking spot worth? A small fortune, nothing, and everything in between. It all depends on the time of the day and how desperate you happen to be at the moment, according to Zia Yusuf, president and CEO of Streetline, which has created a system for tracking, and ultimately auctioning, open parking spaces in urban centers.

Many promising executives derail sometime during their careers, often because they weren’t very good at office politics. Not playing the political game is often seen as a good thing, even a badge of honor. Some managers see it as proof of their integrity. They are going to succeed because of job performance alone. They couldn’t be more wrong. Research finds that a person’s political skills are key to building a successful career—for the good of both themselves and their company.

Considering that traffic congestion has been an ongoing theme during my week in Bangalore, it only stands to reason that parking follows. IBM just released its first-ever parking survey, and Bangalore made the top, or near the top, on a couple of key metrics. It was first in terms of most parking tickets issued, and second (only to New Delhi) in terms of cities where drivers argued most over parking spaces.

A new survey from IBM has confirmed what city managers, travelers and commuters already know from everyday experience: finding a parking space in a big city can be a frustrating and sometimes futile chore. And the problem isn’t confined to the U.S. — it’s an issue around the world.

IBM (IBM) has partnered with privately-held Streetline to develop a system that tracks parking patterns in an effort to help municipalities improve congestion. Under the terms of the agreement, Streetline’s patented smart-parking platform would be used to detect the presence of a vehicle through a network of wireless sensors located in individual parking spaces.

More U.S. drivers can soon expect to whip out their smartphones and find open parking spots using a digital map of their local streets. Such a solution could eliminate the tiresome routine of circling around the block countless times, help avoid heated arguments between strangers, and could even cut down on traffic congestion.

International Business Machines Corp. has spent the last two years building direct relationships with entrepreneurs that can help it grow its business. Now it’s getting an early indication that the strategy is working. It announced Wednesday that it has partnered with Streetline Inc., a start-up that’s developing technologies to shorten a driver’s search for an empty parking spot.

It will be near-field communication or in-car transponders. On-street technology has not stopped evolving,” said Amir Sedadi when asked about the future in a conversation he had last month with Parking Today. Sedadi is Assistant General Manager for the city of Los Angeles Office of Parking Management, Planning and Regulations. PT sat down with Sedadi and his staff to review what is going on parking-wise in the nation’s second-largest city.

The concept of “smart cities” must conjure up mental images of in all of us, from urban utopias to sci-fi inspired urban dystopias – and sometimes a little of both. A smart city, also called a “digital city” or a “connected city,” is a concept that has been defined as “embedding intelligence in objects” and then filling a town or city with those intelligent, connected objects: cars, parking meters, parking lots, police equipment, smart cards for public services, alternative energy sources, “smart” electric grids and intelligent networked telecommunications equipment.

Ask Zia Yusuf what he does for a living and he’ll likely say, “I’m in the parking business.” More precisely, he’s in the business of trying to put an end to parking as we know it and utterly transform one of the most familiar and frustrating acts of daily life.

Fighting traffic and finding parking are just two of the headaches most people associate with driving in modern cities. It’s estimated that 30% of the traffic in a city, a city like San Francisco here or Los Angeles is caused by people going around looking for parking. The video explores how taking a systems thinking approach these issues can help in the development of innovative solutions like start-up Streetline’s Parker application.

Streetline Inc. has been selling its parking-sensor technology for only a year and it has just 30 employees, but International Business Machines Corp. is depending on it and hundreds of young start-ups like it to reach ambitious financial targets. By 2015, IBM expects to add about $30 billion to its 2010 revenue of $99.9 billion, a challenging goal considering it grew its annual sales by around $10 billion over the past decade.

Forget the mobile operating system wars or the debate about which mobile devices should be the standard. The enterprise mobility discussion needs to shift to the topic of using mobile devices to improve business processes and create contextual services that harness Big Data.

Everyone who drives has had the frustrating experience of circling the block in search of an elusive parking space, or pulling into a garage to discover that it is full. All that time spent driving around in search of parking wastes time and gas — and emits even more of the greenhouse gases that cause climate change.

Have you ever struggled to find a parking spot in a big city? And whilst driving around in circles have you ever dreamt of a service that lets you know where the free parking spaces are? In this era where our smartphones can tell us when the next subway train is coming and where there’s traffic congestion, is this really too much to ask? Apparently not according to Streetline.

