It’s time for another update of our 45° imagery coverage in Google Maps – this one including 26 cities in the U.S. and 5 international locations.

Albany – the capital of New York state – started as a Dutch trading post almost 400 years ago, which makes it one of the oldest European settlements in the U.S. The city has repeatedly proven to be innovative in its infrastructure by pioneering public water mains, railroads and water routes. Albany is also home to one of the world’s first commercial airports that contributed to its economic rise.Read More

It’s time for another update of our 45° imagery coverage in Google Maps – this one including 26 cities in the U.S. and 5 international locations.

Albany – the capital of New York state – started as a Dutch trading post almost 400 years ago, which makes it one of the oldest European settlements in the U.S. The city has repeatedly proven to be innovative in its infrastructure by pioneering public water mains, railroads and water routes. Albany is also home to one of the world’s first commercial airports that contributed to its economic rise.


View Larger Map
The New York State Capitol and the adjacent park

Reggio Calabria is located at the tip of the toe of Italy, separated from Sicily by the Strait of Messina, in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea. Its history dates back more than 2,700 years when the Greeks erected a colony here. Despite its age, relatively modern architecture can be found throughout the city due to a devastating earthquake in 1908 that brought many historic buildings to collapse. Below is the Aragonese Castle, one of the few buildings that withstood the quake.


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The Aragonese Castle

Lyon is known as the capital of gastronomy in Eastern France. It's also the hometown of Auguste and Louis Lumière who are known as the earliest filmmakers in history. And during the Renaissance, Lyon was developed as a center of the silk trade with Italy, resulting in Italian architecture being introduced in and around the city.


View Larger Map
Place des Terreaux and Museum of Fine Arts of Lyon

Below is the full list of updated cities:

US:
Albany, NY; Anniston, AL; Aurora, IL; Buffalo, NY; Champaign, IL; Chico, CA; Cleveland - Westlake, OH; Council Bluffs, IA; Eugene, OR; Grand Junction, CO; Greenville - Lyman Lake, SC; Hot Springs, AR; Houston - Katy, TX; Jefferson City, MO; Kentwood, MI; Logan, UT; Longview, TX; Manhattan, KS; Miami Beach, FL; Mount Vernon, WA; North Myrtle Beach - Little River, SC; Peoria, IL; Plainfield Township, MI; Providence, RI; Thousand Oaks, CA; Yakima, WA.

International:
Biel, Switzerland; Luzern, Switzerland; Lyon, France; Reggio Calabria, Italy; St. Gallen, Switzerland.

Have fun exploring the new sites!

Posted by Bernd Steinert, Geo Data Specialist

To help provide relevant information related to the wildfires spreading through Colorado and Utah, the Google Crisis Response team has assembled a new crisis map for the 2012 U.S. wildfire season. The map features fire perimeters from the ...Read More

To help provide relevant information related to the wildfires spreading through Colorado and Utah, the Google Crisis Response team has assembled a new crisis map for the 2012 U.S. wildfire season. The map features fire perimeters from the U.S. Geological Survey, Red Cross shelters in affected areas and new satellite imagery provided by DigitalGlobe, of the Waldo Canyon Fire near Colorado Springs. You can also see more authoritative, local-level data from sources including the State of Colorado Division of Emergency Management and the Utah Division of Emergency Management.

U.S. Wildfires map showing the perimeter of the fire near Colorado Springs. View larger map. 

Use the checkboxes along the right-hand panel to turn on and off the layers of information, and the “Share” button at the top of the map to grab the URL or embed code. Note that both the URL and the embed code will automatically restore your current view of the map, including the set of layers that you have turned on.

New satellite imagery captured by DigitalGlobe on Thursday. View larger map.

You can also view the updated imagery in Google Earth to better understand the situation on the ground and its effects on these communities — just download this KML file. It includes both the optical and near-infrared images of the Waldo Canyon Fire, taken Thursday June 28.

Stay tuned for more map updates as we identify additional information for the wildfires. If you have data that you’d like to see included on the Google Crisis Map, contact us using this form and we’ll take a look.

Posted by Pete Giencke, Google Crisis Response Team

This week we announced new 3D imagery on Google Earth for Android for a select number of initial cities, including San Francisco, Los Angeles and Rome. Along with the availability of more comprehensive and realistic 3D imagery, we’ve also included a new ...Read More

This week we announced new 3D imagery on Google Earth for Android for a select number of initial cities, including San Francisco, Los Angeles and Rome. Along with the availability of more comprehensive and realistic 3D imagery, we’ve also included a new tour guide feature in this latest release. Taking a virtual trip to places such as Stonehenge in England, Brandenburg Gate in Germany, or the Great Wall of China has always been possible by typing a location into Google Earth; but how do you know where in the world you’d like to visit if you are not familiar with an area?

The new tour guide allows you to discover and explore interesting places around the world, even if you didn’t know to search for them. It is already available on Google Earth for Android, and an update to Google Earth for iOS will be coming soon. We invite you to embark on any of the more than 11,000 tours of popular sites in over 110 countries and regions, from famous landmarks to scenic treasures. You can open the tour guide with a quick swipe of the tab located on the bottom of the main Google Earth screen.

Open a list of tour thumbnails by swiping the tab located at the bottom of the Google Earth for mobile screen
Thumbnails of available pre-created tours will dynamically update with interesting locations in your current view. Simply click the thumbnail image to start the tour and begin your online adventure of discovering new and exciting places around the world.

Tour of the Transamerica Pyramid in San Francisco, California
Where available, the tours include 3D models for the most realistic experience possible. Information from Wikipedia also provides more information on famous sites, so you can learn more about the places that interest you as your virtually fly over them. The tour guide also includes user-contributed Picasa and Panoramio photos as thumbnails for a preview of the featured location.

To get started, update Google Earth on your mobile device. Happy touring!

Posted by Haris Ramic, Product Manager, Google Earth for mobile

Explorers of the world, rejoice! There is now a new way to explore the world, right from the palm of your hand. Gone are the days when the only way to get a bird’s eye, 3D view of your favorite metropolitan area was from the window of a penthouse apartment or helicopter. Now you can soar above your favorite cities in 3D, with ...Read More

Explorers of the world, rejoice! There is now a new way to explore the world, right from the palm of your hand. Gone are the days when the only way to get a bird’s eye, 3D view of your favorite metropolitan area was from the window of a penthouse apartment or helicopter. Now you can soar above your favorite cities in 3D, with Google Earth for mobile.


New 3D Imagery
We recently shared a preview of this striking new 3D imagery and starting today, you can take flight yourself with our latest version of Google Earth for Android. An updated version of Google Earth for iOS will be also be available soon.

