New features unveiled today at a live event in Paris show how Google is leveraging AI to realize its vision of a more immersive, intuitive map.
With these updates, Google Maps makes it easier to explore, navigate, and make sustainable decisions, whether driving an EV or walking around a new city.
View in Immersion
Immersive view, which allows you to virtually explore a location, is now available in London, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, and Tokyo.
Google Maps’ immersive view combines billions of Street View and aerial images to create a rich, digital model of the world, leveraging advances in AI and computer vision.
Furthermore, immersive view overlays useful information on top, such as the weather, traffic, and how busy a location is.
Google explains in a blog post that it uses neural radiance fields (NeRF), an advanced AI technique, to create these realistic scenes and convert ordinary photographs into 3D representations.
The NeRF technology accurately recreates a place’s full context, including lighting, material texture, and what’s in the background, so you can get a feel for it before you visit.
In addition to the five cities mentioned above, immersive view will be available in Amsterdam, Dublin, Florence, and Venice in the near future.
Search Using a Live View
Live View is a Google Maps search feature that uses artificial intelligence and augmented reality to help you find nearby locations such as restaurants, parks, transit stations, and ATMs by simply holding up your phone while walking.
It provides information such as operating hours, current activity levels, and ratings, allowing you to make informed decisions while saving time.
Live View was recently launched in London, Los Angeles, New York, Paris, San Francisco, and Tokyo, with plans to expand to Barcelona, Dublin, and Madrid in the near future.
Indoor Live View, which uses augmented reality arrows to guide you to locations such as restrooms, lounges, taxi stands, and car rentals, has also been launched in the United States, Zurich, and Tokyo.
Indoor Live View is being installed in over 1,000 new airports, train stations, and shopping malls in cities such as Barcelona, Berlin, Frankfurt, London, Madrid, Melbourne, Paris, Prague, So Paulo, Singapore, Sydney, and Taipei.
New Maps Features for Drivers of Electric Vehicles
New Google Maps updates for EV drivers include adding charging stops to shorter trips, which Maps will suggest based on factors such as current traffic, charge level, and energy consumption, as well as high-speed charging stations that can charge your car in under 40 minutes.
Furthermore, charging stations will appear in search results when locations such as supermarkets have charging stations on-site.
Google Maps continues to push the boundaries of artificial intelligence technology in order to provide 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.
