You could be a parking garage operator with excess space or just an average Joe (or Josephine) that wants to offer up their driveway for parking. Live near a sports arena? Have a space available for monthly parking? Simply list it on ParkWhiz and watch the cash come pouring in. ParkWhiz makes it easy to reach a huge group of people that would love to park in your available space.

ParkWhiz, a Chicago-based startup, might be able to assist with this problem, as it offers users the ability to quickly search for parking near a location. Currently in beta, ParkWhiz offers parking search only in Chicago and Philadelphia. If you are looking to check out the Sears Tower in Chicago then you simply type in "Sears Tower" and ParkWhiz should present search results and a map of all the parking locations within up to a 10 mile radius, so you have instant visibility into the parking situation before you leave your door. The site fields user ratings for each parking venue. ParkWhiz currently does not appear to offer a mobile component but might have one in the works as it could be an extremely helpful feature.

The Hoboken garage is one of a handful of fully automated parking structures that make more efficient use of space by eliminating ramps and driving lanes, lifting and sliding automobiles into slots and shuffling them as needed. If the robot shuts down, there is no practical way to manually remove parked vehicles.

In the days that followed, both sides dragged each other into court. Robotic accused Hoboken of violating its copyright. "This case is about them using software without a license," said Dennis Clarke, chief operating officer of Robotic Parking, in a telephone interview last week.

At the same time, Hoboken accused Robotic of setting booby traps in the code, causing the garage to malfunction. Then Robotic accused Hoboken of endangering its business by allowing a competitor into the garage.

In the meantime, many of the garage's customers simply couldn't get their cars out.

It is being provided under contract to Verrus Mobile Technologies, a Vancouver company that has already signed up commercial parking lots and cities in Canada, the U.S. and Britain.

Verrus gets paid through a 30-cent surcharge paid by the driver, which it calls a convenience fee, on each parking transaction using the service.

The approximately 8,000 city meters are not changing except for new decals with a meter number on them. All Vancouver meters will have decals within a few weeks.

Motorists can call a city phone number, provide the number of the meter and order exactly as much time as they need, up to the normal limit of the meter. That means no more plugging a dollar or two into the meter when you intend to stay only 15 minutes but you're short of exact change.

Cruising slowly up a suburban street in Regensburg, southern Germany, it did not take long for the test car - a BMW estate - to spot a space.

Having worked out the geometry, Parkmate made a reassuring melodic chime, which tells the driver to stop and let the car steer itself into the gap. Then, as if by magic, the steering wheel turned and the BMW sidled inches past the car next to it and into the space - before hitting the kerb and mounting it.

In fairness it was a very low kerb.

Attempt number two was similar to the first. One interested spectator was the owner of the blue car at the back of the space.

CarHarbor wants to tap into the everyday frustrations we all face when it comes to parking our cars. We are developing an online tool that can resolve those frustrations. CarHarbor should demonstrate that reasonable people can cooperate to benefit their community and themselves.

We want to engage you in this process so that our solutions can be highly responsive to the diverse set of parking problems people face. Our initial focus is on San Francisco, where we're based, but our interests are national if not global in nature too.

In Pacific Grove, Calif., parking meters know when a car pulls out of the spot and quickly reset to zero -- eliminating drivers' little joy of parking for free on someone else's quarters.

In Montreal, when cars stay past their time limit, meters send real-time alerts to an enforcement officer's hand-held device, reducing the number of people needed to monitor parking spaces -- not to mention drivers' chances of getting away with violations. Meanwhile, in Aspen, Colo., wireless "in-car" meters may eliminate the need for curbside parking meters altogether: They dangle from the rear-view mirror inside the car, ticking off prepaid time.