Google Maps has seen the most significant upgrades in its history, courtesy to AI: Lima may be explored with augmented reality.
In addition to the ability to walk about and examine a location in real time using the phone’s camera, the firm unveiled additional tools for searching for activities, experiences, destinations, companies, and iconic places in various cities.
Google Maps has announced the most extensive extension of its search feature with Lens (formerly known as “Search with Live View”) to over 50 additional places, including cities in Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and Peru. People may now explore and visit diverse areas in Latin America in real time using artificial intelligence and augmented reality. In addition to this launch, a number of elements that aid in the discovery of new destinations and institutions, as well as the planning of excursions, were offered.
Finding your way in a foreign environment may be difficult at times. Lens in Maps, which uses the phone camera to examine each city in life, assists people in following walking directions and easily locating symbolic spots or institutions, such as restaurants, cafés, ATMs, and companies. This feature will be accessible in the following Latin American destinations beginning today:
- Autonomous City of Buenos Aires , Argentina.
- Santiago de Chile , Chile.
- Bogota , Colombia.
- Mexico City and Monterrey , Mexico.
- Lima , Peru.
How does it function? Once the camera is engaged, the screen displays arrows, directions, and distance indicators at the top and, in certain circumstances, a tiny map at the bottom, thanks to augmented reality and artificial intelligence. People will spend less time figuring out where to go and will be able to rapidly locate sites of interest and routes.
This function is accessible on both Android and iOS smartphones. You may go to Google Maps Support to learn how to utilize it step by step.
Visual searches, subject exploration, and fresh data for electric cars
Google Maps also introduced three new capabilities that improve the platform’s search for information on destinations, places, and much more. Which one is it?
Visual Searches: This tool allows you to search for activities and experiences in a more natural and visual manner. When consumers search for “street art,” “latte art,” or “best beaches,” they’ll get a list of photo results based on an analysis of billions of photographs contributed by the Maps community, driven by Artificial Intelligence, machine learning, and powerful photo recognition models. In this approach, new sites that match exactly what each user is seeking for may be discovered. Simply scroll through the results, press a photo for additional information, and then travel to that location. This new Maps search feature will be available in France, Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States starting this week, with additional countries to follow.
Thematic results: The firm is working to improve the organization of search results. As a consequence, results will now be sorted by theme to assist you in having a better experience when browsing restaurants and other activities. For example, if a person is in Tokyo, they may search for “things to do” and suggestions for related sites such as “anime”, “cherry blossoms”, or “art exhibitions” will surface. You merely need to click on the site for further information, and you can even store the alternatives in a list to refer to them later. In the next weeks, the exercise and food-themed results will be available internationally on Android and iOS.
More information for electric car travel: New features will be provided to assist electric vehicle drivers in having a better Maps travel experience. They will now be able to see if a charger is compatible with the kind of plug in their car, when a charging station was last used, and the charging speed available at each location (rapid, medium, or slow). Additionally, using the Places API on Google Maps Platform, businesses will be able to show information about their electric car charging stations in real time. This week, these improvements will be sent out internationally on iOS and Android in 17 countries, including Spain, the United States, Japan, the United Kingdom, France, Italy, and Australia.
