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Artist creates traffic jams in Google Maps with a wagon full of phones - Engadget
This is the kind of post-modern art we can get behind.
We tend to think of Google Maps as an indispensable tool that is rarely wrong, but an artist from Germany named Simon Weckert found a humourous way to game the app. Using a wagon loaded with 99 second-hand smartphones, he was able to "hack" Maps to create virtual traffic jams throughout Berlin.
If you've used Maps, you're probably familiar with how it color codes roads green, orange or red to show the state of traffic in an area. Weckert used his wagon full of phones running Maps to take advantage of this fact and trick the app into thinking usually empty roads were suddenly choked full of cars. At one point in the project, he even took the wagon outside of Google's office in Berlin. In some instances, the hack caused Maps to reroute drivers away from the area where Weckert was with his army of phones.
This is the kind of post-modern art we can get behind.
We tend to think of Google Maps as an indispensable tool that is rarely wrong, but an artist from Germany named Simon Weckert found a humourous way to game the app. Using a wagon loaded with 99 second-hand smartphones, he was able to "hack" Maps to create virtual traffic jams throughout Berlin.
If you've used Maps, you're probably familiar with how it color codes roads green, orange or red to show the state of traffic in an area. Weckert used his wagon full of phones running Maps to take advantage of this fact and trick the app into thinking usually empty roads were suddenly choked full of cars. At one point in the project, he even took the wagon outside of Google's office in Berlin. In some instances, the hack caused Maps to reroute drivers away from the area where Weckert was with his army of phones.