Waze Lets Celebrities Tell You Where To Go
If you've ever wished your GPS had a sense of humor, Waze has a solution.
By Sadho Ram — 25 Nov 2013, 08:39 PM — Updated over 10 years ago
Waze has partnered with Universal Pictures and is rolling out its new feature where celebrities will give navigation commands
GPS turn-by-turn directions are staid and boring, whether they are relayed by a male or female voice. Waze wants to give us what we really want, which is, quite naturally, driving directions delivered with the gravitas only Hollywood actors can bring.
engadget.com
To that end, the social navigation company has partnered up with Universal Pictures to deliver some cross-promotional synergy that'll have actors in forthcoming films acting as your virtual co-pilot.
The first such star of the silver screen is comedian Kevin Hart
Hart acted on Real Husbands of Hollywood, a comedy-improv parody show on BET and is in an upcoming movie with Ice Cube called Ride Along which opens in January. Providing voice navigation commands is a way to promote Ride Along to Waze’s community of 50 million users.
venturebeat.com
Kevin Hart from Real Husbands of Hollywood is the first celebrity voice and did the Waze recording to promote an upcoming movie, Ride Along, which opens in January.
Image via aol.comYou can get a taste of what Waze will be like with Hart telling you where to go in the video below.
venturebeat.com
Waze now gives users the option to replace the generic voice with a celebrity's. Hart's voice is currently available in the app, but the company hasn't announced which other famous co-pilots will be available to users in the future.
mashable.com
To promote the upcoming film, users will be able to make advanced ticket purchases for Ride Along, showing in theaters next month.
Image via androidcommunity.comHere's how you can get this new set of voice commands:
To set Hart as the voice in Waze, open the app, tap on the button at the bottom left corner of the scree, navigate to Settings > Sound > Voice and select “English (US) – Ride Along” as the language. The app will download the voice files, which could take some time, so make sure you’re on Wi-Fi.
androidcommunity.comWaze is a popular app that crowdsources traffic and navigation data
Friends and travelers around you post updates to create an accurate, real-time picture of road conditions.
venturebeat.com
Its community grew like crazy and Waze sold to Google for a rumored $1.3 billion earlier this year. It was the largest payout to employees in the history of Israeli high tech.
ubergizmo.com
Since the app is free to download, Waze is clearly looking to drum up revenue through advertising in different ways to its 50 million users.