New 3D imagery of Portland, Oregon
Creating this comprehensive 3D experience is possible due to advanced image processing. Using 45-degree aerial imagery, we're able to automatically recreate entire metropolitan areas in 3D. This means every building (not just the famous landmarks), the terrain, and any surrounding landscape of trees are included to provide a much more accurate and realistic experience.

Get started today by taking a virtual flight over one of our initial 3D imagery cities: Boulder, Boston, Santa Cruz, San Diego, Los Angeles, Long Beach, San Antonio, Charlotte, Tucson, Lawrence, Portland, Tampa, Rome or the San Francisco Bay Area (including the Peninsula and East Bay). We’ll continue to release new 3D imagery for places around the world over the coming months; by the end of the year, we aim to have new 3D coverage for metropolitan areas with a combined population of 300 million people.

Tour Guide
Not sure where to begin? Let the new tour guide help show you the way. We’ve put together short tours of thousands of famous places and historical sites across the globe so it’s easier than ever to discover amazing places. Just pull up the tab at the bottom of the screen to open the tour guide. Each image highlights a tours or place of interest in the area you are looking. Click on an item and you will be flown there. As you fly in and around the sites, snippets from Wikipedia provide additional information about the location. It’s like having a local expert right beside you!

Tour guide showing top destinations around Los Angeles.
We hope this more accurate, comprehensive and realistic 3D representation of the Earth brings out the inner explorer in you. Whether you are visiting familiar grounds or venturing out into the world, Google Earth is there to show you the way.

Posted by Peter Birch, Product Manager, Google Earth

Having an Internet connection has always been a key requirement for using Google Maps for Android... until now.

A few weeks ago we told you that offline Google Maps for Android was coming. Now, you can download the latest version of the app in Google Play, then select and save a region of a map from more than 150 countries for use offline. Whether travelling internationally, carrying a WiFi-only device, heading underground on the subway or restricting your mobile data usage, you can now save up to six large metro areas (e.g., Greater London, Paris, or New York City and surrounding area) and use Google Maps for Android to find your way.Read More

Having an Internet connection has always been a key requirement for using Google Maps for Android... until now.

A few weeks ago we told you that offline Google Maps for Android was coming. Now, you can download the latest version of the app in Google Play, then select and save a region of a map from more than 150 countries for use offline. Whether travelling internationally, carrying a WiFi-only device, heading underground on the subway or restricting your mobile data usage, you can now save up to six large metro areas (e.g., Greater London, Paris, or New York City and surrounding area) and use Google Maps for Android to find your way.

Let’s say you find yourself traveling to London this summer. Before you head off on your trip, simply find the area that you’ll be visiting. Then select “Make available offline” from the menu and verify the area that you would like to save. 

Below the map, you’ll see we estimate the file size for you, so you know how much space it will take on your device. Once you confirm your selection the map will immediately start downloading.

Save an area and go to My Places to see all your offline maps

If you have GPS enabled on the device, the blue dot will still work without a data connection so you know where you are, and if your device has a compass you can orient yourself without 3G or WiFi connectivity.  

So whether you’re traveling internationally or underground, we hope offline maps will help you get around. 

Today we’re also releasing a smoother and faster Compass Mode for Street View within Google Maps for Android. It’s the next best thing to being there, because your device becomes a window into a 360-degree, panoramic view of the outdoor or interior location through Business Photos. To experience the improved qualities of this feature you need a device with Google Maps for Android, Android 3.0 or higher and a gyroscope sensor plus version 1.8.1 of Street View on Google Maps.

See inside District wine bar in San Francisco

To learn more about Google Maps for Android features, start here. 

Posted by Jiabei Lei, Software Engineer, Google Maps Mobile

Editor's note: Last week we published a series of blog posts on the Google Green Blog about our activities at Rio+20, the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development. This is our final post in the series - thanks for reading along!

The week we spent at Rio+20 incredibly productive and rewarding. We marveled at the natural beauty of our surroundings, we took hundreds of visitors to our booth for a wild ride on the Liquid Galaxy, and we met with some of the world’s leading experts on sustainable development.

Several of those experts participated in our official Side Event, titled “Tools for Mobile Data Collection: From the Ground to the Cloud” on Monday, June 18th. We’ve been using the “ground to the cloud” phrase a lot these days. It was coined by Vasco van Roosmalen of ECAM, who helped the Surui tribe of the Brazilian Amazon get certification to enter the carbon credit market.

The idea is that data can be collected offline -- using, for instance, Android smartphones and open-source software called Open Data Kit (ODK) -- and then, back in an online environment, uploaded to Google cloud services (like Google Maps Engine) to display in a map. The Surui use this method to collect ground data for their carbon offsets project, and if you download the recently launched Surui Cultural Map you can see exactly where they collected their data. The Surui expect to avoid the emission of 6 million tons of carbon over the 30 years by avoiding the deforestation of 40 thousand hectares of forests and protecting an additional 200,000 hectares.

Two other participants at our event, Fundação Amazonas Sustentável (FAS) and The Jane Goodall Institute demonstrated the importance of community participation in keeping trees standing. FAS is using Open Data Kit to monitor and manage the forest reserves in Juma, Rio Madeira Reserve and in Rio Negro in the Brazilian Amazon. Dr. Lilian Pintea, with Timothy Akugizibwe, Sood Ndimuligo and other Jane Goodall Institute staff, trained over 100 Village Forest Monitors in Tanzania and Uganda to take part in protecting their forest. They’ve also mapped chimpanzee distribution alongside biomass models from Dr. Alessandro Baccini of Woods Hole Research Center (see credits in photo caption).

This is very exciting because it has never been done before. Now, stakeholders in Tanzania and elsewhere can substantially cut their hardware, software and data storage and management costs. They can now fully focus fully on comparing the biomass model with what’s actually on the ground, and develop maps and statistics that better meets decision-makers' information needs. The new biomass map of western Tanzania shows the amount of biological material (and carbon) in the region, and could be an important predictor for modeling potential distribution of chimpanzees in the region.

From Rio+20

According to partner Aliança da Terra, it is possible for Brazil's farmers to help feed the world, contribute to economic development, and find a balance with our global human and environmental needs. They’ve created a Registry of Socio-Environmental Responsibility for Brazilian producers of soy, cattle, corn and other crops who want to practice their trade in a way that complies with Brazilian law and doesn’t degrade their land for future farming activities. They launched their new website at the side event, featuring maps of the 400+ properties in the Registry as well as their fire brigades to stop the spread of fire in the Amazon. These maps were created with Google Maps Engine, and Aliança da Terra was one of the early grantees of the Google Maps Engine Grants program.

