Phones can’t park the car, but they can find a spot

No, I still haven’t found a phone that will do my wash. I haven’t given up just yet, but during my searching I did find a great service for cellular if you have a wireless contract with Orange in France. Yes, that rules out 99.9% of us, but stick with me as this is another great use for a cell that could be ported anywhere and everywhere.

The service helps Parisians quickly find a parking spot by providing real-time data from over 120 parking garages. According to French parking officials, "at certain times of day, 20 to 25 percent of vehicles are in search of a parking space." It has to be much easier to find something when your cell phone can tell you where it is, so I hope the service takes off and migrates over to some of our bigger cities here. My only hope is that we get a better name for it: the French lack a little creativity with the moniker of "universal system for information on parking areas". I vote for "Call ‘n’ Park"; what’s your idea for a catchy name?