Natural intelligence is always superior to the artificial one. This is considered to be true since so long, and if you’re not agreeing yet, here’s an example supporting this claim. A guy from Germany fooled Google’s popular Maps service by transporting 99 smartphones with GPS enabled across streets, making Google believe there’s huge traffic in that path.
Simon Weckert, a general Maps user as us, has tried the simplest way to fool Google’s popular product. He put 99 smartphones in a wagon and walked through streets, including Google’s office and created virtual traffic in Maps! He made it such a way that Google believed that there’s traffic congestion in that path and turned red throughout. Which eventually led drivers to avoid this route assuming the traffic, contrary to reality.
He carefully managed to make Google believe that each smartphone is from a different vehicle and moving slowly is due to traffic. This clever act led Maps service to turn the path red and suggest an alternate way to drivers for quick passage.
The Replies
Upon noticing this experiment, a senior software engineer working at Google Maps tweeted as “I work for Google Maps and I know quite a bit of how it works. I believe this is possible.”
After which, the most anticipated reply, Google, via its spokesperson responded to Simon’s act by saying,
“Traffic data in Google Maps has refreshed continuously thanks to information from a variety of sources, including aggregated anonymized data from people who have location services turned on and contributions from the Google Maps community.”
Further, “We’ve launched the ability to distinguish between cars and motorcycles in several countries including India, Indonesia and Egypt, though we haven’t quite cracked travelling by wagon. We appreciate seeing creative uses of Google Maps like this as it helps us make maps work better over time.”
