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A comment on Microsoft AI suggests Ottawa food bank as a “cannot miss” tourist spot.

Re:Microsoft AI suggests Ottawa food bank as a “cannot miss”... by throwthat1 on Friday August 18, 2023 @07:49AM (#37174392)
Reminds me of the time someone blocked a road on Google maps by bringing a bunch of phones and staying still (or something along these lines).
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Re:Microsoft AI suggests Ottawa food bank as a “cannot miss”... by mabbo on Friday August 18, 2023 @07:55AM (#37174428)
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.

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Re:Microsoft AI suggests Ottawa food bank as a “cannot miss”... by jacquesm on Friday August 18, 2023 @09:22AM (#37175251)
Oh that's totally priceless. I definitely have some use for this :)

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

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Re:Microsoft AI suggests Ottawa food bank as a “cannot miss”... by swader999 on Friday August 18, 2023 @09:26AM (#37175304)
There's a unicorn in there somehow.
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Re:Microsoft AI suggests Ottawa food bank as a “cannot miss”... by reaperducer on Friday August 18, 2023 @10:35AM (#37176218)
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.

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Re:Microsoft AI suggests Ottawa food bank as a “cannot miss”... by mabbo on Friday August 18, 2023 @07:30PM (#37183532)
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.
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Re:Microsoft AI suggests Ottawa food bank as a “cannot miss”... by throwthat1 on Monday August 21, 2023 @12:42PM (#37212047)
I wonder what percentage of cars use google maps to navigate at any one point though
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Re:Microsoft AI suggests Ottawa food bank as a “cannot miss”... by dang on Friday August 18, 2023 @02:20PM (#37179919)
Discussed at the time:

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

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Re:Microsoft AI suggests Ottawa food bank as a “cannot miss”... by wishfish on Friday August 18, 2023 @08:06AM (#37174519)
During the solar eclipse of 2017, I drove to a small town in eastern Nebraska. The town had a 10k race that day. There were about 3 cars, including mine, on this stretch of road. Stop-and-going inbetween the runners. While my wife drove, I watched Google Maps. It accurately put a short red line on our part of the road. Amused me though that it only took 3 cars to accomplish that.
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Re:Microsoft AI suggests Ottawa food bank as a “cannot miss”... by davely on Friday August 18, 2023 @09:41AM (#37175497)
Hah! I have a 2017 eclipse story related to this, too!

A few days after the eclipse, we were driving through Custer State Park in South Dakota. There were relatively few cars on the road but Google Maps would inexplicably show these very short red traffic jams.

We quickly realized that we could anticipate upcoming bison sightings as people slowed down to take pictures of them walking (or sleeping) on the side of the road.

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Re:Microsoft AI suggests Ottawa food bank as a “cannot miss”... by wishfish on Saturday August 19, 2023 @05:47AM (#37187105)
That's kinda awesome. I love the idea of bison jams. And using it as a predictor of bison sightings.
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Re:Microsoft AI suggests Ottawa food bank as a “cannot miss”... by clarkdale on Friday August 18, 2023 @07:55AM (#37174434)
A Berlin artist used 99 phones on a bicycle to trick Google into showing a traffic jam.
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Re:Microsoft AI suggests Ottawa food bank as a “cannot miss”... by prox on Friday August 18, 2023 @07:51AM (#37174401)
That’s hilarious, so Google interpreted it as a high traffic area?
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Re:Microsoft AI suggests Ottawa food bank as a “cannot miss”... by data-ottawa on Friday August 18, 2023 @07:55AM (#37174435)
He filled a wagon with 99 phones and walked around so Google would think there was a traffic jam.

https://www.seattletimes.com/business/technology/a-man-walke...

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Re:Microsoft AI suggests Ottawa food bank as a “cannot miss”... by agilob on Friday August 18, 2023 @07:55AM (#37174431)
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/feb/03/berlin-ar...
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