An artist wheeled 99 smartphones around in a wagon to create fake traffic jams on Google Maps

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Source: Business Insider

An artist wheeled 99 smartphones around in a wagon to create fake traffic jams on Google Maps

Aaron Holmes Feb 3, 2020, 9:28 AM

An artist "hacked" Google Maps' traffic display — and all it took was a red wagon and 99 smartphones.

Simon Weckert toted the pile of smartphones down empty streets in Berlin. Every street he traversed suddenly appeared as a traffic-heavy red zone on Google Maps, rerouting drivers to avoid the streets, as shown in Weckert's YouTube video documenting the results.

Weckert essentially gamed the mechanism Google Maps uses to predict traffic, he said in an email to Business Insider.

A Google representative told Business Insider that the app determines traffic by continuously pinging smartphones that use location services and by using "contributions from the Google Maps community."

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Read more: https://www.businessinsider.com/google-maps-traffic-jam-99-smartphones-wagon-2020-2

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