From Rio+20

 

We were joined by other inspiring speakers on the Ground to the Cloud Story, including World Resources Institute, who previewed their Global Forest Watch 2.0, the Governors’ Climate and Forests Task Force & IPAM, and Imazon (who made their own announcement earlier this week). The important work they’re doing brings a quote from Sir Winston Churchill to mind:

“What is the use of living, if it be not to strive for noble causes and to make this muddled world a better place for those who will live in it after we are gone?”

Posted by Tanya Birch, Google Earth Outreach Team

Read More

Editor's note: Last week we published a series of blog posts on the Google Green Blog about our activities at Rio+20, the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development. This is our final post in the series - thanks for reading along!

The week we spent at Rio+20 incredibly productive and rewarding. We marveled at the natural beauty of our surroundings, we took hundreds of visitors to our booth for a wild ride on the Liquid Galaxy, and we met with some of the world’s leading experts on sustainable development.

Several of those experts participated in our official Side Event, titled “Tools for Mobile Data Collection: From the Ground to the Cloud” on Monday, June 18th. We’ve been using the “ground to the cloud” phrase a lot these days. It was coined by Vasco van Roosmalen of ECAM, who helped the Surui tribe of the Brazilian Amazon get certification to enter the carbon credit market.

The idea is that data can be collected offline -- using, for instance, Android smartphones and open-source software called Open Data Kit (ODK) -- and then, back in an online environment, uploaded to Google cloud services (like Google Maps Engine) to display in a map. The Surui use this method to collect ground data for their carbon offsets project, and if you download the recently launched Surui Cultural Map you can see exactly where they collected their data. The Surui expect to avoid the emission of 6 million tons of carbon over the 30 years by avoiding the deforestation of 40 thousand hectares of forests and protecting an additional 200,000 hectares.

Two other participants at our event, Fundação Amazonas Sustentável (FAS) and The Jane Goodall Institute demonstrated the importance of community participation in keeping trees standing. FAS is using Open Data Kit to monitor and manage the forest reserves in Juma, Rio Madeira Reserve and in Rio Negro in the Brazilian Amazon. Dr. Lilian Pintea, with Timothy Akugizibwe, Sood Ndimuligo and other Jane Goodall Institute staff, trained over 100 Village Forest Monitors in Tanzania and Uganda to take part in protecting their forest. They’ve also mapped chimpanzee distribution alongside biomass models from Dr. Alessandro Baccini of Woods Hole Research Center (see credits in photo caption).

This is very exciting because it has never been done before. Now, stakeholders in Tanzania and elsewhere can substantially cut their hardware, software and data storage and management costs. They can now fully focus fully on comparing the biomass model with what’s actually on the ground, and develop maps and statistics that better meets decision-makers' information needs. The new biomass map of western Tanzania shows the amount of biological material (and carbon) in the region, and could be an important predictor for modeling potential distribution of chimpanzees in the region.

From Rio+20

According to partner Aliança da Terra, it is possible for Brazil's farmers to help feed the world, contribute to economic development, and find a balance with our global human and environmental needs. They’ve created a Registry of Socio-Environmental Responsibility for Brazilian producers of soy, cattle, corn and other crops who want to practice their trade in a way that complies with Brazilian law and doesn’t degrade their land for future farming activities. They launched their new website at the side event, featuring maps of the 400+ properties in the Registry as well as their fire brigades to stop the spread of fire in the Amazon. These maps were created with Google Maps Engine, and Aliança da Terra was one of the early grantees of the Google Maps Engine Grants program.

From Rio+20

 

We were joined by other inspiring speakers on the Ground to the Cloud Story, including World Resources Institute, who previewed their Global Forest Watch 2.0, the Governors’ Climate and Forests Task Force & IPAM, and Imazon (who made their own announcement earlier this week). The important work they’re doing brings a quote from Sir Winston Churchill to mind:

“What is the use of living, if it be not to strive for noble causes and to make this muddled world a better place for those who will live in it after we are gone?”

Posted by Tanya Birch, Google Earth Outreach Team

Editor's note: Last week we published a series of blog posts about our activities at Rio+20, the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development. The post below is by Rebecca Moore, manager of the Google Earth Outreach team.
...Read More

Editor's note: Last week we published a series of blog posts about our activities at Rio+20, the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development. The post below is by Rebecca Moore, manager of the Google Earth Outreach team.

We were excited to unveil at the Rio+20 Conference the initial fruits of a unique collaboration with a member of the European Parliament and the Society for Conservation Biology: a global, interactive map of the world’s “Roadless Areas.”

The project came about when we were approached by MEP Kriton Arsenis, the European Parliament's Rapporteur on forests. He explained that, while most people using Google Maps want to know which roads will get them from point A to point B, the same information is useful for conservationists who want to know where roads aren’t. In his words:

The concept of "roadless areas" is a well-established conservation measure coming from conservation biologists from all around the globe. The idea is that roads in most parts of the world lead to the unmanageable private access to the natural resources of an area, most often leading to ecosystem degradation and without the consent of the local and indigenous communities. Keeping an area roadless means that the specific territory is shielded against such exogenous pressures, thus sustaining its ecosystem services at the maximum possible level. An important tool which will drive environmental, development as well as global climate change policy forward will be the Google development of an interactive satellite map of the world's roadless areas.

We were intrigued by Kriton’s idea, so we decided to give it a try.

Start with where the Roads are

We started by taking all the road data (plus rail and navigable waterways) in Google Maps today, and importing that into our Google Earth Engine platform for analysis. For example, here is what the road network in Australia looks like when zoomed out to country-scale:


Then figure out where the roads aren't

Based upon advice from Kriton Arsenis and his project collaborators in the Society for Conservation Biology, we decided to define a “Roadless Area” (for the purposes of this prototype map) as any area of land more than ten kilometers from the nearest road. Using the global-scale spatial-analytic capabilities of Google Earth Engine, we then generated this raster map, such that every pixel in the map is color-coded based on distance from the nearest road. Every pixel colored green is at least 10km from the nearest road, and therefore considered part of a Roadless Area. For example:


Or consider the island of Madagascar, home to some of the most unique species on Earth:


From these maps it becomes more apparent how the simple construction of new roads can fragment and disturb habitats, potentially driving threatened species closer to extinction.

Finally we decided to try running this “Roadless Area” algorithm at global-scale:


Large roadless areas are readily apparent such as the Amazon and Indonesian rainforests, Canadian boreal forest and Sahara desert.

Caveats and Next Steps

The road data used to produce these maps inevitably contains inaccuracies and omissions. The good news is that Google already has a tool, Google Map Maker, that can be used by anyone to submit new or corrected map data, and in fact this tool is already being used in partnership with the United Nations to support global emergency response. We look forward to continued development of this prototype, which can help to turn the abstract concept of “Roadless Areas” into something quite concrete and, we hope, useful to policymakers, scientists and communities around the world. To explore these Roadless Area maps yourself, visit the Google Earth Engine Map Gallery.

