Since it launched in 2007, Google Street View has captured both mundane and exotic locations, spanning from your front yard to majestic mountains and ancient cities from around the world. Most recently, the portable Street View backpack was spotted at Disney’s Magic Kingdom and Epcot parks in Florida…
My Maps is a handy tool that allows users to label and makes notes on top of Google Maps. Users can access their annotated maps from the full Maps app, but need to go to the My Maps website or use the mobile app to make edits. Today, the Android My Maps app has been redesigned in its first update since 2014.
Google has won a UK court case filed against it by a European mapping company named Streetmap.EU, which claimed the search giant had been skewing results in its own favor. Streetmap will appeal the decision, according to the Wall Street Journal.
While the last update to Google Maps for Android brought a smart ‘Driving Mode‘, version 9.20 adds a slew of new minor features, including the ability to manually add places to your timeline, photos in user reviews, and more turn-by-turn navigation settings.
Google has announced in an official blog post that it’s adding a new flood alert system to its services in India. Thanks to information provided by the Central Water Commission (CWC) users will be able to find flood alerts, including river level info, for more than 170 areas in India where the CWC has active observation stations.
Alerts are available in a number of Google’s apps and services like Google web search, Now cards in the Google app, Google Maps and the Public Alerts homepage on desktop and mobile.
Waze is already the go-to app for real-time traffic updates, and today they’ve upped their game. Waze has officially announced its Transport SDK, which will give partners the ability to implement some of Waze’s features into their own applications. There will be no need to switch out of an app just to see a road block two miles ahead in the not-so-distant future.
Google has partnered with a number of outdoor explorers, photographers, runners, skiers and filmmakers to take us closer than ever before to highest mountain in the Alps. Google’s new virtual exploration is simply breathtaking, and easily worth a few minutes of your time…
Update: Google has officially announced the feature and clarified that Driving Mode will only suggest your home, work, and other recently searched for destinations.
An update to Google Maps for Android adds a new intelligent ‘Driving Mode’ that predicts where you’re heading in order to provide driving updates. Additionally, the update adds more prominent controls for audio feedback and granular privacy settings to the Timeline feature.
Google’s Maps app for iPhone and iPad got a small but useful update on the App Store today. The latest version of the Google Maps iOS app now includes a couple of handy features.
First up, and undoubtedly the most useful for drivers is the up-to-date gas prices in the US and Canada. The feature was included in the Android version of Google’s app a couple of months ago and lets users check nearby gas stations to see which has the most affordable prices. You can find prices simply be searching for ‘gas’ or ‘gas stations’ in the search field and Google Maps will automatically bring up the nearest options and list pricing for those locations.
Business hours have been included in the app for some time, but today’s update also lets you check when is best to avoid/visit particular businesses. Like its online search and maps tools, the updated iPhone app brings the ability check popular visiting hours for local stores and outlets. Now you can see what you always knew about any business or retail location: It starts getting busy after lunch.
Google Maps version 4.13.0 is available to download from the App Store for free and requires users to be running iOS 7.0 or later and is compatible with iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad.
Google today has announced an update to the Google Maps SDK for iOS, bumping it to version 1.11. The update includes bitcode support, new events, and brings some features previously available only in the Android SDK to iOS.
Bitcode support means that Apple can optimize for specific target devices at provisioning time and is an intermediate representation of your app that is uploaded to the App Store.
Google Maps SDK for iOS 1.11 also includes two new events that take better take advantage of multitouch features of iOS devices. Google writes on its Geo Developers blog:
The Google Maps SDK for iOS 1.11 also introduces two new events: didLongPressInfoWindowOfMarker and didCloseInfoWindowOfMarker. The long press event takes advantage of iOS long-touch as another way for users to interact with Maps SDK for iOS enabled apps. The close event is particularly useful if you wish to programmatically zoom back out on the map after the user has looked at the detail associated with a particular marker.
