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Google Maps Hacks

simonweckert.com

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Re: Google Maps Hacks

#101

Post by withinboredom »

hocuspocus wrote: post #37
sixothree wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The device itself should be able to discern the mode of transportation, no?

Indeed, but carriers don't get data from the device's sensors, so they need to be a little smart to properly recognize the mode of transportation. It's easier with historical data since you know the full trip, but even real-time should be doable.

This should be simple if there’s a beacon or Wifi on the train. Train goers will have that beacon in range on each location update while car goers will not (or may briefly if in-range of the train)

Re: Google Maps Hacks

#102

Post by gambiting »

dingaling wrote: post #88
OmarShehata wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We got hit by a surprise blizzard once (driving from North Dakota to Minnesota, where it went from no trace of snow to blizzard in about 20 minutes of driving). Our car couldn't really make it up any road that wasn't well plowed. I was trying to navigate to a hotel because I knew we couldn't make it back in this weather, but all the closest hotels weren't on main roads. I was desperately trying to figure out a way to…

> Does this already exist anywhere? Of course, any basic offline routing application that doesn't have live traffic feed. Something like Osmand for example. It's an interesting example of over-optimisation causing unforeseen effects. Perhaps better to rely on naive basic routing combined with external traffic condition prompts instead.

I wonder if you could quickly save offline maps for the area you're in and then kill the GSM connection. So you could still navigate but without traffic information.

Re: Google Maps Hacks

#103

Post by timthorn »

The A14 north of Cambridge has recently been rerouted, and towards the end of the project - but months before it opened - Bing maps showed green traffic across countryside where the construction workers were moving along the new road.

Re: Google Maps Hacks

#104

Post by k2xl »

Seems like someone who is malicious could spin up a bunch of VMs, spoof their gps as slow moving across various streets to simulate traffic jams. Even sophisticated spoofing would have hard time detecting this.

You could even do the inverse, simulate no traffic but have virtual cars go through streets faster than usual even if there is a traffic jam!

Would we have some major impacts in the economy of an area if major highways are simulated at high traffic earlier/later than usual over the course of many days?

Could affect local city transportation budgets to build or not build roads/new streets if they base their data solely on analytics coming from Google.

Bots have become more and more sophisticated, so niche types of manipulation is harder to detect, and for something like GPS you can't really prompt a RECAPTCHA before routes are used.

Cell phone tower data probably doesn't suffer from this risk as much, since you have to pay for cellular data and spoofing data to cell towers is probably more difficult.

Re: Google Maps Hacks

#105

Post by lucb1e »

onionisafruit wrote: post #22
nudgeee wrote: post #14

I used to work for a mapping & navigation company that offered a traffic API service. It worked by using anonymized cell phone data to predict traffic patterns. I once heard a story that during peak hour, every five minutes or so the jams on a highway would magically disappear then reappear. After some head scratching, turns out there is a train track inbetween the lanes of the highway full of high speed commuters th…

How did you fix that? I’ve been wondering how google and the others differentiate between cars on the free vs express lanes.

I don't know what a free lane vs an express lane is, but for the "that", I can imagine that a cluster of hundreds of phones moving at exactly the same speed in the vicinity of a train track until they reach the next station would be a reasonable indicator that the were in a train. The preexisting phones in that area would not show the property of moving at the same speed at the same time, and it also kind of stands out that they're still doing 15-30km/h (or however bad traffic may be) while the newcomer phones all rush through at 140km/h (85miles/h).

Bonus points if those clients all connect from the same IP address (range). That would be the train WiFi.

Re: Google Maps Hacks

#107

Post by capableweb »

ryanianian wrote: post #69
Spooky23 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This happens on NY 73, which is a road in the Adirondack High Peaks region between the highway and Lake Placid. It’s legit — even though cars are parked, you still need to slow down! I usually avoid Google maps for traveling in areas that I don’t know. It takes you off on stupid routes that save marginal time (if any) too much. Waze is good for interstate travel, but IMO Apple is better for giving you the “right”, lo…

This is my common complaint with Waze and most driving apps - they optimize for "least time," not "least anguish". I would almost always prefer to spend an extra 5 minutes on my "normal" route (that I have on auto-pilot) instead of saving that 5 minutes by taking confusingly-named side-streets with lots of left turns onto other busy side-streets. I don't know if Apple Maps really gets this any better to be honest.

Sorry for the minor comment but I noticed this part: "side-streets with lots of left turns onto other busy side-streets"

Now I live in Europe, presumably you live in the US (sorry if that's wrong). Is there any particular difficulties with doing left turns compared to right turns where you live?

Re: Google Maps Hacks

#108

Post by derefr »

netsharc wrote: post #23

An interesting "red but no traffic" phenomenon is in Iceland, with roads which are next to scenery viewing points. The roads are mostly empty in this country, but everyone must've slowed down when they saw the breathtaking scenery, and would pull into the viewing point's parking spot to stop and take pictures. On Google Maps these areas were marked red. On another navigation related topic; I was using Waze in a high-…

The key assumption there is that your alternate-self ghost-car is following the flow of traffic. Which might be true if the route was a highway; but what if it was, say, a shopping district? (“The other you would have gotten here slower, because they’d have been lured into a Starbucks drive-through on the way.”) Or what if they’re a new driver/have a flat tire, and so are driving slower than the speed limit with cars honking behind them? (“Your other self would have been a teenager who hesitated too long on a left turn at an intersection, and so had to wait an extra light cycle.”)

Re: Google Maps Hacks

#109

Post by capableweb »

nateburke wrote: post #39

This is a hack in an older, juvenile sense of the word, the sense that found cars on top of MIT buildings and football fans holding up cards that spell "we suck" in aggregate. I might be getting older but "hack" these days seems to just mean "go to work" or even "go to work on the weekend".

> older, juvenile sense of the word

Eh, alright. What's then the "hack" definition that is younger and more adult?

In my mind, hack has always been the same. Clever thing that does what you want. That's it.

Re: Google Maps Hacks

#110

Post by englishrookie »

Swizec wrote: post #94
big_chungus wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> On our way back from the restaurant, we used Apple Maps. It took us on what looked like a longer route but lo and behold, it took a wiiiide berth around the Tenderloin. We saw not a single sketchy thing on our entire night time walk. Microsoft patented such an "avoid ghetto" idea year ago, but people got mad and called it racist: https://www.npr.org/2012/01/25/145337346/this-app-was-made-f... https://www.cnet.com/n…

To be fair, most of SF’s seedy people are white drug addicts.

I personally don't hold that opinion, but this could still be construed as racist.
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