Posted by Rebecca Moore, Manager, Google Earth Outreach and Google Earth Engine

Editor's note: Throughout this week we'll be publishing a series of blog posts about our activities at Rio+20, the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development. This guest post is from Google Earth Engine partner Carlos Souza of Imazon.  ...Read More

Editor's note: Throughout this week we'll be publishing a series of blog posts about our activities at Rio+20, the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development. This guest post is from Google Earth Engine partner Carlos Souza of Imazon. 

In the last seven years Brazil has reduced deforestation considerably, and forest monitoring has been a key part of this effort. Imazon, a Brazilian NGO working to promote sustainable development in the Amazon, has developed a forest monitoring system called SAD, and has been working with Google to integrate Google Earth Engine into our work. We’re now ready to share our progress and to take the next step in our efforts to crowdsource forest monitoring in Brazil and, potentially, the rest of the world.

First a bit about Imazon and our work. SAD is an acronym, in Portuguese, for Sistema de Alerta de Desmatamento, or Deforestation Alert System. This system detects and measures deforestation and forest degradation in Brazil by analyzing MODIS satellite imagery. The idea is to track deforestation in the same way the government tracks inflation, making it a regularly updated indicator of the overall health of the country.

SAD analysis is quite complex, involving a great deal of satellite data. The end result of the analysis is a ratio of soil, photosynthetic vegetation, and non-photosyntheic vegetation for each pixel in a MODIS image covering the Brazilian Amazon. SAD tracks and reports deforestation and forest degradation on a monthly basis by calculating changes in this ratio for satellite images acquired at different times. We provide this map, along with deforestation alerts, to key authorities working to fight illegal deforestation in the Amazon.

This past weekend at Google’s “From the Ground to the Cloud” event at Rio+20 we proudly announced the next step in the evolution of SAD: SAD-EE, powered by Google Earth Engine. Starting in July, Imazon's monthly deforestation reports -- which includes deforestation happening while we are here at Rio+20 -- will be generated by SAD-EE. 






SAD-EE improves Imazon’s forest monitoring program in several ways:

• We can now access and process the data using Google’s cloud, which dramatically changes how we work. For instance, during the testing phase of using SAD-EE we reduced the amount of time we spend downloading and managing the very large data sets of MODIS images by 50%, and analysis in the cloud is much faster than on our desktop computers. Getting this information to the authorities faster can be translated into several hectares of forests saved each month 
  
• SAD-EE is integrated with the Internet, mobile phone and computer tablet technologies, making it easier for local organizations to access it. 
•  The system can be used outside Brazil, allowing other tropical forest countries to monitor their forests. Indeed, there is now a project to make this happen through a partnership with Google and the World Resources Institute, via the Global Forest Watch Program.
  
  
  

  

  SAD-EE's reporting tool

  For me, the most exciting aspect of SAD-EE is that the system demonstrates the potential for Google Earth Engine to become a multi-sensor, multi-algorithm, multi-technology, crowdsourcing environmental monitoring platform. As Google Earth Engine evolves, it is allowing scientists and remote sensing users to share their knowledge and tools and enabling large groups of people to track and report changes in our planet.
  
  Posted by Carlos Souza, Senior Researcher, Imazon

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(Cross-posted on the Official Google Enterprise Blog)

Imagine you are a call center operator at an electric utility company.  A call comes in reporting a downed powerline in one of the northern suburbs of your city, and an entire neighborhood is without power.  You need to quickly dispatch one of your line repairers to the site, which is almost an hour away.  To save time and get the power back up quickly, you want to know which line repairers are already in the area and send them the relevant information about the job.

That’s where Google Maps Coordinate comes in, a new tool designed to improve communication between businesses and their employees in the field.  As the number of mobile employees continues to grow, so does the need for a location sharing solution that works in real-time.  Research firm IDC estimates that there will be over 1.3 billion mobile workers by 2015 (37.2% of the total workforce)*. Google Maps Coordinate combines the power of Google’s mapping technologies with modern smartphones to help organizations assign jobs and deploy staff more efficiently. 

When a business signs up for Google Maps Coordinate, they get access to the Google Maps Coordinate web and mobile apps.  

Employees in the field download the mobile app to their phone and then can:

• Share real-time location. Google Maps Coordinate is built on Google’s mapping and geolocation infrastructure so the app will send an accurate location, even if you’re indoors (Google Maps Coordinate integrates with Google Indoor Maps). 
• Record data.  Mobile teams often need to collect information while out in the field. Google Maps Coordinate allows the admin to customize the fields that the mobile team needs to capture and collect – from measurements to client contact details – directly in the app.

Meanwhile, a designated dispatcher back in the office can: 

• Create teams. Add team members to a Google Maps Coordinate team and see their locations in the Google Maps Coordinate web and mobile app.  For example, our electric utility company might create a special team for home electricians and another for line repairers.
• Manage jobs. Easily create jobs, precisely locate the job, assign the job to the nearest team member and notify them instantly.  The next time there is a downed powerline, the operator at the utility company will have no problem identifying the closest team member and assigning them to investigate the issue.  
• View past jobs and locations. Get the hard data needed to make strong business decisions. With Google Maps Coordinate, businesses can easily visualize the locations of all their jobs and teams, including current and past jobs.  Businesses can assess where they should be assigning or hiring more workers and how to optimally place their teams.

Any business can sign up for Google Maps Coordinate.  Google Maps Coordinate is built to work seamlessly with the entire Google Enterprise Maps and Earth experience, and it comes with an API that can integrate with any of your existing systems.  

Contact our sales team or a Google Enterprise Maps and Earth reseller if you’re interested in signing up for  Google Maps Coordinate. Share your Google Maps Coordinate use cases and feedback on our Enterprise G+ page.

*IDC, Worldwide Mobile Worker Population 2011-2015 Forecast, Doc #232073, December 2011

Posted by Daniel Chu, Senior Product Manager 

Google Maps has expanded live traffic coverage to include 7 new regions in 7 new countries including Belarus, Estonia, Latvia, Mexico, Peru, Romania and South Africa.Read More

Google Maps has expanded live traffic coverage to include 7 new regions in 7 new countries including Belarus, Estonia, Latvia, Mexico, Peru, Romania and South Africa.

The traffic data allows you to see current traffic conditions, and also gives you estimated travel times.

Aside from these new additions, we have also improved and expanded our coverage to more roads in 19 countries and regions, where traffic data is already available; the countries include: Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, New Zealand, Puerto Rico, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, and the UK.