The latest Google Maps SDK for iOS 1.11 also includes a handful of new features and bug fixes:
In order to help monitor and show the effects climate change is having on the world around us, Google has teamed up with a number of global organizations to photograph various areas using its 360-degree Trekker camera. Using Street View in Google Maps, you can now take tours of a remote Manitoba habitat, some of the Amazonian rainforest and a Californian nature reserve…
Over the weekend, executives from Yelp and TripAdvisor noticed that Google was pushing restaurant, or POI results from its services down in favor of its own. Neither of the popular location information services was particularly pleased to see it happening, but Google claims it was due to a “bug” and that it will be fixed…just as soon as possible!
When it comes to ancient cities, they don’t come much more exotic than Petra in Jordan, made famous by Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, and that’s where Google’s Trekker takes us with its latest Street View imagery. Google handed over its blog post announcing it to Queen Rania of Jordan.
To this day, after too many trips to count, Jordan’s ancient archeological site, the Rose-Red city of Petra, still fills me with awe. Concealed in majestic mountain gorges, visitors can wander through the entire city of Petra, imagining what life was like in the thriving trading center and capital of the Nabataean kingdom. Carved by hand into vibrant red, white and pink sandstone cliffs, it has, miraculously, survived earthquakes to withstand the test of time …
Street View has been slowly getting more locations since it launched in 2007, and now the company has added many of parts of Bolivia and Ecuador to the list. These two South American countries are full of history and beautiful imagery, and now they can be explored from the comfort of your Chrome browser.
Google is even featuring some of the best imagery from Bolivia and Ecuador on its Street View site.
Just a couple of months ago, Google launched a standalone Street View app for Android and iPhone. Android users will find it on the Play Store, and iPhone users can download the standalone Street View app on the App Store. And if you’re interested in exploring Bolivia and Ecuador in VR, you might be interested in the fact that the Street View app recently added support for Google Cardboard.
Google announced today that it’s expanding the Local Guides feature it has for Google Maps that aims to act as a community-driven virtual guide for points of interest with an integrated rewards program (which it could position as a Yelp competitor).
Among the biggest update for the expansion is new rewards for users, allowing access to upgraded Google Drive storage, early access to Google products and features, and more.
Google detailed the new rewards, which include the ability for users to earn a free 1 TB upgrade of Drive storage by accumulating a certain number of points. The top reward will make users eligible to attend Google’s inaugural summit in 2016: “… you’ll be able to meet other top Guides from around the world, explore the Google campus, and get the latest info about Google Maps. Look out for details early next year.”
Here’s a look at the new rewards:
Level 1 (0 – 4 points): Enter exclusive contests (think new Google devices!) in select countries.
Level 2 (5 – 49 points): Get early access to new Google products and features.
Level 3 (50 – 199 points): Show up in the Google Maps app with your official Local Guides badge.
Level 4 (200 – 499 points): Receive a free 1 TB upgrade of your Drive storage, allowing you to keep all the stories, photos, and videos from your travels in one safe place.
Level 5 (500+ points): The very top Local Guides will become eligible to apply to attend our inaugural summit in 2016, where you’ll be able to meet other top Guides from around the world, explore the Google campus, and get the latest info about Google Maps. Look out for details early next year.
Users can earn points by using the feature in Google Maps to do things like leaving a review, answering questions, uploading photos, and submitting fixes.
The expansion also includes an update that makes it easier for contributors to view and track local guides they’ve submitted.
[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=puDNfWfILl4]
Google is now rolling out a major new feature to its Maps app for Android: full offline support. Google Maps has some utility already when used offline, but an update coming as soon as today will make it much more robust when used without Internet access. For example, before you could see an area on Google Maps offline but not do much else with it. With the latest version, Google will enable features including navigation and business information lookup without requiring an active Internet connection.
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After many years of people trusting Google Maps far too much and accidentally driving across town to a store that ended up being closed, Google has finally added the ability for companies to designate holiday hours on Google Maps. Whenever you open up the Maps app and click that little drop-down to see hours for the week, you’ll now see a designated section for these special hours. And if a company hasn’t provided these, you’ll see a warning suggesting that the normal hours might not be right…
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The backpack-based Google Trekker tours have taken us to some pretty spectacular places in the past, and the latest addition won’t disappoint. The Street View imagery covers seven of New Zealand’s world-famous ‘Great Walks,’ including some of the settings for the Hobbit movie trilogy …
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Google today has rolled out an update its Maps application on iOS, bringing with it a pair of new features. The update bumps the app to version 4.12.0 and includes support for adding missing businesses to the app’s database and spoken traffic alerts.
