Disaggregate

Disaggregate is pleased to announce the availability of "Phone 2 Directions," a commercial service that gives driving directions over ordinary telephones. You can use this service to provide your customers with automated, custom driving directions.

"Phone 2 Directions" is very simple. A customer calls a telephone number that we set up for your business. The customer provides a starting location — by providing a telephone number — and "Phone 2 Directions" speaks driving directions to the customer.

Let's say you're a customer headed to a business meeting. On your way from O'Hare airport to a suburban restaurant you get slightly lost. You aren't quite certain where you are — in fact, not only is it hard to find a street address while driving in unfamiliar territory, but often you might not even know what town you're in.

But it's certainly easy enough to look out your car window and find a phone number of a local business. Many businesses display phone numbers and make them as easy as possible to read. If you have a nearby phone number — of a business, a hotel, or a private home — you can use the "Phone 2 Directions" service to find directions to your destination.

"Phone 2 Directions" works by performing a reverse lookup on the telephone number that the caller provides, and then searching for a route based on that phone number. This means that not all phone numbers will work as starting phone numbers — but many of them do, especially business phone numbers.

"Phone 2 Directions" is great because:

• "Phone 2 Directions" uses simple telephone numbers instead of complicated addresses to provide directions.
• "Phone 2 Directions" is easy to use. The caller does not need a GPS phone, does not need to download anything to an expensive mobile phone, and for that matter can use any phone including ordinary desk phones.
• "Phone 2 Directions" reads the directions to the caller, which (again) eliminates the need for expensive phones.

"Phone 2 Directions" is in beta testing right now. We're improving how the directions are read back to the customer, and we're also improving the quality of the directions. You can call +1 312 252 1758 to hear a demo of the service.

The Phone 2 Directions service is the first of a series of applications based on a simple idea: telephone numbers are everywhere, and with the right information, a telephone number reveals a location. Telphone numbers are therefore a form of "geotags," that is, a simple way to mark a physical location.

Disaggregate offers the "Phone 2 Directions" service as a hosted, turnkey service. For example, a restaurant can subscribe to this service and provide a toll-free number that customers can use to get turn-by-turn driving directions to the restaurant.

Disaggregate can also provide customized versions and versions that run on your servers.

• You can contact us directly to order this service for your business.
• A detailed explanation with some technical details.
• A video interview with Moshe Yudkowsky explaining the service — mostly for fellow software developers.
• An open source version of the product.