The concept of machines talking to machines was once the domain of science fiction fantasy. No more. Firms need to grapple with how it will transform business models.

Sustainability is the biggest issue facing global business in the 21st century. While breakthroughs like improved battery technology will likely provide a solution to the CO2 challenge, another issue — “Global Gridlock” — is quietly taking its place.

The City of Asheville is inviting the public to help test a new Smartphone app that lets drivers know where available parking meters are located. The free app, called “Parker,” shows real-time parking availability and will be tested in 50 downtown spaces July 1 through Sept. 30. It was developed by the San-Francisco-based company Streetline and is available for iPhone and Android users.

I don’t own a car, but I still care deeply about parking — or, rather, the ability of the people I mooch rides from to find it. So I think my chauffeurs will be pleased to hear about the Parker app by Streetline.

A wireless solution to the nightmare that is parking is getting a sizable investment from some well-known players. On Tuesday, startup Streetline, which uses wireless sensors and cell phones to find parking spots for drivers, announced it has raised $15 million from Fontinalis Partners, the investment fund from former Ford CEO Bill Ford, as well as RockPort Capital Partners and Sutter Hill Ventures.

Streetline Inc., the maker of technology that helps reduce traffic congestion, attracted $15 million in funding from an investor group that includes a firm co-founded by Ford Motor Co. (F) Chairman Bill Ford. Ford’s Fontinalis Partners LLC led the investment, along with RockPort Capital Partners, San Francisco-based Streetline said today in a statement. Existing investor Sutter Hill Ventures also contributed to the funding round.

I can’t count the number of times I’ve actually shown up half an hour early for a meeting or event, but still ended up being late because I circled the city for an hour searching for a parking spot. And who wants to be the lame ass that walks in halfway through the meeting and says, “Sorry I’m late, I couldn’t find a place to park”? Because apparently everyone else found a place to park and was able to show up on time.

Travelling by car in a modern city is a tense and frustrating experience. With greater numbers of cars on the roads, traffic jams are commonplace, but parking spaces ever harder to find. Now researchers in California are working on some smart solutions to these problems.

As part of Metro’s ongoing effort to make parking more convenient for riders, a trial of real-time sensing has been underway at the Fort Totten Metro Kiss and Ride Lot for the past few months. This system uses sensors embedded in the pavement and in parking meters to let users know when spaces are available in the Kiss and Ride Lot, and when they should save time, energy and reduce their carbon footprint by driving to a different lot or using some other mode to access Metro.

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) – You might not think parking is a hot button topic across the country, but for the last few days, thousands of so-called parking professionals packed the David L. Lawrence Convention Center for the International Parking Institute’s annual meeting. Roughly 3,000 people attended the conference in downtown Pittsburgh.

Looking for a parking spot by driving around and around the block has become a thing of the past. Streetline today announced the launch of the second-generation smart-parking app, Parker, for the iPhone and the launch of Parker for Android. Parker lets users find available street or lot parking options and offers other information such as cost.

Just about every time a new electric vehicle charging station is installed in America, I get a press release about it. But what about the other 256 million vehicles on the road in the U.S.? Although they don’t need to plug in, regular cars need somewhere to park, too. Streetline, a California startup, has an app for that: Parker. The company installs sensors in parking spots so that consumers can go onto their iPhone or Android and check to see where spots are available.

Cell phones and social media tools help topple Middle Eastern regimes. Telemedicine lets surgeons reach across time and space. Smart grids let power companies reduce fuel consumption and lower pollution. Networking has changed the world.

Roosevelt Island has a long history of taking the mundane and making it cool, in a nerdy way. Trash from residential buildings is pushed to a central processing facility through a series of vacuum tubes; the daily commute for many islanders is a tram, just upgraded in 2010, that carries them as high as 250 feet over the East River on their way to work. For years now, a tidal power company, Verdant Power, has been powering the grocery store in Motorgate with energy from tidal turbines in the East River that were installed as a pilot project.

Locating a place to park could soon be easier thanks to a wireless sensor that monitors parking spaces. The sensor, created by San Francisco startup Streetline, detects large metal objects nearby and signals traffic officials, who can use the data to help ease congestion and boost meter revenue.

