Items tagged with Google-Maps
As it turns out, mapping every part of the inhabited world is an enormous undertaking, but since the launch of Google Street View in 2007, a significant dent has was made in this effort. According to Stafford Marquardt, product manager at Google Street View, people have traveled over 10 million miles to collect 170 billion images. Even though this seems like a lot of data, it still is not enough, however, as there are still unmapped parts of the world. To help with the problem, Google will be opening user contributions to Google Street View. Marquardt explains that when people find out he works for Google Street View, they ask, “How can I drive a Street View car?” Driving a Street...
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With less than two work days remaining until the start of the long Memorial Day weekend, many minds are turning to thoughts having nothing at all to do with work... loved ones lost to service or currently serving, barbecue, baseball, hanging at the beach or pool, that first donning of white pants and shoes after a long winter in storage... and traffic. One of the most road-traveled weekends of this or any year in the USA, many of those who will be behind the wheel over Memorial Day weekend will go so far as to work out time lost to traffic in their planning. All of which serves to make Google's latest update to Google Maps quite compelling. Yesterday, Google announced...
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Google Maps’ Street View has helped completely change how we’re able to see the world. Indeed, Street View makes navigation far easier than ever before, but it also allows us to see into places from the comfort of our own homes. For instance, there’s the “Skyfall” island in Japan, the Grand Canyon, and more, and the search giant is also now mapping Ellis Island and Liberty Island, site of the Statue of Liberty. According to the New York Times, it’s taken a long time and a lot of complication to gain access to Liberty and Ellis Islands, both of which are operated by the National Park Service. Credit: Michael Appleton/New York Times “For the first time,...
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No matter how advanced tools like Google Maps have gotten, this is the question we all still have whenever we map a route: How long will it take me to get there--no, really? Maps always give you an estimate, and they try to take into account factors such as traffic, but they’re not ideal. Further, if you want to see multiple options for getting around a crowded city and want to compare routes, it’s slow and arduous to do so. Enter Isoscope, a new mapping that can tell you how long it will take you to get anywhere in a city; at any time of day; on any day of the week; given 2, 4, 6, 8, or 10 minutes. New York City (Credit: Fast Company) “We wanted our project to shed light on...
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Perhaps you’re a truly robust cyclist, thoroughly unafraid of hills of any size, but many of us are not. (Especially those who frequently schlep one or more children in a tow-behind.) Thus, having a sense of the elevation of your chosen bike route is quite a helpful tool. Google Maps has added just such a feature to its bike routes, and although the team didn’t bother announcing it, TechCrunch sussed out that the new feature exists and confirmed it with Google. Credit: TechCrunch Employing the elevations profiles is simple. When you map a route and hit the bike icon, it’s right there underneath the directions. The little card shows you a graphical representation of the elevation...
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That cool, creepy abandoned island fortress from the latest James Bond movie “Skyfall”? That wasn’t a movie set. It’s a real place called Battleship Island, and it’s located off the coast of Nagasaki Prefecture in Japan. And Google sent a couple of employees (who we presume have nerves of steel) to the uninhabited island to map it for Google Maps Street View. Battleship Island (real name: “Hashima”) was once a busy coal mining facility and housed some 5,000 people. When the coal mining industry struggled in the 1970s, the island was abandoned, only opening up certain areas to tourists in 2009. Battleship Island Now you can see into many of the hidden-away...
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Google Glass XE11 Update Brings More Personal Map Directions And Calendar Search, Removes Long Press
Every month, Google Glass gets another update as the closely-watched beta test continues to roll on and expand. The latest update, XE11, brings with it a few handy new features and removes one that Google believes was not very useful in the end. Google Glass users can now tell Google Maps where they live and work, so when you want to travel to one of the other, you get more personalized map directions because Google will better understand what you want. Glass users’ calendar is more personal now, too, as they can now check their schedule right from Glass and search for calendar details. Users can can now also screencast to their smartphones directly from their notifications; there’s...
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Google never stops working on Google Maps, and a months-long overhaul has brought about many changes. One feature that went away temporarily--the ability to add multiple destinations in directions, by adding stops to your route or dropping and arranging pins on POIs--is coming back. Google brought along some new features, as well, including the ability to search for your flight, hotel, and even restaurant reservations from within Maps. When you map out your travel itinerary, Google will automatically show what plans you’ve made so you can more intelligently organize your routes. Of course, you can pick right up with your iOS or Android app when you actually hit the road, too. Another handy...
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Apparently, Locationary wasn’t the only maps-related acquisition Apple is making these days; the Cupertino company also snapped up HopStop, which is a service that provides “door-to-door transit, walking, biking, and taxi directions in over 300 cities worldwide”. It would seem that HopStop’s key features concern the ability to navigate city transit, as well as the ability to email directions, plot a course with multiple destinations, and even helpful items such as the calculating cab fare or estimating calorie consumption (on a bike ride or walk). Apple’s initial foray into maps, which was an attempt to break free of a Google Maps reliance on its mobile devices,...
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It seems that Google just never stops upgrading Google Maps, whether it’s adding more locales or rolling out app updates. Today, its app updates again; Google announced that it has updated the Google Maps app for smartphones and tablets, and it seems to be a rather substantial one at that. First, there’s now a dedicated tablet version of the app for Android devices and iPads, and Google has removed Latitude and check-ins from the Maps app. Instead, some of that functionality has been bumped over to Google+. The offline maps feature for Android is gone, replaced with the ability to enter “OK Maps” into the Search box. One salient new feature is that by tapping the Search...
