Google Maps New Features: Live View, Shopping Info, Air Quality and much more!

The new features announced by the Google Maps will be available in coming months.

Google Maps on Tuesday, March 31, released information which includes addition of new features to service. The new features by Google Maps includes ‘Indoor Live View’, which shows graphics like arrows, directions, and icons on your smartphone’s screen, laid atop a camera view of the world around you. It can be used to help you find a store in a shopping mall or a bathroom at an airport, for instance.

The feature of ‘Live View’ is more interactive than Google Maps’ existing indoor maps and expands on a similar feature for city-street navigation that launched in 2019. It’s available for Android and iOS users at some malls in Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Long Island, Seattle, and Newark, New Jersey. Google said it will be available for use at a limited number of airports, malls, and transit stations in Tokyo and Zurich in the coming months.

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Usually, a smartphone uses its built-in GPS and compass to determine location and what direction you are facing in a mapping app. But, in crowded cities and inside buildings, however, these technologies may not be as effective as GPS system fails in overcrowded area.

Live View depends on artificial intelligence (AI) and Google’s massive inventory of street view images. Google Maps uses machine learning to determine which details are likely to be the same and which are best to ignore. Google said the indoor version of Live View also takes into consideration the user’s altitude and where objects are inside a building. Once the app has a good idea of where you are, it can overlay virtual images to help you find your way to your destination.

Google Map is also bringing shopping information to Business Profiles and Search, including delivery providers, pickup, and delivery windows, fees, and order minimums.

Google Maps also adds lowest carbon footprint when it has roughly the same ETA as the fastest route. Google maps is now adding route with low emission carbon zone. Maps will also alert users if and when they are entering a low-emission zone. The low-emission zone alerts will launch in June in Germany, the Netherlands, France, Spain, and UK, with more countries coming soon.

Other new features shown by Google Maps on Tuesday will be available in coming months include the ability to see the weather or ‘air quality’ as you plan a trip within the app.

These features that were introduced that focus on encouraging users to post more of their own content to the mapping app; these included making it simpler to share photos of places you visit.

 

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