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How Google creatively maps terrain too tight for cars
DigitalMost people know about the fleet of Google cars that go around filming streets. But what about the submarines and the tricycles and the backpacks? At Google I/O this week, the company showed off the collection of off-road gear it uses to map the places the cars can’t go.
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Hand-drawn maps bring Manhattan to life with old-school charm
Destinations“Maps and memories are bound together; a little as songs and love affairs are,” writes Adam Gopnik in the preface to newly-released picture book Mapping Manhattan. “The map is a stronger version of the trip than a video might be; it is almost a stronger version of the trip than the trip is. I look [...]
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The new Google Maps products are the killer travel apps
DigitalThe most popular travel app on smartphones has always been Google Maps, but today’s announcements at the Google I/O developers conference makes life even more difficult for what few mapping, planning, and local information competitors the search giant has left. Google’s updated Maps products for smartphones, tablets, and desktop improve on what’s already the best [...]
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First look at new Google Maps for desktop: Focus on personalization
DigitalA new version of Google Maps for the desktop was leaked last week showing a new look that provided a more full-screen experience while matching up to the Google Now-esque card style of other Google services. A release of this version seemed imminent, but most of us figured it would wait for a Google I/O unveiling. [...]
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Facebook may buy mapping site Waze as it seeks to know more about users
DigitalFacebook Inc., owner of the world’s most popular social-networking service, is in talks to acquire mobile-mapping application provider Waze Inc. for as much as $1 billion, two people familiar with the matter said. The talks to acquire Palo Alto, California-based Waze are not final and a deal may not happen, said the people, who asked [...]
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Mapping and traffic service Waze sees benefit in its army of users
Digital“The companies that are in this space are going find that it’s going to get harder and harder, and that they’re going to have to invest more and more, and the cost of updating your maps is going to increase,” Bardin told AllThingD’s Liz Gannes at D: Dive Into Mobile in New York today. Waze’s [...]
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Smithsonian’s new exhibit explores three centuries of travel navigation innovations
TransportIn the age of hand-held GPS devices, navigating by the stars may seem quaint and irrelevant. So it may come as a surprise that it took hundreds of years to develop the tools needed to find our way across oceans, through the air and into deep space. On Friday, the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space [...]
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Rio succeeds in pressing Google to remove the word “favela” from its maps
DestinationsGoogle has reportedly removed the word “favela” from some of its maps of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil after pressure from the city hall and tourist boards. Hundreds of the shanty-town communities sprawl over the hillsides and in undeveloped parts of the city, and were previously identified on maps using the Portuguese word favela. In [...]
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Geography is the new frontier of innovation in travel
DigitalSay hello to the new geography. It runs your GPS unit, takes you on mobile-device-guided tours, helps you find and see hotel rooms before you book them…Planet Earth lovers should prepare to be amazed by the way new geography has set about solving some of the world’s most pressing and mystifying problems, along the way [...]
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The man who created London’s landmark Tube map
TransportYou won’t find Harry Beck’s face on any coins or postage stamps, but his fingerprints are all over London. Born in 1902, Beck was an English engineering draftsman who sparked a small revolution in the early 1930s when he created a radical new map of the London Underground. His linear, color-coded diagram was at first [...]