A quick glance at our traffic coverage around the globe

For our new users, you can check traffic conditions by visiting maps.google.com and clicking on the traffic layer in the widget on the upper right-hand side of the map. This useful traffic information is also available on Google Maps for Mobile devices and Google Maps Navigation.

If the roads you are traveling do not yet show traffic information, don’t despair. You can help your fellow drivers and improve traffic data by using Google Navigation or Google Maps for Mobile while traveling.

We hope the traffic feature in Google Maps will help more users around the globe to save time and patience by planning their trips accordingly.

Posted by Matthias Ernst, Software Engineer, Google Maps

[Cross-posted from the Official Google Blog]

Before joining Google, I lived in Hawaii for several years. Now, one look at a photo of palm trees swaying in front of an impossibly blue-green ocean transports me back to the islands—relaxing on the beach and listening to the sound of waves crashing on the shore. If one photo can do that for you, how would you feel if you had access to millions of them?Read More

[Cross-posted from the Official Google Blog]

Before joining Google, I lived in Hawaii for several years. Now, one look at a photo of palm trees swaying in front of an impossibly blue-green ocean transports me back to the islands—relaxing on the beach and listening to the sound of waves crashing on the shore. If one photo can do that for you, how would you feel if you had access to millions of them?


View Larger Map
The Kohala coast on the Big Island of Hawaii

Our newly expanded Street View coverage of Hawaii’s six major islands enables you to take a virtual vacation to paradise. Explore panoramic imagery of local beach parks, tropical rainforests, volcanic lava fields, oceanfront resorts and more. Can you feel the ocean breeze yet? Now let's do some digital island-hopping...

Oahu
We begin our island adventure on Oahu, home to the capital city of Honolulu and a number of popular destinations. This island has something for everyone, from the top surfing locations of Waikiki Beach and Waimea Bay, to the USS Arizona Memorial Museum and Iolani Palace for history buffs, to the home of the NFL Pro Bowl at Aloha Stadium. Fans of the TV shows “Lost” and “Hawaii Five-0” or movies like “Jurassic Park” will love looking around for filming locations at Kualoa Ranch.


View Larger Map
Kualoa Ranch on the island of Oahu

Maui
Hopping over to Maui, we can sunbathe at oceanfront resorts in Ka’anapali, hit the links on challenging golf courses in Kapalua and learn the hula at the famous Old Lahaina Luau. One of my favorite memories of Maui is driving along the scenic “Road to Hana” with my friends, an experience I can now relive with Street View.


View Larger Map
The “Road to Hana” on the island of Maui

Big Island
We now fly over to the island of Hawaii, also known as the Big Island, where we visit one of the most active volcanoes in the world at Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. We check out the scene in the funky seaside town of Kailua-Kona, explore tropical gardens in Hilo, and climb above the clouds on Mauna Kea. We end our Big Island sojourn with a little oceanside relaxation at the luxurious resorts in Waikaloa, Kamuela or Hualalai.


View Larger Map
Hawaii Volcanoes National Park on the Big Island

Molokai
Over on Molokai, people enjoy the quiet life. With no buildings taller than a coconut tree and not a traffic light to be seen, miles of untouched shorelines and excellent outdoor activities will help you leave the modern world behind.


View Larger Map
The untouched coastlines of Molokai

Kauai
Now let’s jump to the incomparable Kauai, with its jaw-dropping landscapes around every turn. Whether you’re staying in Poipu or Hanalei, be sure to visit Waimea Canyon, which Mark Twain called the “Grand Canyon of the Pacific”. You might also enjoy a leisurely stroll along the coast at Lydgate State Park.


View Larger Map
Waimea Canyon on the island of Kauai

Lanai
Our virtual tour of Hawaii comes to an end on the romantic, tiny island of Lanai, the “pineapple island.” This island has so many memories for me, from the day I proposed to my wife (a few hundred feet from here) to the morning we spent swimming with dolphins in Hulopoe Bay. I can’t wait to go back again!


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An upcountry retreat on the romantic island of Lanai.

We hope this little taste of Hawaii will inspire you to use Street View the next time you're planning a vacation—whether you’re taking a trip around the block, across the world or just down memory lane. Check out a more complete list of Street View’s off-the-road locations in Hawaii here or visit our Scenic Hawaii collection in the Street View gallery.


Street View car at Kualoa Ranch on the windward coast of Oahu.

Aloha!

Posted by Evan Rapoport, Product Manager, Street View

At the heart of Google Map Maker are citizen cartographers helping to build the most accurate maps of their communities - ones that reflect the identity, culture and pride of regions across the globe. Today, Map Maker is expanding to the following countries, enabling people who know and live in these locations to share their local expertise: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, and Switzerland.Read More

At the heart of Google Map Maker are citizen cartographers helping to build the most accurate maps of their communities - ones that reflect the identity, culture and pride of regions across the globe. Today, Map Maker is expanding to the following countries, enabling people who know and live in these locations to share their local expertise: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, and Switzerland.


With every region that joins Google Map Maker, we are coming one step closer to building a comprehensive world map. Whether you’re adding the cycling routes through Amsterdam or adding the best hiking trails and fishing holes of the Geirangerfjord, each update you make helps to capture the unique spirit of your country for everyone to see.

From the moment you make your first edit in Map Maker, know that you are joining an ever-growing community of passionate volunteer mappers as they make the online maps of our world ever more detailed and useful. Get involved by introducing yourself to fellow mappers or find an event near you.

A golf course in Oslo, Norway comes to life with Google Map Maker.
We happily welcome mappers in each of these new countries. Google Map Maker is now available in more than 190 countries and territories, and as we forge ahead with continued expansion over the coming months, stay tuned for additional announcements with the Google Maps page on Google Plus.

Posted by Nilesh Tathawadekar, Software Engineer

(Cross-posted from the Google Green Blog)

Editor's Note: This week we're at Rio+20, the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development. We're sharing a series of posts about our activities at the conference  ...Read More

(Cross-posted from the Google Green Blog)

Editor's Note: This week we're at Rio+20, the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development. We're sharing a series of posts about our activities at the conference on the Green Blog; in this cross-post we've gone into more detail about one announcement taking place there.

This week at the Rio+20 conference, the Surui tribe of the Brazilian Amazon are launching their Surui Cultural Map on Google Earth. This represents the culmination of a unique five-year collaboration between the Surui people and Google, which began in June 2007 when Chief Almir Surui first visited Google and proposed a partnership. The story of that visit, and the remarkable project that followed, are told in a new short documentary also launching here at Rio+20: “Trading Bows and Arrows for Laptops: Carbon and Culture.”



