[mabbo]

https://youtu.be/k5eL_al_m7Q

He put 99 smart phones in a wagon with all of them running Google maps in drive mode. Google interpreted this as a traffic jam, and made other cars avoid the area.

[jacquesm]

Oh that's totally priceless. I definitely have some use for this :)

Invisible-Roadblocks-as-a-Service courtesy of Google.

[dang]

Discussed at the time:

Google Maps Hacks - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22216821 - Feb 2020 (382 comments)

[swader999]

There's a unicorn in there somehow.

[reaperducer]

There's a unicorn in there somehow.

Absolutely.

Rich enclaves paying you to drive a bucket of cell phones around the neighborhood slowly in an electric golf cart.

Or simpler: The rich enclaves pay you to supply their existing private security cars/carts with buckets of charged phones to drive slowly around their existing routes.

[mabbo]

I feel like there's a great movie plot point you could write where the bank robbers use this trick to clear traffic out of their way during the escape.

[throwthat1]

I wonder what percentage of cars use google maps to navigate at any one point though