The official blog for Google Maps
Now you can build multi-stop road trips on Google Maps for iOS
July 29, 2016
With many people looking to sneak one more getaway into their summer plans, we’ve launched multi-stop directions for Google Maps on iOS (already available on Android). Here’s how it works: Just open the app, enter a destination, tap the corner menu, and then tap “Add stop”. To rearrange the order of your stops, tap and hold the stop you want to move and drag it to the position you want. Once you’ve added all your stops, tap “Done” and your multi-stop route is complete. When you enter navigation mode you’ll have the same seamless driving experience you’re used to, whether you’re going from errand to errand or hitting scenic spots along Route 66.
Posted by Aditya Dhanrajani, Product Manager, Google Maps
New Zagat iOS app: Tap into tailored, trustworthy dining recommendations -- wherever you may be
July 26, 2016
For over three decades, Zagat has been dishing out trustworthy guidance for urban foodies across the US. We thought it was time to spice up Zagat’s look and refresh its
mobile iOS app
in order to provide relevant restaurant recommendations for diners on the go. Looking for new watering holes in your area or wanting the top recommended dining spots for the city you’re visiting? Zagat now makes it simple and easy using its reliable recipe that looks at the wisdom of the crowds combined with hand-crafted reviews. Check out the
Zagat blog
for more details.
Author: Laura Slabin, Director, Local Content & Community
Discover the action around you with the updated Google Maps
July 25, 2016
The real world is changing every second and Google Maps is changing with it. Most often these changes happen behind the scenes in the form of road closures and new businesses. But today we’re making a few visual changes and additions to Google Maps on desktop, Android and iOS to help you better explore the world around you.
A cleaner look
The world is full of information, which means highlighting necessary info on the map without overcrowding it is a balancing act. So as part of this update, we’ve removed elements that aren’t absolutely required (like road outlines). The result is a cleaner look that makes it easier to see helpful and actionable information like traffic and transit. And we’ve improved the typography of street names, points of interest, transit stations, and more to make them more distinguishable from other things on the map, helping you navigate the world with fewer distractions.
Areas of interest
The cleaner canvas also lets us show local information in entirely new ways. As you explore the new map, you’ll notice areas shaded in orange representing “areas of interest”—places where there’s a lot of activities and things to do. To find an “area of interest” just open Google Maps and look around you. When you’ve found an orange-shaded area, zoom in to see more details about each venue and tap one for more info. Whether you’re looking for a hotel in a hot spot or just trying to determine which way to go after exiting the subway in a new place, “areas of interest” will help you find what you’re looking for with just a couple swipes and a zoom.
We determine “areas of interest” with an algorithmic process that allows us to highlight the areas with the highest concentration of restaurants, bars and shops. In high-density areas like NYC, we use a human touch to make sure we’re showing the most active areas.
A more subtle and balanced color scheme
The new Maps has a subtle color scheme to help you easily differentiate between man-made or natural features, and quickly identify places like hospitals, schools or highways. In case you’re curious, here’s a key showing what each color on the map represents.
Google Maps already provides you everything you need to get around the world in one place —including business information, ratings and reviews, and more than 100+ million distinct places. And with these updates, it's now even easier to navigate to where you want to go.
Posted by Zhou Bailiang, UX Designer, Google Maps and Mark Li, Software Engineer, Google Local
More ways to share your street smarts in Google Maps
July 21, 2016
Each day, we make million of updates to Google Maps throughout the world. But it’s still not enough to ensure that every single restaurant, shop or landmark worldwide has the most accurate information possible. That’s why we’ve been rolling out new, easy ways for you to help keep the neighborhoods and places where you hang out up-to-date.
Easily add places or suggest edits
First, we’ve expanded the ability to add missing places and edit existing business or landmark information worldwide on both the Google Maps app (Android, iOS) and through Google Search. This lets people contribute new and updated information to Google Maps from more places—whether they’re searching for a new restaurant on Google.com or looking for a nearby convenience store while on the go.
Share more details about a place
There’s more to a place than its business hours or address—you might want to know if a place has a romantic vibe, serves vegetarian food or offers outdoor seating. Now on Google Maps for Android and when searching on your mobile phone, you can contribute what you know about a place so that others can benefit from the info as well. Knowing these types of details helps us build a deeper understanding of a place so we can better help users find the places most relevant to them.
Verify suggested edits from others
We’ve also introduced a new way for users to help approve edits suggested by others, ultimately reducing the amount of time it takes for edits to appear on the map. For places that have pending suggestions, you’ll see a notification stating that “Someone suggested new info.” If you click or tap that notification, you’ll have the option to verify whether the suggestion is accurate. Once enough votes are received to be confident that the suggestion is accurate, it’s published to the map. This feature is available to Android users on the Google Maps app and both Android and iOS users on mobile Google Search.
Together, these new changes let people who are familiar with their neighborhoods help provide accurate, reliable information about their favorite haunts and hidden gems. So now when searching for useful information about a place on Google Maps or Search, you’ll get an even better representation of the ever-changing world around us.
Posted by Nirav Mehta, Product Manager, Google Maps and Local Search
Kick off your summer travels with these new Google Maps features
June 30, 2016
The weather’s heating up, kids are out of school, and that means only one thing: summer’s officially here. Summer brings weekend road trips, faraway escapes and all kinds of getaways in between. And with the latest update to Google Maps, we're introducing two new features to get you where you’re going and help you remember your travels in a brand new way.