Training the Surui youth as mapmakers
Over three visits to the Surui territory between 2008 and last month, our Google Earth Outreach team taught Surui youth how to take photos and videos and to collect stories from their elders (such as from the time before first contact with the modern world). Then they learned how to upload these to the Google cloud using tools like Picasa, Docs, and YouTube. From there we used Spreadsheet Mapper 3 to bind it all together to create a Google Earth KML of their map, which contains almost 300 sites.

Map highlights
Through this project, my team has learned that maps are an expression of culture. Mapmakers refer to the “atomic element” of a map as a point of interest, or POI. The Surui mapmakers created POIs that reflect their traditional culture’s close interdependency with their forest home. So instead of hotels and gas stations, on the Surui map you’ll find the locations of parrots and toucans, or the three kinds of trees necessary to make their bows and arrows. You’ll learn where to find the Acai trees (which provide delicious fruit as well as the thatch for their maloca longhouses), the locations of good hunting grounds for the porcao (wild pig), and where the jaguar roam (jaguars have particular spiritual significance to the Surui people and figure in their creation myth). There are also sites and stories of historical battles with other tribes and with the white settlers who started arriving after “first contact” in 1969. Here’s an example POI for the Jenipapo tree:

The text reads: “Jenipapo fruit is produced by the jenipapo tree, which reaches twenty feet high. From the meaty part of the green fruit, an ink is extracted with which human skin can be painted. This makes the fruit very important for the Surui, because the art of painting is always included in everything that they do, especially in celebrations and rituals. The art of painting is one of the things most valued by Paiter. Each occasion calls for a different type of painting.”

Here’s a rich storytelling tour of the Surui Cultural Map, narrated by Chief Almir and the Surui youth who were the star mapmakers:



As Chief Almir says at the conclusion of the Surui people’s Google Earth tour:

Without the forest, our entire culture would disappear. And without our culture, the forest would have disappeared a long time ago. It’s important to live in a sustainable way and to strengthen those whose livelihoods directly depend on a healthy ecosystem. We have a 50-year sustainability plan, which includes solutions for our territory. An example is the Surui Carbon Project, which uses technology to monitor the carbon stock of forest and trade it in the market for carbon credits. Our hope is that we can come together virtually and in person, and that we can find and implement solutions together.

It’s been a great honor for us to work with the Surui people and to experience their world view, especially to see how they blend their traditional knowledge and culture with modern technology. We’ve learned from Chief Almir that partnerships, consensus and collaboration are central; in that spirit, we’d like to thank our partners on this project: ECAM, Kanindé and Brazilian filmmaker Denise Zmekhol, who has documented the life of the Surui people for more than twenty years.

You can watch a video of the  tour or download it in English or Portuguese. To learn more about the Surui tribe, known as “Paiter Surui,” please visit www.paiter.org.

Posted by Rebecca Moore, Manager, Google Earth Outreach and Google Earth Engine

Cross-posted from the Google Green Blog.

This month, heads of state, NGOs, scientists and business leaders from around the world will meet to discuss how best to reduce poverty, advance social equity and better protect the environment at the ...Read More

Cross-posted from the Google Green Blog.

This month, heads of state, NGOs, scientists and business leaders from around the world will meet to discuss how best to reduce poverty, advance social equity and better protect the environment at the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, also known as Rio+20.

As a company that believes deeply in sustainability, we wouldn’t miss this for the world. So from June 13 - 22, a group of Googlers from our Google Earth Outreach and Google Earth Engine teams will be joining many of our partners, including Chief Almir Surui, The Jane Goodall Institute, Imazon, Aliança de Terra, Amazon Sustainable Foundation and others to show how technology can support the conference’s core themes.

We’ll be posting updates on the Google Green Blog from the conference throughout the week, but we thought we’d offer a quick preview of how we’ll be participating:

• Wednesday, June 13th - Friday, June 22nd: We invite all conference attendees to visit us at our booth in the Rio State Government Pavilion at Athletes’ Park. You’ll be able to tour the Earth and beyond in our Liquid Galaxy, an immersive Google Earth experience, and explore some of the work our partners have created using Google tools. 
• Friday, June 15th: Ronaldo Barreto, Strategic Partner Manager for Latin America, will participate in Megacities Forum 2012, at a roundtable on “Future Cities and the Use of New Transport Technologies.” Ronaldo will show how tools such as Google Maps, Google Transit and Google Street View are being used to modernize Rio de Janeiro’s transportation infrastructure. 
• Friday, June 15th: Rebecca Moore, Engineering Manager for Google Earth Engine and Google Earth Outreach, will speak at “No Roads to a Green Economy: Mapping Earth´s roadless areas and their services,” a discussion at the European Union Pavilion about the need to promote roadless areas as a means to conserve biodiversity and secure the rights of indigenous people.
• Saturday, June 16th: Rebecca Moore will be joining Chief Almir Surui at the Rio+20 Corporate Sustainability Forum to share the latest news regarding our ongoing partnership with the Surui tribe. 
• Sunday, June 17th: We’ll be holding an SD-Learning event, “From the Ground to the Cloud: New Tools for Sustainable Development,” which will be introduced by Brazilian Senator Eduardo Braga and will feature a presentation from Imazon on their work to create a deforestation monitoring system for Brazil, powered by Google Earth Engine. (Registration has closed for this event.) 
• Monday, June 18th: All visitors to Rio+20 are welcome to join our Side Event, "Tools for Data Collection and Mapping: the Ground to the Cloud Story" at the Arena de Barra. We’ll be hearing from a number of partners about they work they’re doing with Google tools. Among others, the Jane Goodall Institute and Woods Hole Research Center will share their work estimating forest biomass over Tanzania with Google Earth Engine, and Aliança da Terra will talk about how their use of Open Data Kit and Google Maps Engine has transformed their operations. 
• Tuesday, June 19th: we’ll be at the U.S. Government Pavilion to participate in panel discussions and demonstrations of our work with the Governor’s Forest and Climate Taskforce. 

These are only a few examples of the fascinating ways technology can help address some of our world’s most pressing challenges. Stay tuned for updates throughout the conference about the news our partners are sharing, and if you have any thoughts about how technology can help save the world -- or at least help us all be more environmentally responsible and support a sustainable future, let us know at #googleatrio20.

Posted by Rick Needham, Director, Energy & Sustainability

Although it's now June, and officially summer recess and vacation time, the Google Earth and Maps Imagery Team hasn’t taken any breaks from publishing loads of fresh, high-resolution aerial and satellite imagery. In this post, we’ll focus on newly-published satellite imagery of fun places to visit across the globe.Read More

Although it's now June, and officially summer recess and vacation time, the Google Earth and Maps Imagery Team hasn’t taken any breaks from publishing loads of fresh, high-resolution aerial and satellite imagery. In this post, we’ll focus on newly-published satellite imagery of fun places to visit across the globe.

