This App Will Read You Wiki Facts About A Place You’re Travelling Through

Have you got one of those mates who seems to know everything about every place they visit? Well, you can tell them to piss off, because a new app will read you everything you need to know about a town or city while you’re travelling through it instead.

It’s called Road Trip and was created by Google‘s AMP project tech lead, Malte Ubl, via a website called Glitch, which allows users to easily create small web apps. It works by taking the user’s geolocation and matching it to the most relevant Wikipedia article, which it will then read out to you.

The app also lets users click through to other articles associated with the location you’re in, as well as skip entire paragraphs if the information your receiving gets a little stale. It works in Chrome, Firefox, and any other browser that supports speech synthesis and GPS, which most do.

Ubl told The Verge he made the app simply because it was something he wanted for himself. “I frequently drive through places and was thinking it would be nice to learn more about my environment while I have nothing better to do sitting behind the steering wheel,” he said.

It’s not completely flawless, though, as some users have reported mixups depending on their location. For example, those in Vienna, Virginia were served information from articles about Vienna, Austria because it’s likely the first one listed. But old mate says he’s more than happy for Road Trip to be patched in order to make it a more robust experience.

If you’re keen to give it a whirl for yourself, just head right on over here.


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