Hasta La Gadget!

Everyone knows that Google prides itself on mapping accuracy. If you hadn’t checked beyond the base maps in the past few years, though, you’d have thought the terrain was charted in the “here be dragons” era — it’s been as flat as a board. Take a second look today. Google has overhauled Google Maps worldwide to show hills, deserts and lush zones by default, as well as label the geographical features that hadn’t previously been identifiable in a sea of white. The map overhaul isn’t so nuanced enough as to remind us how steep the hills can be in San Francisco, but it will remind us that Gobi refers to more than just a chipset.

Filed under: GPS, Internet, Google

Google Maps adds natural terrain by default outside of satellite views, reminds us the world isn’t flat originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 26 Oct 2012 17:02:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Nokia has joined in the maps attention-seeking, highlighting its own camera-toting efforts to 3D visualize locations, just as Google Maps has done with Street View. NAVTEQ True, as Nokia calls its system, combines 360-degree LIDAR with the awesome power of lasers to map out 1.3m 3D data points each second, panoramic cameras, and military-grade positioning systems.

Those positioning systems don’t only rely on GPS for location, but Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) sensors to track speed, orientation, and the effect of gravity, so as to get an even more granular fix on where the teams are. Nokia dispatches them both in cars and on foot – though it’s not clear whether NAVTEQ has visited the Grand Canyon yet – with panoramic cameras (that link 360-degree images to the corresponding position in LIDAR 3D models) and automated high-res multi-view cameras to cut out the amount of user-processing required.

‘For instance, in one single day, we might collect 12 million signage images, two million panoramic images, a trillion LIDAR points, and 65 million million (65,000,000,000,000!) colour pixels” Nokia

The results are all funneled into apps like Nokia City Lens and Nokia Maps, which will be increasingly important in Windows Phone 8. It remains to be seen whether Apple, which ousted Google Maps from iOS in favor of its own navigation application, will turn to NAVTEQ to license the 3D graphics, as Oracle and others have done.

NAVTEQ was one of the few highlights of Nokia’s recent financial results announcement, with licensing of the navigation system to third-party clients looking a little more successful than sales of Lumia Windows Phones. Net sales were down for the Location & Commerce division, as was operating profit, but if you exclude the one-time costs incurred during the three month period, Nokia actually made a little profit on the group.

Nokia: Hey, we do fancy maps too, not just Google! is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Google Maps can be said to be one of the more comprehensive mapping apps to date regardless of platform, and works best on a computer with the inclusion of Street View that allows you to check out panoramic views of different places worldwide, ranging from the Swiss Alps to the Amazon to Antarctica, in addition to a slew of urban cities, university campuses, ancient ruins and ski resorts among others. This time around, the Google Maps team decided to make Street View more complete by traversing the Grand Canyon with Trekker, the backpack camera which is able to capture 360-degree images.

The Trekker is operator controlled using an Android-powered smartphone, where it will automatically snap photos as one walks, allowing one to gather high-quality imagery from places which can only be accessed by foot. Expect images from the South Rim at Grand Canyon National Park to be up for public viewing in due time.

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Google brings panoramic imagery to Street View for Antarctica, Google improves Street View in California, brings panoramic views to five national parks,

Google has taken to the Grand Canyon with unwieldy backpacks to gather Street View photography, continuing its expansion of Google Maps and cocking a further snook at Apple’s upstart iOS rival app. The Street View team is sporting Trekker backpacks, Google writes, complete with bulbous 360-degree cameras that can gather imagery from all angles simultaneously.

Trekker is controlled via an Android smartphone but is generally autonomous, snapping shots as the wearer wanders around. Although Google’s Street View photography cars have become a more frequent sighting on roads – Google added 250,000 more miles of coverage earlier this month, for instance – the backpack system is slower but allows for terrain not usually accessible to be recorded.

According to Google, sections of the South Rim – including the ridge, Bright Angel Trail, South Kaibab Trail, and other locations – are all being mapped out. It’s not clear how many Trekker cameras the team has taken with it, though there are at least three being used.

Photography from the excursion will be added “soon” Google says, and of course even with Apple replacing Google Maps on iOS with its own Apple Maps, users of iPhones, iPads, and other iOS hardware will be able to access Street View in the browser. While you’re waiting, you could always take a Street View tour through one of Google’s data centers, where all that photography will soon be residing.

Google Street View maps the Grand Canyon with camera-backpacks is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

The fine, well labeled lines of Google Maps may show a clean layout of your neighborhood, but without buildings, it looks too much like a two-dimensional spread of undeveloped tract housing. Google’s finally filling in the gaps, outlining 25 million building footprints in cities all across the United States. Residents of Los Angeles, Chicago, Miami, Houston, Detroit and other cities can now see the familiar outlines of their local stomping ground on the services’ mobile and desktop maps. Most of these buildings were algorithmically generated from aerial photographs,locals can pen in their own content by using Google Map Maker to add new buildings or tag their favorite local eatery. The tweak sounds minor, but it certainly makes the standard map’s criss-cross of roads look more familiar. Check out the official Google Lat Long blog below for more details.

Filed under: Software, Google

Google draws 25 million new building footprints in Maps, shapes up your neighborhood originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 19 Oct 2012 08:03:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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