Our first satellite imagery example is the Donbass Arena and grounds in Donetsk, Ukraine. The stadium was built in 2009 and is participating in the UEFA EURO 2012 Football Championship, hosting it’s first Group D stage game today, between France and England.

Donbass Arena, Donetsk, Ukraine
Our next example is a satellite image acquired in January of the Bahá'í House of Worship, more commonly known as the Lotus Temple, in New Delhi, India. The building and grounds serve as the mother temple of the Indian Subcontinent and is one of the most visited structures in the world, attracting more than 4 million people annually.

Bahá'í House of Worship, New Delhi, India
Finally, we’ll swing over to Buenos Aires, Argentina, and the Plaza De Mayo, which we can see below in a satellite image from February. The Plaza is lined by current and historical buildings and landmarks of all the power centers of Argentina, including structures of the executive government branch, the Metropolitan Cathedral, and the financial district.

Plaza de Mayo, Buenos Aires, Argentina
If you’d like to receive an email notification when the Google Earth and Maps Imagery team updates your favorite area(s), we’ve got just the solution for you: The Follow Your World tool!

These are only a few examples of the sites that can be seen and discovered in our latest batch of published imagery. Happy exploring!

High resolution aerial updates:
DuBois, PA; Pleasanton, TX; Weatherford, TX

Countries/regions receiving high resolution satellite updates:
Algeria, Angola, Antarctica, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Benin, Bhutan, Botswana, Brazil, Bulgaria, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cambodia, Cameroon, Canada, Cape Verde, Chad, Chile, China, Colombia, Cook Islands, Costa Rica, Croatia, Cuba, Côte d'Ivoire, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ecuador, Egypt, Ethiopia, Fiji, French Southern and Antarctic Lands, Gabon, Germany, Ghana, Guam, Guatemala, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Iran, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Kuwait, Laos, Lesotho, Liberia, Madagascar, Malaysia, Maldives, Mali, Mauritania, Mexico, Morocco, Mozambique, Myanmar, Namibia, Nauru, Nepal, New Caledonia, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Niger, Nigeria, North Korea, Northern Mariana Islands, Oman, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Paracel Islands, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Romania, Russia, Samoa, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Slovenia, Solomon Islands, Somalia, South Africa, Spain, St. Helena, Sudan, Svalbard, Swaziland, Taiwan, Tanzania, Thailand, The Gambia, Togo, Tonga, Tunisia, Turkmenistan, Uganda, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United States, Uruguay, Vanuatu, Venezuela, Vietnam, Western Sahara, Yemen, Zambia, Zimbabwe

These updates are now available in both Google Maps and Google Earth. For a complete picture of where we updated imagery, download this KML for viewing in Google Earth.

Posted by Eric Kolb, Geo Data Strategist

When natural disasters strike, more and more people around the world are turning to the web, social media and mobile technologies to connect with loved ones, locate food and shelter, find evacuation routes, access medical care and help those affected, near and far.Read More

When natural disasters strike, more and more people around the world are turning to the web, social media and mobile technologies to connect with loved ones, locate food and shelter, find evacuation routes, access medical care and help those affected, near and far.

Over the past few years, we’ve seen some powerful examples of technology helping people and organizations cope with disasters, including:

• Families in Japan turning to person finder to locate loved ones feared lost;
• Volunteers establishing SMS services and using crowdsourcing tools to collect information after the Haiti earthquake and engage the diaspora;
• First responders using digital maps to coordinate efforts to provide medical care;
• Students in New Zealand using social networks to form a volunteer army after the Christchurch earthquake; and
• Online volunteer communities self-organizing to provide emergency crisis-mapping services around the world.

This is really only scratching the surface of the amazing things people are doing, and we’re only beginning to understand the potential. So we’re hosting a ‘Big Tent’ event in Sendai, Japan on 2 July to explore the growing role of technology in preparing for, responding to and rebuilding from disasters.

At this day-long forum, through a series of panel discussions, keynotes and technology demos, we hope to learn from some of the leading local and global, public and private sector voices on managing crises. The day's speakers will include:

• Margareta Wahlström, UN Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Disaster Risk Reduction;
• Will Rogers of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies;
• James Kondo, President of Twitter Japan;
• Members of Google’s Crisis Response team, and many more.

We chose to host this event in Sendai - the largest city in Tohoku, the region devastated by last year’s Great East Japan Earthquake - to focus this forum on Japan’s impressive disaster response and recovery efforts, which demonstrated some new and innovative ways that technology can aid the efforts of responders to reduce the impact and cost of disasters.

While hard hit coastal areas remain bare, with only foundation lines to mark the many homes that have been lost, and too many families still living in shelters or temporary housing, central Sendai and much of the Tohoku region are beginning to buzz with new life and commerce as the community rebuilds. There is still a lot of work to be done, but we’ve already learned a great deal from this region and the inspiring response and rebuilding work being done by people in Japan and around the world, and we believe there’s much more for Google, public and private sector leaders, NGOs and technologists to gain by coming together here.

For those interested in joining us in Sendai, please register to attend here. Though space is limited, we’ll accommodate as many of you as we can.

Posted by Nigel Snoad, Crisis Response Product Manager

(Cross-posted on the European Public Policy, Lat Long and Japan blogs)

Editor’s Note: Today’s guest author is Ben Fash from the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy, the nonprofit partner of the Golden Gate National Parks. The Parks Conservancy was the recipient of a Google Earth Outreach Developer Grant, funded through the Google Inc. Charitable Giving Fund at the Tides Foundation. We are excited to showcase the Parks Conservancy’s innovative use of Google Earth and KML tours. ...Read More

Editor’s Note: Today’s guest author is Ben Fash from the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy, the nonprofit partner of the Golden Gate National Parks. The Parks Conservancy was the recipient of a Google Earth Outreach Developer Grant, funded through the Google Inc. Charitable Giving Fund at the Tides Foundation. We are excited to showcase the Parks Conservancy’s innovative use of Google Earth and KML tours.

The Golden Gate Bridge’s 75th anniversary celebration recently culminated in a waterfront festival, and hundreds of thousands of people joined hands on Crissy Field -- a beautiful 100-acre national park site at the foot of the bridge. As we celebrated the bridge with the community on Crissy Field, we also celebrated 11 years of the restoration of the cultural and natural resources at this site.

