June 16, 2004 10:00 AM US Eastern Timezone
JERICHO, N.Y.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 16, 2004--Datasphere Corporation, a leader in on-line commuter trip matching technology, has been granted U.S. Patent No. 6,751,548 for "Matching Stored Routes to a Required Route", the system that powers its Internet web site www.carpoolworld.com.
The patent establishes the exclusive capability of carpoolworld.com to fully automate the trip matching process, including essential features for efficiently computing the extent to which one traveler's route lies within the route of another traveler and determining which of two travelers with similar routes should be the driver and which should be the passenger. Carpoolworld.com provides a free public on-line carpool matching service to individual users world-wide. In the USA, Canada and most of Europe, the web site instantly translates home and destination street addresses into precise latitude and longitude coordinates (a process known as geocoding), locates the best matches currently in the database for the given trip, and presents the user with a list of best matches that can then be further filtered and sorted as needed. In other parts of the world where digital street address databases are not yet easily available, matching is done using postal code or city center points. The site also permits direct entry of latitude and longitude coordinates, which are increasingly available conveniently from GPS-enabled devices in automobiles and personal digital devices. To ensure privacy, users can contact each other via blind e-mails, but may also choose to publish their telephone numbers for added convenience. Users can restrict searches to within their own private group if they desire. The web site also provides a fee-based service for employers, other private or public institutions, or municipalities who wish to operate their own virtual carpool matching web site. The clients are able to co-brand the web site and administer their own membership, while the technology is maintained and operated by carpoolworld.com. Further information is available at the website, www.carpoolworld.com.
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