Visitors to downtown Fort Worth know how hard it can be to find parking spot, especially on the weekends. Now there’s an app for that. The city of Fort Worth has partnered with Streetline, the maker of a free smart phone app called Parker. Parker promises to steer drivers to open metered parking spots in real time by using sensors placed near each meter in the app’s network.

Some of the most valuable real estate in cities is hidden beneath parked cars. For managers of urban resources, this turf is a blind spot. There’s no real-time data about how it gets used, and you can’t manage what you can’t measure. Experts believe that some 30% of urban traffic comes from cars hunting for parking spaces.Enter Streetline, a 30-employee company in San Francisco that creates and installs wireless sensor networks to monitor parking spaces. 

A new iPhone app may reduce the headache of finding parking spaces in downtown Fort Worth. The city is testing out the app that lets you know where available parking meters are located.

Finding a parking meter around Sundance Square just got easier thanks to a pilot program launched last week. The City of Fort Worth’s Transportation and Public Works Department have deployed “smart meters” along West Fourth Street. The meters use ultra-low-power sensors to see which spaces are available and make that information available to the public through a free smartphone app.

Finding a place to park at Sundance Square is now a little easier for iPhone users. Streetline Inc. debuted Fort Worth on its Parker iPhone application on Wednesday. With the free app, drivers can find out how many spots are open thanks to about a dozen sensors, which look like lane markers. 

Between 8% and 74% of traffic in congested downtown areas is caused by people cruising for parking, according to a report by UCLA professor Donald Shoup who synthesized studies from 70 years of research on the subject. The paper indicates that drivers in major cities — including San Francisco, Sydney, New York and London — spend between 3.5 and 14 minutes searching for a space each time they park.

The parking space at the University of Maryland College Park has now been enhanced with the Smart Parking Space Program, which informs the visitors about the available parking spaces. This new program provides information like availability of electric vehicle charging stations as well. 

Streetline CEO Zia Yusuf featured on SVForum’s New Sources of Data and Usage panel.

Finding a parking spot downtown can be a headache, so Rich DeMuro checks out a new Smartphone app “Parker” that might put an end to all of those extra laps around the block.

Wouldn’t it be great if you could use your phone to see and be routed to the closest available parking place? Well, I’m here to tell you that mobile and wireless technology is going to help solve the very big ‘pain point’ of parking.

Bill Ford is a car guy — his great-grandfather was Henry Ford, and he grew up inside the massive Ford Motor Co. So when he worries about cars’ impact on the environment, and about our growing global gridlock problem, it’s worth a listen. His vision for the future of mobility includes “smart roads,” even smarter public transport and going green like never before.

Learning how to park takes a few weeks, but finding a place to park takes a lifetime. Streetline, a San Francisco-based start up, has help on the way. Its new technology beams the location of the closest open parking spaces to anyone with an iPhone and the new app— Parker.

Tired of looking for a parking space here in the Los Angeles area? Well, there’s an app for that… in its test phase anyway. Here’s how it works. The app, called Parker, is being tested in in Hollywood. Specifically, it has been implemented on 286 metered parking spaces along Hollywood Boulevard between Vine and La Brea. Each of those is now fitted with sensors to report parking status.

L.A.’s “Parker” app helps you find available parking in Hollywood and will soon be coming to a city near you. See how it works on Talking Tech.

HOLLYWOOD — Zia Yusuf is driving down Vine Avenue, en route to a parking space. He doesn’t have to search hard. He knows there are two available spaces on the next street at this very moment. It’s not that he can see ahead to the open space: His iPhone showed him the available space, via the $1.99 Parker app from Streetline.

Do you have any tricks for finding a tough parking space? We talk to Zia Yusuf, CEO of Streetline and creator of the new Parker IPhone app.

Forget Angry Birds! This is WAY more useful! Streetline’s new Parker app, which costs $1.99, locates available parking spaces for users. So cool! The app currently works in the Hollywood district of El Lay and NYC’s Roosevelt Island. It will be adding Washington, D.C’s Fort Totten Metro station soon, and Salt Lake City will be coming later in 2011.

Zia Yusuf is driving down Vine Avenue, en route to a parking space. He doesn’t have to search hard. He knows there are two available spaces on the next street at this very moment. It’s not that he can see ahead to the open space: His iPhone showed him the available space, via the $1.99 Parker app from Streetline.