Google announced a bunch of new regional features for Google Maps at its Building for India event in New Delhi on Thursday. The search engine giant is bringing improvements to Google Maps Street View, introducing live view walking, Lens in Maps, and more. Maps will also get enhancements for train travel and public transport in the country, with the Where Is My Train feature adding support for Mumbai and Kolkata local trains in the app. The new Google Maps features are coming to Android first, with iOS release set to arrive in the coming months.
Google Maps showcased India-specific features like Live view walking, Lens in Maps, fuel efficient routing, address descriptors, local trains support, among others, at the Building for India event. With the new updates, Google aims to develop richer and more comprehensive map for India that is more visual and immersive and caters to the country’s diverse mobility needs.
According to Google, Live view walking navigation is coming to 3,000 cities in the country, starting first with Android devices, with iOS support coming later down the line. The Lens in Maps feature, which will add Google Lens support in the application to help it utilise the phone camera for local information, is set to arrive by January 2024, Google said.
Fuel efficient routing, which brings more eco-friendly routes to Maps, will also be added to Google Maps in India. According to Google a green leaf symbol will show up on fuel efficient routing in Maps, making it distinct from regular navigation. The feature is set to arrive in January 2024 and will be available in over 20 cities.
The Where Is My Train feature, which allows for live tracking of trains, will add support for Mumbai local trains soon. Local trains support for Kolkata is next in line. Additionally, Maps will also get address descriptors in early 2024.
Back in October, Google rolled out “Immersive View for routes” and a few other AI features to Google Maps. The Immersive View for routes feature will let users preview their route step-by-step while driving, walking, or cycling. The feature has started rolling out in select cities like Amsterdam, Barcelona, Dublin, Florence, Las Vegas, London, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Paris, San Francisco, San Jose, Seattle, Tokyo, and Venice this week on both Android and iOS,
Google I/O 2023 saw the search giant repeatedly tell us that it cares about AI, alongside the launch of its first foldable phone and Pixel-branded tablet. This year, the company is going to supercharge its apps, services, and Android operating system with AI technology. We discuss this and more on Orbital, the Gadgets 360 podcast. Orbital is available on Spotify, Gaana, JioSaavn, Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music and wherever you get your podcasts.
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