Google purchased g.co with the mindset of using it as a short URL for their services. The goog.gl short URL remains with users, but today Google has put their g.co URL to work. In Maps, users can now generate a short link when they go to share a location. The link generated will follow the lines of: g.co/maps/xxxx. Expect this to be rolled out to more Google products. (via RCR Unplugged)
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Google has just launched a nifty new weather layer for Google Maps that provides you with current weather conditions from around the globe generated by the U.S. Naval Research Lab. This will definitely save you the frustration of jumping from Maps to your current weather app of choice when planning your next excursion.
You can click the icon for any given city to get a four-day forecast and more detailed data including wind and humidity conditions. In the left-hand pane, you can select temperature(F/C) defaults, wind speed (km/h, mph, or m/s), and optionally “hide clouds”.
Click here to start using the new weather layer now. You can also enable the weather layer at any time from the menu in the upper right corner (image below).
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Historypin, a user-generated map displaying historical data of nearby locations (previously only available on Android devices), is now available as an iOS app for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. Created in partnership with Google by not-for-profit We Are What We Do, the app allows users to add their own historical photos by pinning them to a map, capturing historic moments as they happen, and creating replicas of historical images. The images are then shared with users requesting data for a specific location….
Historypin uses Google Maps and Street View technology to reveal the user-generated photos and data related to historical events that happened close to your current location. It does this by “overlaying them onto the live camera view”…essentially aiming to give you a live snapshot of what your surroundings looked like in the past.
Simply holding your phone up in the street will provide you with relevant nearby images. Selecting one of the images allows it to be overlaid onto the iPhone’s camera view. You can then fade between the image and your live shot for comparison, as well as pull up stories and data related to the image and your current location.
Full list of features and some shots of the app in action after the break…
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Stunning 45-degree views are now available in Maps for more places in the US and abroad.
Never content with resting on its laurels, Google have been iterating their products at a pace faster than ever before. Here’s a quick overview of some of the noteworthy changes we spotted in Google’s popular services, such as Docs, Tasks, Chrome Web Store, Blogger and Maps. The latter now features breathtaking 45° imagery for many more US cities (full list here), including international locales, such as Córdoba, Spain. If you haven’t yet seen highly detailed aerial photography in action, definitely give it a try now by checking out the Córdoba, William P. Hobby Airport or the Houston Ship Channel 45° views from all four directions.
Chrome Web Store, the Google-ran online repository of web apps, now supports more markets, having added sixteen new countries for 31 countries in total. In-app payments in web apps distributed on Chrome Web Store are also a go-go: Google confirmed paid transactions in web apps will be available to users in twenty countries “later this year”. Zyngas of this world will love it, that’s for sure. More features in other services right below the fold.
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Photo credit: Lasse Engelbracht on Flickr
Google’s been steadily improving its mapping application for Android and the web. Over the past 30 days, Google updated Maps with ‘My Places’ tab and added offline maps and stop-by-stop public transit navigation to Google Maps for Android. Starting today, the search giant wrote in a blog post, public transport directions are available for the London Underground in both web and Android apps, including all Underground, bus, tram and Docklands Light Railway (DLR) lines:
Let’s say you’re at Trafalgar Square, and you want to visit Madame Tussauds. With a simple directions search, you’ll see all the possible public transport connections. In Maps, click “Get directions” in the left-hand panel, and then the train icon to see public transport directions. Enter your departure location next to A, and your destination next to B. These can be either street addresses or names of popular places, businesses or restaurants. When you’re done, click the “Get directions” button and suggestions for your trip will appear below.
Mobile Maps utilize your phone’s location in order to figure out an optimal rout to your destination, but you’ll also have be presented with multiple alternatives. On Android devices public transport directions are available with Transit Navigation (Beta) in Google Maps, meaning your phone can even alert you when it’s time to get off the tube at your destination.
Google has updated Google Maps for Android to version 5.8, which sheds focus on Places. Users can now upload pictures of Places and add new Places that aren’t yet listed. Most interestingly, Maps now gives you the ability to favorite places in the My Places tab. Go ahead and grab it in the Market now.
What’s in this version:
- Personalize Place pages by uploading pictures from your visit
- Manage your starred and recently visited Places in the ‘My Places’ tab
- See descriptive terms for Places in search results and Places pages
- Add a new place to Places when checking in
As spotted by Dain Binder on Google+, Blogger is receiving a redesign just like the rest of Google’s products. The new redesign resembles Gmail’s new look, sporting new buttons and an overall touchup. Currently, the new design can only be viewed in the draft section of Blogger, but we’d bet this is coming to the full site soon. More images after the break.
Android users who downloaded the updated Maps application today got a nice surprise. Google Maps for Android now features offline viewing. To enable the new feature, simply navigate to the Labs section of the Maps application and enable the Download Map Area option. After this is enabled, each time you want to download maps for offline viewing you will need to visit a Place page, click the more button, and then select the option to store locally. Maps will then store a 10 mile radius, locally to your device.
