latlong blog

Google announced today that its live traffic pattern service will now include roads, not just highways.

“Starting today, if you’re planning a trip for which you anticipate traffic, you can find out what typical traffic is like on these arterial roads, rather than just on highways,” explained Google Maps Software Engineer Szabolcs Payrits on the official Google Lat-Long blog. 

Drivers can type their starting and ending points into Google Maps to get directions, but they must enable the traffic layer in the upper right-hand corner, and then click “change” in in the legend to view Typical Traffic on regular roads.

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Google Maps is making headlines in a variety of ways this week.

A Jan. 10 update to the Android application made noise at the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show yesterday. The Google Maps upgrade claimed to increase battery life while improving location tracking within Google Latitude.

The latest version Google Maps also improved Transit Navigation and more closely estimates location position when GPS signal is lost. The update even increased the number of possible transit routes from three to four.

The final update includes indoor maps that can —well— navigate around various indoor venues in the United States. In this particular update, maps for CES in the Las Vegas area were included (hence all the commotion).

“We hope that these indoor maps will come in handy when finding your way through the slots and to the shops,” announced Google on its LatLong blog. “And for those of you who catch gadget-fever with CES in town, we’ve also partnered with a number of Best Buy stores in the Las Vegas area.”

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=OPR1ZGSXLOs]

More information on the updates are available below.

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