Tag: Street View

Some Google Maps Updates

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

Google Maps imagery updates include improved satellite imagery thanks to an AI model that removes clouds, shadows and haze, plus “one of the biggest updates to Street View yet, with new imagery in almost 80 countries—some of which will have Street View imagery for the very first time.” The web version of Google Earth will be updated with access to more historical imagery and better project and file organization, plus a new abstract basemap layer. [PetaPixel]

Meanwhile, The Verge reports that Google Maps is cracking down on business pages that violate its policy against fake ratings and reviews.

Report: Google to Shut Down Standalone Street View App

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

Street View app iconAccording to 9to5Google, Google looks like it’s getting ready to shut down its standalone Street View app (previously). “This standalone app served two distinct groups of people—those who wanted to deeply browse Street View and those who wanted to contribute their own 360° imagery. Considering the more popular Google Maps app has Street View support and Google offers a ‘Street View Studio’ web app for contributors, it should be no surprise to learn that the company is now preparing to shut down the Street View app.” If their report is correct, the shutdown would take place next March. [The Verge]

Google Street View at 15

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

Google is marking the 15th anniversary of Street View. In a blog post, they preview their next camera, which weighs less than 15 pounds and doesn’t require complex equipment or a specialized car mount. They’re also making their historical Street View imagery (historical in the sense of not current: it only goes back 15 years at most) available via the Google Maps Android and iOS apps. More: 9to5Google, TechCrunch.

Google Street View App Enables User-Uploaded Photos

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

Google announced earlier this month that their updated Street View app for Android—as an Apple user I had no idea that Street View was a separate app on Android—now supports user-contributed photos to Street View. “After you record your images and publish them via the Street View app, we automatically rotate, position and create a series of connected photos. We then place those connected images in the right place on Google Maps, so your new Street View can be found in the exact location where it was taken for others to see and explore.” The idea is to supplement Google’s imagery where it’s thin on the ground. This beta feature requires an ARCore-compatible Android device and is only available in a few areas for now: Toronto, New York, and Austin TX (presumably for testing purposes), as well as Costa Rica, Indonesia and Nigeria.

Google Removing Uluru Street View Images

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

Google has agreed to Parks Australia’s request that user photos taken from the summit of Uluru (formerly known as Ayers Rock) be removed from Street View; climbing Uluru, which is owned by and sacred to the Pitjantjatjara people, has been prohibited since 2019. ABC Australia, CNN. As of this writing a couple of images are still visible. Aerial coverage is unaffected. [Boing Boing]

Google Maps and Privacy

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

Incognito mode for Google Maps, announced last May, is currently in testing. With the mode enabled, user activity isn’t saved to the user’s Google account. It was made available last week to beta testers using the preview version of the Google Maps Android app.

Meanwhile, Strange Maps looks at the curious lack of Google Street View in Germany and Austria, where privacy concerns are paramount.

Using Street View to Spot Gentrification

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

CBC News: “A group of researchers at the University of Ottawa is using Google Street View to spot instances of gentrification in the city’s neighbourhoods. […] The program looks for patterns of improvements on individual properties, such as new fences, landscaping, siding or significant renovations.” Honestly not something for which I expected Street View to have a use.

Where Apple Maps and Google Street View Will Be Driving (or Walking) Next

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

Apple now has a fleet of cars collecting data for Apple Maps. Since they’ve been making a point about consumer privacy lately, this page lists where their cars are going to be in the coming weeks. (AppleInsider notes that some of that data collection is pedestrian-based.) It turns out Google has a page for Street View data collection that includes similar information, though it’s far less granular: windows of several months, whereas Apple tells you where it’ll be within a two-week timeframe.

A Google Maps Roundup

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

We’re almost at the end of the week of Mario on Google Maps. Announced for March 10 (“MAR10” Day), the temporary feature changed the navigator arrow into Mario driving his cart. Announced for both Android and iOS, but for some reason it never turned up in Google Maps on either my iPhone or my iPad, so I didn’t rush to post. [Business Insider]

Something that is turning up on my iPhone: plus codes, which appear to be Google’s homegrown solution to location codes, map codes and the like: a short string of characters that indicate a specific location on the globe. They were announced back in August 2015, but last month Geospatial World made note of their rollout.

Public transit navigation now includes wheelchair accessible routes, as of yesterday: “this feature is rolling out in major metropolitan transit centers around the world, starting with London, New York, Tokyo, Mexico City, Boston, and Sydney. We’re looking forward to working with additional transit agencies in the coming months to bring more wheelchair accessible routes to Google Maps.”

Slashgear looks at the new Google Maps APIs for gaming, which, I guess, enable developers to build real-world games on top of Google Maps. Note that Pokémon Go is not built on Google Maps: I suspect this outcome means that Google has noticed that.

Inevitable, and surprisingly not before now: Disney’s parks in Street View.

Google’s Map Data Alchemy

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

Justin O’Beirne’s lengthy analyses of Google Maps and Apple Maps are always worth reading,1 and his latest is no exception. Looking at the rapid proliferation of buildings, areas of interest and other examples of Google’s Ground Truthing program, Justin discovers that Google’s buildings data are a product of its satellite imagery, its places of interest are a product of its Street View data, and its areas of interest (the orange-shaded areas that indicate business districts) are the result of combining those stores of data.

…so this makes AOIs a byproduct of byproducts[.]

This is bonkers, isn’t it?

Google is creating data out of data.

This is slightly more than Google’s competitors are able to match. As always, Justin’s analysis is worth reading in full, and comes complete with before/after animations that make his point visually clear.

Street View Car Gets Disrespected by the Bing

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

What happens when a Google Street View car meets its Bing equivalent? The Verge explains: “As it turns out, when two Google Street View and Bing cars pass each other, only one (in this case Google) will admit to it publicly. Like an embarrassed or jilted lover, Microsoft masks the memory of the Google encounter with a giant white rectangle in Bing maps. […] Google however, proudly shows off the Bing car in all its glory.”

Google Using Street View Cars to Map Air Pollution

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

Google

Google is using its Street View cars, now equipped with air-quality sensors, to measure air pollution in California on a block-by-block level.

Earlier this year, we shared the first results of this effort with pollution levels throughout the city of Oakland.

We’re just beginning to understand what’s possible with this hyper-local information and today, we’re starting to share some of our findings for the three California regions we’ve mapped: the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, and California’s Central Valley (the Street View cars drove 100,000 miles, over the course of 4,000 hours to collect this data!) Scientists and air quality specialists can use this information to assist local organizations, governments, and regulators in identifying opportunities to achieve greater air quality improvements and solutions.

All We Like Street View Have Gone Astray

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

It began in the summer of 2016. Faroe Islander Durita Dahl Andreassen started a campaign to get Google to map the islands in Street View by strapping 360-degree cameras onto the backs of grazing sheep and uploading the resulting images. The gambit worked; as of this month, the Faroe Islands are on Street View (The Guardian, The Washington Post). There have been worse promotional gimmicks. [MAPS-L]

Street View at the Top of the World

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

Tanquary Fjord, Quttinirpaaq National Park. Google Street View (screenshot).

At 82° north latitude, Quttinirpaaq National Park is on the northernmost tip of Canada’s northernmost island, Ellesmere Island. It takes days to fly there and requires you to hire a charter plane. Fewer than 50 people visit every year. And along with the remote northern communities of Grise Fiord and Resolute Bay, it’s just been added to Google Street View: Parks Canada staff backpacked across the park with the iconic Street View camera. More from CBC News and Google.