Google Maps announces with great fanfare the upcoming arrival of three features that will help you better visit the cities and places you visit. Between immersive view, neighborhood atmosphere and augmented reality, the application wants to become the best tourist guides.
Google Maps is already a very feature-rich app. Not only does it guide you from point A to point B depending on your mode of transport, but it also offers practical information on all types of establishments, displays the level of influence of a place, offers virtual tours of certain monuments, etc. This does not prevent the service from continuing to add options here and there to become ever more complete.
Thus, Google has announced three major new features that will land in the coming months to make Maps the best tourist guide. The Mountain View firm wants you to easily dive into its app. Take advantage of an immersive view, discover the atmosphere of a district, use augmented reality… We go around the major announcements.
Know in advance the atmosphere that reigns in a neighborhood to visit
The Google Maps teams start from the premise that when you visit a city, you don’t necessarily know what each neighborhood has in store for you. Some are festive, others have a more artistic atmosphere, and still others are full of good little restaurants to discover. The app now wants to help you feel all of this before you even go to said neighborhood.
The firm thus gives the example of the Latin Quarter in Paris. By zooming in a little bit on it, you will see some points of interest such as the Pantheon being well highlighted visually ” thanks to photos and useful information from the Google Maps community, directly on the map“.“To determine the vibe of a neighborhood, we combine AI with the local knowledge of Google Maps users, who add more than 20 million contributions to the map every day, including reviews, photos and videos.», Explains the web giant.
This option called “Neighborhood vibein English (which could be translated as “neighborhood atmosphere“) promises to roll out worldwide on both Android and iOS.
Google Maps relies heavily on the “immersive view”
During Google I/O 2022, we already discovered the project of “immersive viewfrom Google Maps. As a reminder, this function makes it possible to model in 3D several iconic places and their surroundings around the world. We are promised high precision in the rendering since the company relies on a formidable photo database thanks to Street View and images taken from the sky.
The Google Maps teams strongly believe in this project and announce that users can now discover “250 photorealistic aerial viewsof places such as the Tokyo Tower or the Acropolis in Greece. But what is that for ? Google explains that this immersive view will allow some users to better explore places virtually before going there. They can thus see where to park or locate the entrance they will have to take to enter a monument.
Also, the immersive view displays dynamic elements such as weather, traffic and crowds. So much information that can also be very useful before going somewhere. It is even a question ofpredictive modeling“able to tell you”what an area will look like tomorrow, next week, and even next month“. Here too, the idea is to help you plan your visit as well as possible.
Google Maps’ immersive view even explores which restaurants are near which tourist spot so you can even decide in advance where to eat after your visit. This whole new experience will be available in the coming months on Android and iOS, but only in London, Tokyo, New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco initially.
Practical information in augmented reality
The arrival of augmented reality navigation on Google Maps dates back a few years. It even works indoors. Today, this Live View option is enriched a little more. This function that allows the application to see through the camera of your smartphone is no longer content to simply display the direction in which you must walk to reach your destination. Indeed, you will also be able to launch searches in AR.
Google gives an example. “Let’s imagine that you are going to an outdoor market and you need to withdraw some money. With Search with Live View, just lift your phone to search and instantly see ATMs in a given area“. The same goes for locating restaurants, grocery stores, or transit stations. In augmented reality, you will see the opening hours and the level of attendance.
This function will be available in the coming months on Android and iOS in Paris, but also in London, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco and Tokyo.
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