The latter of the two is the far more interesting addition of this update. Spoken traffic alerts mean that Google Maps will now alert you about upcoming traffic congestion and traffic incidents as you use the Navigation feature of the app. It does so via voice so you aren’t distracted while you drive. Traffic descriptions provide the same information, but in both text and verbal forms before you start to move.
Google Maps version 4.12.0 is available via the App Store now for free. The full changelog can be seen below:
What’s New in Version 4.12.0
- Easily add new and missing businesses from the sidebar
- Spoken traffic alerts in Navigation tell you about congestion and incidents on your route and traffic descriptions give you summary of traffic before you drive
- Bug fixes
Google is rolling out an update to Maps for Android over the coming weeks that adds quick access to gas station price comparisons and other nearby points of interest when navigating. The new feature allows drivers using the app for turn-by-turn navigation to search for points of interest without having to exit the navigation screen.
When the update lands, a new magnifying glass in the upper right corner of the screen will allow users to search for the usual points of interest like gas stations, restaurants, coffee shops and more. Alongside the quick shortcuts, you’ll also see a microphone icon and search option for both voice and text searches for additional points of interest.
Google says the update is rolling out for all Maps users on Android over the next few weeks.
Over the next few weeks, we’re rolling out an update to Google Maps on Android that will make your next gas stop more convenient and affordable. Now you can check out gas prices and add detours to your route, without having to exit out of navigation… When you’re driving in navigation mode and you get that call from your spouse to pick up some more milk on your drive home or if you’re on a road trip and want to find a great restaurant option along your route, simply tap the magnifying glass at the top right corner of the screen. You’ll see a drop-down menu with helpful options, like gas stations, grocery stores, or restaurants. If the drop-down options aren’t what you need, you can always add a detour to your favorite coffee shop by tapping the search icon or by using voice commands.
Digisfera, a startup that prides itself in “photography, design, and development services for projects involving 360° images,” has been acquired by Google. Financial details of the deal haven’t been revealed, but Digisfera’s website has been updated to reflect the acquisition and states that the group is joining the Street View team at Google to “continue building great experiences using 360° photography.”
Here’s the full statement from the team:
We’re excited to share that Digisfera is joining Google. We started Digisfera almost five years ago and have had the opportunity to work in many interesting projects involving 360º photography over the years. We’re excited to join the Street View team at Google to continue building great experiences using 360° photography.
As we move on to our next adventure, it will no longer be possible for us to keep developing PanoTag, so it is being discontinued. We are planning to open-source our Marzipano viewer in the coming weeks and hope this will benefit the panoramic photography community.
The Portugal-based startup, according to reports, has been part of capturing many significant moments in panoramic photography, including Barack Obama’s inauguration, landmarks in Rio de Janeiro during the 2014 World Cup, and parts of the 2014 Winter Olympics. These skills are going to hopefully translate to making Street View a better product and it wouldn’t be far-fetched to think that Digisfera could contribute to Cardboard technology as well.
The company says it plans to open-source its Marzipano panorama viewing software.
Google looks to be rolling out a redesigned version of Google Maps on the web that introduces a tweaked user interface that in many ways mirrors its mobile app experience on both Android and iOS. As pictured above, Maps gets a redesigned menu/sidebar/search UI that is clearly inspired by Material Design and the user interface of its mobile apps.
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Google has today released a new app called Delhi Public Transport Offline and, well, most people probably don’t need it. But if you do happen to live in Delhi and would like a very simple app to help you get around town via public transportation, today’s your lucky day — it’s free, and it’s packed with lots of features that might make a quick download worth your time…
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Google has released an updated version of its mapping application for iOS that includes several new features, including an Apple Watch app. Along with the new watch app comes the ability to compare ETAs for different modes of transportation, such as biking and walking.
