Develop Reference

How to reduce the Google Map Api Cost or optimized approach for tracking and api hitting

We are startup company in transport section.
We are getting a lot of charges for this like 400$ and above per day with consistent increase of users in the app .
1.We are using google map api and hitting every 2 second for smooth vehicle movement because if we increase the time limit than the problem is vehicle movement is jerking and jumping . we want smooth movement in an optimized way so as to reduce the cost .
Please suggest your opinion . Thanks in Advance

You must have to make a system to store or caching the data you get from google map api. You can use Mapbox to get the alternative solution. MapBox gives you 50000 free request per month per every api. I faced the same problem. I use both Google map api and Mapbox api and also cache the data to reuse.
For smooth vehicle animation you can follow this link: https://github.com/amanjeetsingh150/UberCarAnimation
Vehicle movement can be done offline. No need to pay for it.
And also, if you think, you can have a look at MapBox: http://mapbox.com/

Can we get Speed limit information from Waze APIs?

I've been trying to develop speed limit application & have tried many different approaches to get done .
I have used Overpass APIs & it did good but it did not have speed limit information for few of locations around Europe & also installed Velociraptor which uses OSM map & HERE Maps APIs still they failed to get data . Here is screenshot of Velociraptor app :
Yesterday I came across osmbonuspack & it looks promising as it allows us to choose from 3 best routing services available but Author of osmbonuspack told me that unfortunately, the 3 routing services are not returning speed limit information. Refer : Is it possible to get speed limit data using OSMBonusPack?
I have installed Waze application & it has speed limit data for locations around Europe which are not available from above options. So , anyone has a idea how they are getting information OR anyone knows which datasource they are using ?
Any suggestions would be appreciated.

I'm afraid Waze does not use another data source or at the very least not one unique data source that you could use. As a crowd-sourced application it relies on the information entered by map editors via the Waze Map Editor. Some editors might have used some open data sources available for their regions (if permitted by their local organisation), but it's far more likely they've used their local knowledge, Google Street View (Waze has a special license for that) or user reports sent in via the app.
As the map used by Waze is not open data, I'd highly advice against attempting to retrieve the speed data from their map. They have not exposed this information in an open API, which should be a strong indication that reuse of this data is not permitted.

OSM tagging is rich and flexible, but can be quite difficult to interpret.
Typically, max speed information is certainly there (the various routing services are based on it). The point is: how it's defined?
Have a close look here: http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/OSM_tags_for_routing/Maxspeed
And you will discover that getting maxspeed tag is not enough...
Then, refining your Overpass queries, maybe you will be able to get it everywhere!
Other hint: look at OSRM source code (or ask them), to see how they get this information.

MapBox Find terrain class by coordinates in Android

I spent several hours looking for simple solution and still haven't found one.
MapBox style editor uses this simple feature. That you can hover and click over map, and it shows small popup stating all terrain classes you enabled in your map.
Question, how to do it in Android version of MapBox given I have installed my style. Now I want click on any place in the map and get the same popup stating, for example, that this is building, woods, background here. Or other place would satte, that this is major road.
This IS doable as MapBox studio itself shows. i can't believe it uses some API not available for anyone, as this is one API no map provider gives, while still able correctly draw terrain. What so complex to add this API?
And NO I am not interested in address. I am interested exactly on terrain, for simple task - distinguiosh water from non-water, road from non-road, building, from non-building, don't care where it is by address, so reverse geolocation does not work. Or simpler - I need SIMPLER geolocation, than address.

Your questions kind of confusing but I'll try and help. If I'm reading correctly, you are trying to create an Android app that uses an API similar to Mapbox Studio that allows the user to select/distinguish the difference between objects on the map such as buildings, water, forest, etc.
If this is the case, then first you must understand that Mapbox Studio is using OpenStreetMap data to distinguish between objects. These objects are stored in a database with tags. It's tough to explain so i'll just leave a brief reading wiki page that might help.
To my knowledge, there isn't any API's specific to Android that will give you the kind of information you're looking for. However, if I was in your dilemma I'd take a look at the Overpass API as it's a complex query tool that allows you to send coordinates to it and it will return all the tags (such as building or water) at that location within a JSON object. From there you can parse and use the data in your app. It is very powerful so I suggest reading up on how to use it and test using a website called Overpass Turbo, that's if you decide to use it.
Nevertheless, I hope this helps and I understood your question correctly.

Face Recoginition Android/iOS

I want to do Face recoginition (Not Face Detection) in my Android and iOS app. I have studied a lot on Web and found following possible solutions:
1.) openCV: I don't want to go into writing my own API using this. Also, I don't have prior experience in JNI for Android.
2.) Betaface API So far this is good.
3.) Sky Biometrics is also Good.
Now, I am searching for the solution from 3-5 days and came to know that I can use above API (so far I have decided to purchase license for Sky Biometrics). And this API will provide me a list of Features for the faces it recognised.
But, Now I am confused That how to use these features and save in my local data base to recognise faces from the pictures.So My queries are following
1.) How to convert Face features to Actual working Face recognition API means What is the actual algo or solution I can use to merge diffrent face features of a same person to identify him correctly.
2.) Uploading images and then creating database for Face-features set is a very time taking process. Do any one knows any Android/iOS Face Recoginition SDK to do this so that I can do this accurately and timely with no or less time taking process.
3.) Both solution-2 and 3 can be used with Images. Is there any other solution is available which can do the same with less efforts but with more accuracy.

OpenBR may be also interesting for you: http://openbiometrics.org/

Finally I am using Rekognition API. And this is good enough to serve my purpose.

Performance benchmark of native android map vs webview map, what parameters can be included in the benchmark

I am trying to compare native google maps (v2) vs the embeddable HTML version encapsulated in a webview on android. While it's pretty evident that the native maps are smoother and faster, I must prove that somehow. I have been searching on the internet for quite some time and did not seem to find any existing benchmarks. Does anybody know someone who actually done something similar? I am already thinking of creating such benchmark of my own, but how can the performance actually be measured? My ideas so far are:
Measure rendering of different number of markers, polylines, etc...
Measure map tile loading (maybe not possible at all)
Somehow measure the lag when dragging the map. This must be somehow based on the map events, but the native GoogleMap class does not seem to have something like onDragListener.
If you have any ideas or know some existing resource, please help me!
-----------------EDITED 03.01.2014----------------
I already started creating my benchmark but now I am struggling with some strange issues - see this question for more details.
The source code of the first version of my benchmark can be found here. It currently does not include automated testing. Nevertheless when experimenting with adding different number of markers and lines you can get an idea of how slower html maps are. I have also uploaded a simple demo on youtube, to view it click here

So Your topic is pretty interesting, but remember if you are going for google maps on mobile vs web, there is mobile v2 and javascript v3. Javascript google maps has some added functionalities that mobile does not offer, you can refer the docs to find out. AND You can perform on various parameters like.
1. Time it takes to load (display) the map on the screen.
2. As you mentioned rendering on the map.
3. Performance issues on low bandwidth.
4. UI and UX.
5. Reliability
6. User Satisfaction
7. Implementation (Complete off topic but since you are doing a thesis I will recommend that)
8. Features
9. At last pricing. (I think upto 20000 calls per day is free on one API key on javascript v3)
NOTE
Anyone feel free to edit and add some more parameters for benchmarking.