Currently, Google Maps is the guiding source for most people’s destinations. It gives the sense of security and the knowledge to everyone where they are going. It plays a crucial role when there are disasters and the roads are getting blocked. With the constant updates of the status of the roads in the app, people can safely reach their destination.
With the increase in demand for the Google Maps app, Google is making massive improvements to it. Many cool features were introduced for Google Maps in the Google I/O 2018 Developer Conference.
A new tab named “For you” is added which can make suggestions based on personalized interests and experiences. It shows us what is trending on local day-to-day life and helps to keep people connected with their peers and keeps people updated. It also helps to provide recommendations when people are in doubt. For an example, if we want to try out a new restaurant and there are always a number of trending restaurants to try out. Google has come up with a score called “Your Match” which uses Machine Learning to analyze millions of restaurants and compare with the user’s personal preferences based on previous ratings of hotels, check-ins, information Google has about us and suggests the restaurant we would enjoy the most.
Another problem that the new features help to overcome is the collisions that might happen when picking places to go out with friends. A new functionality is added where you can easily select favorite places, shortlist them and share easily with friends via any communicating platform such as Whatsapp, Facebook and get the friends’ feedback and they also can add their preferences and make changes.
With the advent of the AI and computer vision technologies, Google is able to implement many amazing developments. Augmented Reality is used to help in finding directions in walking navigation. Here, the camera is used in Maps, with computer vision and Street View. GPS is only enough to locate the users’ current location but VPS (Visual Positioning System) is used in the new feature that estimates precise positioning and orientation. VPS analyses the visual features in the environment and identifies the landmarks, buildings and help the user to find directions easily. Here there is an AR overlay on the Map’s Street View and will show the directions the user has to navigate. This AR overlay will help to identify the surrounding buildings. A helpful guide, an AR fox is added which is a pretty cool feature where users can follow and safely reach their destination.
The new features are yet to be implemented in the Google Maps app and it would be introduced to both Android and iOS operating systems.
Stay tuned for more information on the newest features of Google Maps.
