Google Maps Improvements
Soon, with our new neighborhood vibe feature, you’ll be able to select a neighborhood and see the most popular spots come to life thanks to helpful photos and information from the Google Maps community right on the map.
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Today, we’re launching over 250 photorealistic aerial views of global landmarks that span everything from the Tokyo Tower to the Acropolis — marking a significant step toward a more immersive map.
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Say you’re heading to an outdoor market and need to take cash out. With search with Live View, simply lift your phone to search and instantly see the ATMs in an area. You can also spot different places — including coffee shops, grocery stores and transit stations. We’ll show you business hours and how busy a place is, and you can tap on any location to view more details, like what services the barber shop down the street offers.
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Since launching in the U.S. and Canada, eco-friendly routing has helped remove an estimated half a million metric tons of carbon emissions — the equivalent of taking 100,000 fuel-based cars off the road. To drive an even bigger impact, we’ll soon expand this same technology to third-party developers through Google Maps Platform.
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OK, but what about updating the real aerial photos? It looks as if Google is running out of money with some areas not having been updated for years…
Also what about making it less impossible to report spelling and naming mistakes for streets?
What about fixing all the existing streetview data which shows nothing, with an incorrect orientation of the camera?
What about fixing the navigation in streeview mode with the big arrows which has been getting worse with each update?
What about improving the simple search UX? I frequently see people not being able to find a spot with their smartphone because the data is inaccurate or the UX try to do too many things.
I'm a big fan of the eco friendly driving suggestions. It used to be that Google suggested a route that would have me accelerate to 110kmh uphill just to save two minutes over the route that would avoid first going downhill, and then up.
Not that I would take the stupid route anyway, but I imagine a change like that at the scale of Google maps will have a real impact on emissions.
“Since launching in the U.S. and Canada, eco-friendly routing has helped remove an estimated half a million metric tons of carbon emissions — the equivalent of taking 100,000 fuel-based cars off the road”
Smacks of over-estimation to me - such lovely round figures!
@Niall: Not only that, but the explanation is subtly (though perhaps purposefully) broken. Prevention is not the same as remediation. Providing a more-efficient driving plan does not remove carbon compounds from the atmosphere. It's gallingly self-aggrandizing for Google to make such an obviously-absurd claim.
Eh? Are you guys being negative about this?
Obviously they will never know exactly how much carbon they prevent from ending up in the atmosphere, and saying that they're removing carbon is wildly wrong, but at the same time you can't make a serious argument against this feature without engaging in some heavy bad faith arguments.
Google Maps is used by hundreds of millions for navigation, even a 10% reduction in emissions for 1% is a lot at that scale.
Oh well, I'll guess we have to wait until Apple can tell us how amazing this is in two or three years when they invent this revolutionary new feature.