Few people remember that when the Golden Gate Fiesta was held on Crissy Field to open the bridge in 1937, the community was standing on an army airfield, which was subsequently abandoned and served as a dump for many years. In our new Google Earth tour, “The Transformation of Crissy Field,” television journalist Doug McConnell walks through the history of Crissy Field, with a focus on the community-led restoration effort completed in 2001.


The tour includes photos, historic maps, drawings, and satellite imagery with animated SketchUp models to create a virtual journey through the changes from a diverse salt-marsh ecosystem to race-track, army airfield, dumping ground, and finally to beloved national park.

It also shines a light on the Crissy Field Center, a dynamic hub of youth engagement for the Golden Gate National Parks. A partnership program of the Parks Conservancy, National Park Service, and Presidio Trust, the Center has served hundreds of thousands of youth in its ten years of existence, with a focus on those who traditionally have had little—if any—access to national parks. Just as Crissy Field itself serves as an outdoor classroom for youth, the Google Earth tour serves as an educational tool to inspire new generations with this brilliant story of what is possible when a community rallies to create welcoming public space.

At the foot of the Golden Gate Bridge, Crissy Field is a story of transformation.
We believe it is the duty of all human beings to protect ecosystems that are vital to our own survival and that of the other species with whom we share this planet. Now in the 21st century, it is critical that communities join hands to restore the damage that has been done to the environment, reversing trends that have been set and reviving a love for the lands and oceans that we depend on. It is our hope that the story of Crissy Field will serve as an example and will inspire many people to contribute to the stewardship of their own public lands.

We welcome you to visit us online to learn more about our work and how to get involved in the Golden Gate National Parks. While you’re there, view the narrated tour, or download the KML to view it interactively in Google Earth!

Posted by Ben Fash, Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy

From the wild grasslands of Kruger National Park to the the extraordinary pyramids of Giza, the world is ripe with wonders waiting to be explored. It’s time to share the beauty of your country by adding and updating the places you care about in ...Read More

From the wild grasslands of Kruger National Park to the the extraordinary pyramids of Giza, the world is ripe with wonders waiting to be explored. It’s time to share the beauty of your country by adding and updating the places you care about in Google Maps. We are excited to announce that Google Map Maker is now available for South Africa and Egypt.


With Google Map Maker, you can contribute your local knowledge to make a more detailed and comprehensive map of the changing world around us. Begin in your neighborhood and try adding the building footprints for all the restaurants along the beach, updating the one way street that just recently became a two-way, or mapping the local stadium before heading off to a game. Once approved, your contributions will appear on Google Maps, Google Earth and Google Maps for mobile, accurately reflecting your real-life neighborhood.

Giza Zoo near Cairo University comes to life in Google Maps.
Is your local park already on the map? You can also create the outline of the nearby lake and tennis courts, add important details about your favorite historic sites, or map the walking paths through the public gardens. Help tourists explore your town by editing road details so visitors can find their way to all the premier destinations. Join with other local mappers and use your local expertise to review one another’s contributions to the map.

Google Map Maker warmly welcomes South Africa and Egypt mappers to the team of citizen cartographers from across the globe as they continue to build the world map. We’ll continue our expansion over the next month to the following countries as well: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, New Zealand, Norway, and Switzerland.

Stay tuned for additional announcements with the Google Maps page on Google Plus, learn more on the Map Maker YouTube Channel, and get started mapping today!

Posted by Kaushik Sridharan, Software Engineer

(Cross posted from the Official Google Blog)

For the last decade we’ve obsessed over building great maps for our users—maps that are totally comprehensive (we’re shooting for literally the whole world), ever more accurate and incredibly easy to navigate.Read More

(Cross posted from the Official Google Blog)

For the last decade we’ve obsessed over building great maps for our users—maps that are totally comprehensive (we’re shooting for literally the whole world), ever more accurate and incredibly easy to navigate.

Comprehensiveness

It’s a pretty limited search engine that only draws from a subset of sources. In the same way, it’s not much of a map that leaves you stranded the moment you step off the highway or visit a new country. Over the last few years we’ve been building a comprehensive base map of the entire globe—based on public and commercial data, imagery from every level (satellite, aerial and street level) and the collective knowledge of our millions of users.

Today, we’re taking another step forward with our Street View Trekker. You’ve seen our cars, trikes, snowmobiles and trolleys—but wheels only get you so far. There’s a whole wilderness out there that is only accessible by foot. Trekker solves that problem by enabling us to photograph beautiful places such as the Grand Canyon so anyone can explore them. All the equipment fits in this one backpack, and we’ve already taken it out on the slopes.

Luc Vincent, engineering director, taking the Street View Trekker for a trial run in Tahoe

Accuracy

The next attribute map makers obsess over is accuracy. We still have a way to go because the world is constantly changing—with new houses, cities and parks appearing all the time—it’s a never ending job. But by cross-checking the data we have, we can significantly improve the accuracy of our maps. Turns out our users are as passionate about the quality of Google Maps as we are, and they give us great feedback on where we can do better. We make thousands of edits a day based on user feedback through our Report a Problem tool and via Map Maker, which we launched in 2008. Today we’re announcing the expansion of Map Maker to South Africa and Egypt, and to 10 more countries in the next few weeks: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, New Zealand, Norway and Switzerland.

Usability

The final element of the perfect map is usability. It’s hard to remember what digital maps were like before Google Maps went live in 2005, and the huge technological breakthroughs that transformed clicking on arrows and waiting, to simply dragging a map with a mouse and watching it render smoothly and quickly. Plus, we added one single search box. Today we have thousands of data sources that feed into our maps making them a rich and interactive experience on any device—from driving directions to transit and indoor maps to restaurant reviews.

People have been asking for the ability to use our maps offline on their mobile phones. So today we’re announcing that offline Google Maps for Android are coming in the next few weeks. Users will be able to take maps offline from more than 100 countries. This means that the next time you are on the subway, or don’t have a data connection, you can still use our maps.

The next dimension

An important next step in improving all of these areas—comprehensiveness, accuracy, and usability of our maps—is the ability to model the world in 3D. Since 2006, we’ve had textured 3D buildings in Google Earth, and today we are excited to announce that we will begin adding 3D models to entire metropolitan areas to Google Earth on mobile devices. This is possible thanks to a combination of our new imagery rendering techniques and computer vision that let us automatically create 3D cityscapes, complete with buildings, terrain and even landscaping, from 45-degree aerial imagery. By the end of the year we aim to have 3D coverage for metropolitan areas with a combined population of 300 million people.

I have been working on mapping technology most of my life. We’ve made more progress, more quickly as an industry than I ever imagined possible. And we expect innovation to speed-up even more over the next few years. While we may never create the perfect map … we’re going to get much, much closer than we are today.

Posted by Brian McClendon, VP of Engineering, Google Maps