Offline viewing is available for Android because of the way it displays the maps. Android uses a vector-based system for displaying map tiles, where the iPhone uses an image based. This means Android can pull maps using about 1/100th of the data the iPhone would. Maybe we’ll see a change to the iPhone’s Google Maps soon.
Constant checking of your location is annoying when using public transportation in a foreign city. This will become a thing of the past with the new Google Maps for Android which now features something called Transit Navigation (currently in beta). Basically, this taps Google’s vast mapping database, your phone’s GPS location and real-time public transportation data to figure out where exactly along the route you currently are. The system then alerts you on time when it’s time to hop off the buss, Google explains in a blog post:
Using your location along the route, Transit Navigation will alert you when its time to get off at your destination or to make a transfer. This is particularly helpful if you’re in a city where you don’t speak the language and can’t read the route maps or understand the announcements.
The best bit? It runs in background so you’ll continue receiving progress reports as subtle Android notifications while checking your email or playing a game. It will even vibrate the device when it’s time to get off at next stop. Other improvements include the navigation interface with big icons and built-in picture viewer for Places pages. The new Google Maps 5.7 for Android with Transit Navigation (BETA) can be downloaded now from Android Market on smartphones that run at least Android 2.1. Transit Navigation arrives with support four hundred major cities around the world and Google will probably add more towns in the future.
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Google today announced that street-level imagery available in Google Maps has been refreshed with new locations while existing ones have gotten higher-resolution images. They say it’s “our biggest update yet”. New crisp shots of world cities are now available in thirteen countries: Denmark, Ireland, Italy, Spain, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Romania, South Africa, Taiwan, Japan, the United States and the United Kingdom.
Some examples: Rättvik, Leksand, Mora, Lake Siljan and Cape Agulhas. Existing locations that have received higher-resolution panoramic views include landmark places such as the Golden Gate Bridge, Staples Center, and USS Midway. Some slight design changes in the web interface for Google Maps, too, stemming from the broad face-lift of Google properties with black navigation bar.
You will be soon able to take full advantage of Google Maps Navigation with your Android smartphone while offline thanks to new caching capabilities, the Dutch site All About Phones reported, citing “an informed source”. Of course, Google Maps has had offline caching via HTML5 since last year, but this only remembers map tiles you’ve accessed rather than the whole map. As a result, there’s no easy way to plot a new route without being connected to the network. That will change soon, the source hints…
The new mode should enable full offline navigation, the story goes. In its present incarnation, Google Maps Navigation provides automatic rerouting when outside network coverage, but only after you’ve begun a route. Without going into much detail, the source basically says that Google will remove the requirement for network coverage plus cache more data, allowing you to navigate to a new destination when outside your network coverage. The publication quoted a parts supplier for Android smartphones who told them that Google plans on rolling out the new full offline navigation via a Google Maps Navigation app update, due this summer.
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On the possibility of Apple dropping Google Maps (we’ve heard they aren’t): Mayer says there are 200 million active users of Maps and in June more people will use them on mobile than the desktop. (Although at 100 million iPhones out there, an Apple exodus would put a monster dent in those numbers. Also, new Google Mobile Maps (not iOS) use vector tiles which can be up to 100 times smaller files than the traditional bitmap tiles.
Also, location is getting better as more data is input (learning), especially in big cities like New York with check-ins helping out.
Finally, she expects phones to know what you want before you ask, called ‘serendipity’ or ‘zero-click’.
Full transcript available here.
With Apple’s purchase of two mapping companies over the last couple of years – Poly9 and Placebase – many have speculated that iOS 5 will finally be the iOS release where Apple moves from a Google Maps backend to an Apple backend. Multiple job postings on Apple’s official site backed up this speculation and even Apple promised some under-the-hood maps tweeks for their next-generation iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch operating system.
Now, sources have told 9to5Google that although Apple is working to improve the iOS Maps application, iOS 5 will not bring an Apple developed maps service and Google Maps is still in. Besides Apple’s purchase of both Placebase and Poly9, some speculated that Apple is building their own maps service to either compete with Google or step away from their input into iOS.
Apple began the process of distancing themselves from Google when former Google CEO Eric Schmidt resigned over “conflict of interest.” Apple has also added Microsoft’s Bing as a Safari search option and will be competing with Google head-to-head with their upcoming cloud-based music service. Those who enjoy Google Maps should not fear iOS 5, though, and hopefully Apple is working to implement turn-by-turn directions or something else to improve their maps application without changing the backend.
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Google has upped the ante in the mapping department with a Google Maps enhancement that lets you see high-resolution interior shots of local businesses in the 360-degree freedom. Business Photos for Google Maps, as it is called, was unveiled Thursday at the Social-Loco conference in San Francisco by Marissa Mayer, Google’s top dog for consumer products.
Google plans to crowd-source the 360-degree panoramas from business owners who will be able to submit interior shots of their restaurant or a bar to Google’s servers that will stitch them together in a panorama view of the place. Google didn’t stop there. The company said business owners can invite Google photographers into their establishments to take high-quality shots of their place.
The search monster will roll out Business Photos next week to users in the US, Canada, New Zealand and Australia. More countries are to follow in the following month.
