Waze launches across the world

Crowdsourced maps go global

10 November 2009 7:00 GMT / By Duncan Geere

Waze, the Israeli startup aiming to create a crowdsourced sat-nav solution, has launched globally. Previously its maps were only available in the USA and Israel, but a community of users have been building local maps elsewhere too.

There's now coverage in over 20 countries, including Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Singapore, Thailand, Kazakhstan, and Trinidad and Tobago. Waze has also opened up its application so that anyone can generate real-time maps by simply driving around with your mobile phone's GPS running.

In Singapore, the highway grid was mapped within days of a group of users running the application, but if you live in a remote area then it's less likely that you'll have any data in your vicinity. Once the map is created, the mobile app automatically provides free turn-by-turn navigation.

Waze is available on Android, iPhone, Symbian and Windows Mobile devices. If you want to give it a go, then head over to world.waze.com and sign up. Oh, let us know in comments where you are and whether or not it's any good in your area - it'd be interesting to see what the coverage is like.