19
Jun
maps logo

One of the coolest features of Google Maps is the ability to show live traffic patterns on major roadways. Now, Google is rolling out this feature to seven new countries, as well as expanding coverage in 19 others. The new countries in the inner circle are Belarus, Estonia, Latvia, Mexico, Peru, Romania and South Africa. Exciting!

traffic

As users of the service are no doubt aware, having your country or city covered doesn't necessarily mean every street is covered. So, Google is expanding to include more of the roads a man must walk down. Here's the full list of expanded territories:

 

  • Australia
  • Belgium
  • Brazil
  • Denmark
  • Finland
  • France
  • Germany
  • Israel
  • Italy
  • Japan
  • Netherlands
  • New Zealand
  • Puerto Rico
  • Russia
  • Spain
  • Sweden
  • Taiwan
  • UK

All in all, it's a solid update to a valuable service.

01
Jun
image

AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson, speaking at the Sanford Bernstein Strategic Decisions conference, teased a possible solution for customers who feel beleaguered by tiered data, and who have been avoiding data-heavy services due to plan limitations.

Stephenson suggested that, as part of new "toll free" data plans, certain data-hungry services' traffic would be excluded from users' monthly data allotment, meaning that services like, for example, Netflix, could be used without eating up your entire data plan.

According to FierceWireless, Stephenson indicated that content providers have been suggesting this approach prior to today's talk:

"I think you'd be stunned if we weren't getting those phone calls.

13
Jul
maps_euro_traffic

Google Maps continues the march of progress, officially adding traffic support for 13 European countries today. Aside from the obvious benefit of being able to see traffic in Maps, Navigation will now re-route you based on traffic conditions.

maps_euro_traffic

The countries:

  • Austria
  • Belgium
  • Czech Republic
  • Denmark
  • Germany
  • Ireland
  • Israel
  • Luxembourg
  • Netherlands
  • Poland
  • Slovakia
  • Spain
  • Switzerland

The new functionality is live on Android, iOS, and in the mobile browser.

[Source: Google Mobile Blog]

07
Mar
navigation

A feature that has been long-awaited by some Android users has now been added to one of the most practical (and free) apps out there. Google has just announced on their mobile blog that their Android Navigation feature (part of the Google Maps app) is now incorporating current traffic information into the routing that it predicts for you.

A "fastest route" that only lands you in a traffic jam doesn't do you much good and this update attempts to remedy that with more of what Google likes the most: data. This from Google's mobile blog regarding the update:

"Before today, Navigation would choose whichever route was fastest, without taking current traffic conditions into account.