Road trip warriors can now get multi-stop directions in Google Maps on Android (coming soon to iOS). Just open the app, enter a destination, tap the corner menu, and then click “Add a stop”. To rearrange the order of your stops, tap and hold the three dot menu to the left of “Add stop” and drag it to the position you want – you can even search for types of places like gas stations or restaurants like you normally would. Once you’ve added all your stops, tap “Done” and your multi-stop route is complete. When you enter navigation mode you’ll have the same seamless driving experience you’re used to, whether you’re going from errand to errand or hitting scenic spots along Route 66.
A lot of the fun of traveling is the memories created while exploring new places with friends, family or even solo. Pictures are a traditional way to remember those moments, but now Your Timeline users on Android can preserve their travel memories and info in a new way. Google Maps users with Location History enabled can open Your Timeline, select a date from their recent vacation or everyday life and add notes to help remember what they did that day—or save important notes for later.
No matter where your travels take you this summer and beyond, these new Google Maps features will get you there and help keep track of all the memories you make along the way.
Posted by Liz Davidoff, Communications Manager, Google Maps
Keeping Earth up to date and looking great
June 27, 2016
Three years ago we introduced a
cloud-free mosaic of the world
in Google Earth. Today we’re rolling out an even more beautiful and seamless version, with fresh imagery from Landsat 8 satellite and new processing techniques for sharper images than ever before. Satellite images are often cloudy, but not always over the same place, so we looked at millions of images and took the clearest pixels to stitch together this cloud-free and seamless image.
Columbia Glacier, Alaska
Detroit, Michigan
Swiss Alps, Switzerland
Higher Quality Imagery
Landsat 8
, which launched into orbit in 2013,
is the newest sensor in the USGS/NASA Landsat Program—superior to its predecessors in many ways. Landsat 8 captures images with greater detail, truer colors, and at an unprecedented frequency—capturing twice as many images as Landsat 7 does every day.
This new rendition of Earth uses the most recent data available -- mostly from Landsat 8 -- making it
our freshest global mosaic to date.
In the new view of New
York
City, details like skyscrapers, building shadows, and baseball and softball fields in Central Park shine through.
Our previous mosaic used imagery from Landsat 7 only, which at the time was the best imagery of its kind. Unfortunately, Landsat 7 images captured after 2003 were affected by a
hardware failure
, resulting in large diagonal gaps of missing data You can see this effect in the subsets of two Landsat 7 images captured over Oklahoma City, OK, in 2000 and 2003.
July 9, 2000
September 20, 2003
Processing imagery with Earth Engine
To produce this new imagery, we used the same publicly available Earth Engine APIs that scientists use to do things like
track global tree cover, loss, and gain
;
predict Malaria outbreaks
; and
map global surface water over a 30 year period
.
Like our previous mosaic, we mined data from nearly a petabyte of Landsat imagery—that’s more than 700 trillion individual pixels—to choose the best cloud-free pixels. To put that in perspective, 700 trillion pixels is 7,000 times more pixels than the estimated number of stars in the Milky Way Galaxy, or 70 times more pixels than the estimated number of galaxies in the Universe.
Lake Balkhash, Kazakhstan
Brasilia, Brazil
Open data is good for everyone
This update was made possible in a large part thanks to the
Landsat
program and its commitment to free and accessible open data. Landsat, a joint program of the USGS and NASA, has observed the Earth continuously from 1972 to the present day and offers a wealth of information on the changes to the Earth's surface over time. And it's all available in Earth Engine!
The new imagery is now available across all our mapping products. To check it out, open up Google Earth
, or turn on the satellite layer
in Google Maps.
Post authored by: Chris Herwig, Program Manager, Google Earth Engine
Going #SolarforSolstice with Project Sunroof and the Sierra Club
June 20, 2016
Join us in celebrating the start of summer in the Northern Hemisphere—the longest and brightest day of the year, when the Northern Hemisphere is tilted towards the sun more than any other day. Among the many gifts that summer brings—longer days, warm walks, and late evening dinners—solar energy is a largely underutilized benefit.
The sun delivers more energy to Earth in one hour than civilization uses in a whole year. On this long Summer Solstice day, solar panels on your roof could generate enough energy to run your refrigerator for almost two weeks—that’s 50 percent more energy than the average day. Yet globally only about 1 percent of our energy comes from solar. So today, Project Sunroof teamed up with the Sierra Club to share some tips on how you can better use the sun to generate energy and protect our Earth.
Solar energy is one of the cleanest energy sources available, and the U.S. has abundant solar resources.
Project Sunroof
is our attempt to make going solar a little easier. Homeowners can search their property and get a solar recommendation based on roof size, the amount of sun that hits it throughout the year, weather, applicable government incentives, and electricity rates and bill.
Whether or not solar is an option for you, the
Sierra Club
has some additional tips on how to use the power of the sun and other forms of clean energy to slow the impacts of climate change. Check out
Ready for 100
to learn more about how you can help us achieve 100% clean, renewable energy across the United States.
Posted by Carl Elkin, Founder of Sunroof
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