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Nov 01
0

Google Earth 7: More 3D Imagery

By | Apple, Apps, Droid, Google, iPhone, IT Blog, Microsoft, news | No Comments
Google has updated the desktop version of Google Earth with 3D imagery that was previously only available to mobile users of the mapping program. A new tour guide feature—also included in the Google Earth update—allows you to fly over given areas where Google has prepared guided tours.

Google Earth 7 now has 3D imagery of Boulder, Boston, Charlotte, Denver, Lawrence, Long Beach, Los Angeles, Portland, San Antonio, San Diego, Santa Cruz, Seattle, Tampa, Tucson, Rome and the San Francisco Bay Area (including the Peninsula and East Bay). The application also provides 3D coverage of metropolitan regions in Avignon, France; Austin, Texas; Munich, Germany; Phoenix, Arizona; and Mannheim, Germany.

These are the same areas with 3D imagery on Google Earth for iOS and Android. “The experience of flying through these areas and seeing the buildings, terrain and even the trees rendered in 3D is now consistent across both mobile and desktop devices,” Peter Birch, Google Earth Product Manager, wrote in a Wednesday blog post. When zooming in, the viewing angle in the desktop version of Google Earth now tilts at a higher elevation in order to showcase 3D imagery.

The other new feature in Google Earth 7 is tour guide. Instead of searching for tours, thumbnails highlighting pre-created tours for any area you’re viewing in Google Earth appear at the bottom of the screen. When you go on a tour, you get a flyover of historical and cultural sites nearby, whether it’s Rome, the Great Wall of China, or Stonehenge. There are more than 11,000 of such guided tours, including for all the cities with 3D imagery. Guided tours also include factoid popovers pulled from Wikipedia.

Google Earth 7 is a free download for both Windows and Mac users.

Mar 30
0

Real Time Traffic added to Google Maps

By | Apps, Google | No Comments

Google Maps has now been updated to give you more accurate estimates of travel duration by using real-time traffic datas. Now when you use Google Maps to get directions, it will provide you with two estimated durations, one without traffic and one based on the current traffic conditions.

Previously, Google had introduced a similar feature that could estimate travel time, but that was based on historic rather than real-time traffic data. It also provided two scenarios, but the traffic data was based on average conditions for an area instead of the actual conditions at the time of your travel.

The new feature utilizes data gathered from Android users that enable the My Location feature through Google Maps on their devices. The more Android users that participate the more traffic data Google Maps is able to collect in order to provide the real-time estimates. So it’s possible that you may not see current traffic information for a certain route because no data has been collected from any Android users on that route.