By Jameson Berkow Those with a poor sense of direction just got one less excuse to lose their way.
Google Maps used to just show the best route to your destination. As of Wednesday morning, it can now guide you there, turn-by-turn, with voice commands using live traffic data from GPS satellites. The beta version of Google Maps Navigation is now officially available to the owner of any smartphone running Google’s Android operating system. Except for standard carrier data rates, the service will be free of charge. The announcement comes just one day after Ford and General Motors both unveiled plans to offer Google Maps’ Navigation services as part of their in-car navigation systems. Using turn-by-turn navigation through Google Maps as opposed to a dedicated GPS device has a number of advantages. For one, the service uses the most up-to-date map data automatically, meaning no more finding a boarded-up gas station where the next turn was supposed to be. It is also light on bandwidth usage: Google claims a typical 20km trip will use only 200 kilobytes of data including live map and traffic data along with a Street View image of the final destination. Routes can also be overlaid on top of Google’s Street View or 3D Satellite View to allow users to analyze their journey from multiple vantage points. Those with phones running Android 2.0 or better can take advantage of the ‘Search by Voice’ feature, whereby users can tell their phone where they would like to go and Google Nav will automatically prepare a route. Just like with the regular Google Maps, misspelled queries will be corrected and ambiguous queries will return multiple results so users don’t have to remember the exact address of their destination (something required on the majority of dedicated GPS devices). The location-based search function of Google Maps will also be available through the Android-based navigation system. That means users will be able to find nearby restaurants, shops, gas stations, cash machines, basically anything they might need to stop for as they travel along their route. So go ahead and get lost. Google will find you again. Read more: http://business.financialpost.com/2010/06/09/fp-tech-desk-google-maps-navigation-launches-for-android/#ixzz0qMYCh4yt The National Post is now on Facebook. Join our fan community today. -- Salam, Agus Hamonangan http://groups.google.com/group/id-android http://groups.google.com/group/id-gtug Gtalk : agus.hamonangan Follow : @agushamonangan E-mail : [email protected] -- "Indonesian Android Community [id-android]" Join: http://groups.google.com/group/id-android/subscribe?hl=en-GB Moderator: [email protected] ID Android Developer: http://groups.google.com/group/id-android-dev ID Android Surabaya: http://groups.google.com/group/id-android-sby ID Android on FB: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=112207700729