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Google announced that it has added new satellite imagery to Google Maps and Google Earth in order to provide clearer images and remove some artifacts. Using NASA’s Landsat 7 satellite and Google Earth Engine technology, Google says it has developed a “seamless, globally-consistent image of the entire planet with a resolution of 15 meters per pixel”. The full image of the earth is 800,000 megapixels. Grand Canyon, before and after new imagery Google also pledged to update its images further, thanks to the launch of Landsat 8 earlier this year. Chicago In the meantime, Google has also added Street View to Google Earth 7.1 for both iOS and Android, so you can explore places around...
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We’ve been eagerly anticipating the Google I/O conference because of course Google saved up lots of goodies for its annual event, and the company did not disappoint. Google unloaded with a ton of updates and new products, so let’s dig in. Android First off, the Android platform is enjoying a number of new upgrades. Google announced Google Play Music All Access, which is the oft-rumored Google music subscription service; for a monthly fee of $9.99, you can create “radio stations” based on any artist, store up to 20,000 of your own uploaded tracks in the cloud, and also plumb the depths of Google’s All Access catalog of tunes. The service will work across all of your...
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Google Maps just keeps getting more powerful and more comprehensive. The latest enhancement to the tool is live transit information, which will be incredibly helpful to the masses of people who rely on public transportation to get around. Google says that it now offers information for 100 million miles of daily public transit in 800 cities spread across 25 countries; that data includes everything from fares to departure times to estimated travel times. There are more specific additions, too, including live departure times for seven lines of the subway in New York City and buses and trams in Salt Lake City as well as live service alerts for the Metrorail in Washington, D.C. The Google Maps update...
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Google Maps has changed the way we navigate the world, whether it’s planning out a trip (or adjusting on the fly), using your smartphone to figure out where the dang ballet studio is, having a Street View look at the town you’re about to move to, and so on, and the service just keeps getting better. This fall, Google announced that it was sending a team of Googlers to hike the Grand Canyon wearing backpacks called “Trekkers” (which weigh 40 pounds!) upon which are mounted 360-degree cameras (with a 15-lens system!), and apparently those people have been busy. Google announced that 75 miles of trails and roads in and around the Grand Canyon are now available for viewing....
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Google continues to improve upon its Google Maps; earlier this week it announced that Googlers were mapping the Grand Canyon with backpack-mounted cameras, and now the company has added layers to its maps that show the terrain, color gradation indicating vegetation, and additional labels that show natural land formations. This is all an effort to show locations with more intelligence and context. For example, if you can see where a mountain range is located, the location and layout of surrounding big cities and rural countryside make more sense. L: The new terrain and vegetation overlay; R: the old look of Google Maps Further, it’s somewhat marvelous to be able to see important geological...
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The value of Google Maps has been highlighted in recent weeks after Apple launched its own maps app, soliciting a collective “boo” from most users and generating a slew of (somewhat unfairly over-the-top) Internet jokes and memes, but Google is not content to sit on its laurels. The company is taking mapping just about everywhere you can imagine, and the latest area of the globe to get the Google treatment is the Grand Canyon. Because the Grand Canyon isn’t accessible via car--or trike, or snowmobile for that matter--Googlers are mapping the American wonder with Trekkers, which are backpacks with 360-degree cameras mounted on top and controlled by Android phones. Tough day at...
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Users frustrated with Apple’s built-in maps app in iOS 6 have another option: use Google Maps in the Safari mobile web browser. Today, Google announced that its the mobile web-based version of its maps service was getting even better with the addition of Street View on mobile web browsers. Using Street View on your mobile device is the same as on the desktop--pull up a location on map.google.com and click the little “pegman” on the bottom right of the screen, and you’ll be able to see your location at street level with all the panning capabilities you’re used to. If you peek at Google’s blog post, you’ll notice that all of the screenshots are superimposed...
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We knew that Amazon was ditching Google Maps for its Kindle Fire tablets, but now it’s official: Amazon announced today that it’s Amazon Maps API is now in beta and ready for developers to migrate from the Google Maps API on Android. The two core features of Amazon’s maps are Interactive Maps--so users can pan, zoom, display the user’s location as well as toggle between different map views--and Custom Overlays that show businesses, points of interest, and so on. In other words, this is all typical fare for what we’ve come to expect from a maps application. We’re still not sure how exactly Amazon plans to integrate the technology it acquired when it bought 3D...
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According to Reuters, Amazon will be adding integrated mapping to the Kindle Fire by partnering with Nokia, which means that Google Maps won’t be on yet another platform, Apple having ditched it with the iOS 6 release. Amazon is expected to announce a new round of Kindle Fires (and possibly other devices) at a press conference this week, so the news of integrated maps functionality is timely. It’s reasonable to assume that in addition to Nokia’s maps, Amazon will have built in some of the mapping technology it acquired when it bought 3D mapping service UpNext earlier this summer. More exciting for new Kindle Fire buyers, Reuters’ sources also indicated that the new version...
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We can’t remember how we got around before Google Maps; scratch that, actually we do, but we try to forget, because the present technology is so much better, easier to use, and more powerful. Not content to sit on its laurels, though, Google announced some significant upgrades to Google Maps at an event in San Francisco. First off, Street View is going off road with Street View Trekker. Simply put, Google has evolved its Street View scope from car-mounted cameras on roads to the tricycle camera shooting harder-to-reach places to spelunkers documenting caves. Now, the company has developed a backpack-mounted camera that a person can schlep pretty much anywhere in the world; you can see very...
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