New features announced today at a live event in Paris demonstrate how Google is utilizing AI to bring its vision of a more immersive, intuitive map to life.
With these updates, Google Maps is making it easier to explore, navigate, and make sustainable choices, whether driving an EV or exploring a new city on foot.
Immersive View
Immersive view, which allows you to explore a place virtually, is rolling out now in London, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, and Tokyo.
Google Maps’ immersive view uses advances in AI and computer vision to fuse billions of Street View and aerial images to create a rich, digital model of the world.
Further, immersive view layers helpful information on top like
the weather, traffic, and how busy a place is.
In a blog post, Google explains that it uses neural radiance fields (NeRF), an advanced AI technique, to create these true-to-life scenes and turn ordinary pictures into 3D representations.
The NeRF technology accurately recreates the full context of a place, including lighting, the texture of materials, and what’s in the background, so you can get a feel for a place before you visit.
In addition to the five cities listed above, immersive view will soon be available in Amsterdam, Dublin, Florence, and Venice.
Search With Live View
Live View is a search feature in Google Maps that uses AI and augmented reality to help you find nearby locations, such as restaurants, parks, transit stations, and ATMs, simply by holding up your phone while walking.
It provides information like operating hours, the current level of activity, and ratings, allowing you to make informed decisions and save time.
Live View has recently been launched in London, Los Angeles, New York, Paris, San Francisco, and Tokyo and is soon expanding to Barcelona, Dublin, and Madrid.
Indoor Live View, which uses AR arrows to guide you to locations like restrooms, lounges, taxi stands, and car rentals, has also been introduced in the US, Zurich, and Tokyo.
Indoor Live View is expanding to over 1,000 new airports, train stations, and malls in cities including Barcelona, Berlin, Frankfurt, London, Madrid, Melbourne, Paris, Prague, São Paulo, Singapore, Sydney, and Taipei.
New Maps Features For Electric Vehicle Drivers
New Google Maps updates for EV drivers include adding charging stops to shorter trips, which Maps will suggest based on factors like current traffic, charge level, and energy consumption, as well as high-speed charging stations, which can fill up your car in less than 40 minutes.
Additionally, charging stations will appear in search results when places like supermarkets have charging stations on site.
Google Maps continues to push the boundaries of AI technology to create a more immersive, intuitive navigation experience.
The recent updates, including Immersive View and Live View, bring a new level of detail and interactivity to the map, allowing users to virtually explore places, find locations, and make sustainable choices.
Featured Image: Tada Images/Shutterstock