Google Maps has made navigating unfamiliar cities on foot much easier than the days of pulling out a paper map — but it’s not perfect. The blue dot that s…
Google Maps has made navigating unfamiliar cities on foot much easier than the days of pulling out a paper map — but it’s not perfect. The blue dot that signifies where you are standing can vary wildly from your actual position because GPS is blocked by large buildings and your phone’s compass is being thrown off by all the metal surrounding us in urban environments. Google thinks it has a solution: AR.
Today, the search giant unveiled its newest pilot: an AR system it’s calling “global localization” for on-foot navigation. The system ( which was shown off at I/O last year) helps orientate and locate your exact position when GPS has fallen short by combining VPS (Visual Positioning Service), Google’s Street View and machine learning.
