The “almost every region worldwide” bit is what caught Google’s attention, as the company wants to make Street View available to as many people as possible. This is why the latest Street View update brings the feature to nearly 80 countries.
Google says it’s launching Street View for the first time in Liechtenstein and Paraguay, while countries like Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Costa Rica, France, and others will get expanded imagery covering most of the country.
The other big update announced by the search giant concerns the quality of the satellite imagery that you see when browsing the world from Google Maps.
As you know already, satellite imagery allows you to fly over any region and explore the world in incredible detail. Google Maps lets you zoom in and admire the world in all its beauty, and the company wants to make the data available for users as clear and sharp as possible.
This is why the search company turned to its Cloud Score+ AI engine to improve the quality of the images available in satellite view. Google says the satellite content should no longer include clouds, cloud shadows, haze, and mist, so the things you see in satellite mode on Google Maps and Google Earth should be clearer. Google says the images will also be sharper, and the AI model won’t affect details that are extremely valuable for the accuracy of an image, such as snow, shadows, and weather.
All these goodies are now available for users worldwide, so the data should be significantly more refined the next time you launch Street View and the satellite layer in Google Maps.
Google has become more committed to improving the experience with Google Maps on almost every front. The application has recently received long overdue updates, including a speedometer on CarPlay, incident reporting on Android Auto and CarPlay, and smaller refinements to improve navigation.
Google Maps is becoming more like Waze, but this doesn’t mean it’ll also replace the app. Google Maps and Waze will remain separate applications, especially as the latter retains its traffic navigation focus with a special affinity for traffic reports and data that makes the road more predictable. Waze has also been improved with more report types, including notifications for speed bumps, merging lanes, decreasing slower limits, and other warnings to make every second behind the wheel safer, regardless of the mobile platform you use.