While live and aerial view have already been rolled out, eco-friendly routing will be available to developers later this year
Google last week shared that it will be bringing four new features to Google maps. These updates, according to the company’s blog, will include features like the addition of aerial views of 250 plus landmarks across the work, improvements to live view and nearby search and addition of eco-friendly routing for delivery and ride sharing companies.
Updates to nearby search or “neighborhood vibe feature” will give users the chance to select a neighbourhood and see the most popular spots. These will be represented with images right within the Google Maps app. This will also include 250 photorealistic aerial views of global landmarks across the globe. The addition of an aerial view is part of the immersive view that Google announced at its I/O event held earlier this year.
The immersive view will use predictive modelling to learn the historical trends of a place to provide users with the information they might need to plan their visit around these landmarks. In live view, the updates will add a search with a live view which will be used to find more information for areas around users. This information will include ATMs, coffee shops, grocery stores, and transit stations. It will also include information like business hours and how busy a place is during different times of the day.
Search with a live view will initially be rolled out starting with cities like London, New York, San Francisco, Paris, and Tokyo in the coming months on Android and iOS.
Google also shared that its eco-friendly routing was recently launched in the U.S., Canada, and Europe. Eco-friendly routing, according to the company’s blog, helps users choose the most fuel-efficient routes using data from the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory and the European Environment Agency.
The company also shared that this feature will allow delivery and read-sharing service providers to measure fuel consumption and savings in single trips for a vehicle as well as measure these metrics for their entire fields.
Additionally, the feature rolling out for developers later this year will allow them to select engine types to get more accurate energy efficiency estimates.