And for all these other reasons too.
In a statement on his website, Weckert said his intention was to make changes in the physical world by using digital means.
“Through this activity, it is possible to turn a green street red, which has an impact in the physical world by navigating cars on another route to avoid being stuck in traffic,” he wrote.
He said he was interested in the day-to-day use of technology in all aspects of life within cities, including in navigation, accommodation, dating, transport, and food-delivery.
Citing a journal article by anthropologist Moritz Ahlert, he wrote: "Google’s map service has fundamentally changed our understanding of what a map is, how we interact with maps, their technological limitations, and how they look aesthetically.
“All of these apps function via interfaces with Google Maps and create new forms of digital capitalism and commodification,” the article continued.
Residential streets aren’t generally intended for through traffic. They’re meant to provide access to the people who live there. These are areas where kids play and people go on walks and stuff, having a bunch of cars run through trying to get from point A to point B as fast as possible is not ideal. That’s why you get cul-de-sacs, intentionally designed with one way in or out, to prevent drivers from cutting through.
Oh I misunderstood OP’s message, thought they meant pedestrians as well. My apologies.
Goes to show how data from device always seems to contribute to some statistics.
Not that it’s always bad but problem today is that control isn’t with us to opt out completely.
Openstreetmaps anyone? I use organic maps most of the time to use openstreetmap data. Love the maps!
In order for Openstreetmap to do that, it would have to either:
- Crowdsource the data from people running an Openstreetmap mobile app with location data collection, which doesn’t exist and wouldn’t be accepted by the sorts of privacy-conscious people who prefer Openstreetmap, or
- Buy traffic data from a company like INRIX that actually goes to the expense of building and maintaining sensors along roadways, which it can’t afford because it doesn’t get that sweet exploitative advertising or surveillance capitalism revenue.
I suppose it’s possible that apps like OsmAnd could provide a feature for users to log into and receive traffic data from their own INRIX subscription that they bought themselves directly, but that would be such a niche feature it probably wouldn’t be worth the development effort.
How do you think rerouting and traffic notifications would work without back and forth communication? You can of course turn off location services, but than you lose the functionality of these features.
I am not saying traffic feature is bad. I am criticizing the little control we have to not contribute to the statistics. Google is a monopoly and decisions are made by them with little control over our devices.
Traffic feature is cool and for it I would contribute, but just pointing out that google hasn’t done it in the best possible way to gather statistics. I wouldn’t use traffic feature from google for this one reason.
Upvoting for Organic Maps.
It amazes me something truly free can be so much better than the commercial behemoth version.
I dunno, it navigates pretty well but I find myself having to use Google for search
Pure Art, seriously.
Funny as fuck. Nothing else to it!
I need this on my street. It’s 1/4 mile long, treated like a drag strip, and only started getting traffic after google maps showed it saving 12 seconds over the normal marked route.
Honestly same, there are a bunch of obnoxious drivers who speed on my road in what sounds like a hot rod and are way louder than the motorcycle gangs going past our esplanade a few streets away from my house.
Actually something even better could just be speed bumps every 10m like the suburb beside us has on their esplanade.
