Photo: Google Maps driving simulator
If you’ve ever dreamed of driving a bus on the Silverstone circuit, well, there’s a 99.99 percent chance your dream never comes true.
But on the other hand, that’s where technology comes to the rescue.
Famous services like Google Maps, mixed with the ingenuity of a Japanese developer, allow you to drive a car or a bus in pretty much any location across the world, all with an important catch (more on this later).
And this is how someone on reddit has managed to do this oddly satisfying lap of Silverstone, using nothing more than a bus. It’s not a perfect lap, that’s for sure, but in many ways, it looks like going as fast as you can on the British track, especially when you’re driving a bus, is much more challenging than you’d be tempted to believe at first.
Even from the comfort of your sofa, that is.
If you believe you can do better, you can always give it a try by heading over to the main page of the Google Maps driving simulator here.
The web app isn’t new, and it has actually been around for many years already. The way it works is pretty simple, actually. The driving simulator uses satellite data provided by Google Maps to let users control a bus or a car in any location across the world.
But given only satellite imagery is being used, you basically drive over an image layer, which means you can go over houses, trees, and so on. It’s not supposed to be a genuine driving simulator, but if you’re the kind of person who played Grand Theft Auto just to drive across Los Santos just to be a good citizen, there’s a chance this project is a great time-wasting idea.
The only thing you need to play the Google Maps driving simulator is a modern browser, such as Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Firefox, or Safari.
Famous services like Google Maps, mixed with the ingenuity of a Japanese developer, allow you to drive a car or a bus in pretty much any location across the world, all with an important catch (more on this later).
And this is how someone on reddit has managed to do this oddly satisfying lap of Silverstone, using nothing more than a bus. It’s not a perfect lap, that’s for sure, but in many ways, it looks like going as fast as you can on the British track, especially when you’re driving a bus, is much more challenging than you’d be tempted to believe at first.
Even from the comfort of your sofa, that is.
If you believe you can do better, you can always give it a try by heading over to the main page of the Google Maps driving simulator here.
The web app isn’t new, and it has actually been around for many years already. The way it works is pretty simple, actually. The driving simulator uses satellite data provided by Google Maps to let users control a bus or a car in any location across the world.
But given only satellite imagery is being used, you basically drive over an image layer, which means you can go over houses, trees, and so on. It’s not supposed to be a genuine driving simulator, but if you’re the kind of person who played Grand Theft Auto just to drive across Los Santos just to be a good citizen, there’s a chance this project is a great time-wasting idea.
The only thing you need to play the Google Maps driving simulator is a modern browser, such as Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Firefox, or Safari.
Google News