Cab 4 Me.

About 5 years ago, when I joined my first job, during one of the usual boardroom sessions, our boss while explaining technologies such as 3G and IMS, and he went to explain the future...

He said, let's say, it's your first time in Chennai, and you're walking in Mount Road not knowing what the name of that road is, and you'd think, you'd want a taxi, all you'd have to do is sms and say ' I want a cab' and within a few minutes, a cab will find you and pick you up. I thought to myself, this sounds so James Bond types ! He went on to explain, this is really possible, because, your phone will be GPS enabled, the cab, will have a GPS device, so the cabbie will locate you with your unique device identity, something like the IMEI number.

As much exited, fascinated and overwhelmed I was to even to listen and imagine technology like that is really possible, over time, I thought, it's all big talk, but nothing's going to really happen.

Then Google Earth happened. A little later Google Maps happened.

And today, I came across this,

cab4me

cab4me allows Android users to call cabs from anywhere in the world. It combines the Google Maps with GPS/Cell location awareness to allow users to order cabs without even knowing the address they are at.

That said, will have to wait and see, how many of these apps really go on a become that killer app, like the 'sms'. 'Push to Talk' was launched in a big way, with many hopes, it crashed even before it took off. We'll have to wait and watch, time will tell.