At the I/O developer conference that opened early this morning, Google said that the Google Maps app will receive a bunch of feature updates in the next few months. First, the detailed street maps launched in August last year will enter 50 new cities including Berlin, Sao Paulo , Seattle and Singapore by the end of this year.
These maps show the location of sidewalks, crosswalks and pedestrian islands, as well as the proportion of the shape and width of the road. This can help you choose the best route to walk. Moreover, Google Maps will become more humane, highlighting information that is important to you based on information such as the time of day and whether the user is traveling in an unfamiliar city, rather than displaying all the information on the map. For example, if you open the map at 8 a.m., you will see a coffee shop instead of a dinner place. And if you are traveling, landmarks and tourist attractions will be displayed on the map.
Secondly, Google is expanding the scope of busyness information. This feature is currently just telling you how busy it is in a specific area. But in the future, you will also get information on how busy the entire area is, such as whether a community or part of a city is busier than usual. You can simply open the map and immediately see busy hot spots you need to avoid, or vice versa - find the busiest places to get a glimpse of the lively neighborhoods.
If you're walking and exploring a new community, you'll be able to access a live view of augmented reality directly from the map - it will jump out of directions and guide. It will also give you useful details about the shops and restaurants around you, such as how hot they are, recent reviews and photos. For complex intersections, you will get useful new street signs so you can clearly know which road you are on and where to go. If you are traveling, the live view will tell you the relationship between your location and your hotel, making it easier for you to find your way back.
Finally, Google wants to reduce the phenomenon of hard brakes, that is, when you drive near a busy intersection, traffic suddenly slows down and you have to step on the brakes. These moments could be a leading indicator of the likelihood of a car crash, according to research from the Virginia Tech Institute for Transportation. So Google wants them to be the past.
So, "soon", Google Maps will reduce the chances of having to hard brake while driving through machine learning and navigation information. The app will give you the fastest route, potentially reducing your chances of encountering hard brakes. If the ETA is the same as other routes, or the difference is small, this route will be recommended. Google believes that the change has the potential to eliminate 100 million hard brake events in routes traveling using Google Maps each year.
