Introducing “Views” - A new way to contribute your 360° photo spheres to Google Maps

Wherever life’s adventures may take us, our photos help us remember and share the places we care about. When photos are added to a map, whether they’re from your camera or through Street View, they record unique experiences that collectively create the story of a place and what it looked like at a particular moment in time.

Today, we are launching a new community site called Views that makes it easy for people to publicly share their photos of places by contributing photo spheres to Google Maps (photo spheres are 360º panoramas that can be easily be created with your Android phone).

Below is a screenshot of the new Google Maps for desktop, showing a photo sphere that I shared one morning in Hawaii while my wife and I walked along the beach near our old neighborhood. The thumbnails at the bottom show our comprehensive photo coverage, with each image accurately placed on the map.

A photo sphere in the new Google Maps. Can you feel the sand between your toes?

Photo spheres can be created with the camera in Android 4.2 or higher, including most Nexus devices and the new Nexus 7 tablet. This short video will show you how to get started. You can also share panoramas you’ve created with your DSLR camera (learn more on our help center).

To upload 360º photo spheres, just sign into the Views site with your Google+ profile and click the blue camera button on the top right of the page. This will enable you to import your existing photo spheres from your Google+ photos. You can also upload 360º photo spheres to Views from the Gallery in Android by tapping “Share” and then selecting Google Maps.

Below you can see my Views page, which is filled with photo spheres and descriptions about my experiences in the places I’ve visited. I created these during my travels, including day trips and hikes around the San Francisco bay area, as well as far away adventures to Hawaii, Sydney, Beijing, and Paris. Sometimes I also share photo spheres around the Google campus in Mountain View. You can explore them all on this map.

Screenshot of my Views page

Since Views also incorporates the Street View Gallery, you can check out incredible panoramas of our most popular Street View collections, from the Grand Canyon to the Swiss Alps. Just click on “Explore” at the top of the Views site to browse a map of these special collections right alongside community-contributed photo spheres.

So, when you’re on your next adventure, don’t forget your camera and your Android phone to create and share some photo spheres of places that inspire you... we can’t wait to see them!

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Posted by Evan Rapoport, Product Manager, Google Maps & Photo Sphere

On top of Mt. Fuji with the Street View Trekker

Back in June UNESCO granted Japan’s tallest mountain Mt. Fuji official status as a World Heritage Site — not just for its natural splendor or spiritual significance but also for its enduring influence on Japanese culture. The currently dormant volcano has inspired countless haiku and woodblock prints over many centuries, and around the world, its perfect conical shape has become one of Japan’s most iconic symbols.

This newly elevated status from UNESCO is likely to send a record number of climbers to Mt. Fuji during the summer’s official climbing season. To help them prepare for the grueling trek over loose igneous rock, we hauled the Street View Trekker up all 3,776 meters of Mt. Fuji, and today we are launching the resulting 360-degree panoramic imagery. The Street View collection covers the highly popular Yoshida trail that takes hikers up the mountain, the full walk around the crater at the top, and the quick zigzag descent. We hope these 14,000 panos of new imagery will give climbers a sense of the terrain to expect under their feet — especially all the night-time climbers who shuffle up in the dark to see the sunrise at the crack of dawn.

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If you can’t get over to Mt. Fuji this summer for the big hike, you can use Street View to take a virtual trek up its peak and enjoy the views of the world below. And after conquering the mountain on your virtual vacation, we also recommend taking a peek at other UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Japan such as Himeji Castle, the old village at Shirakawa-go, the floating Itsukushima shrine, the pine forests of Yakushima, the subtropical Ogasawara Islands, and the Hiroshima Peace Memorial.

Posted by Setsuo Murai, Head of Geo Partnerships, Google Japan

Where are we going to eat? See inside before you decide!

“Where are we going to eat?” Google Maps can make your decision easier by helping you preview, browse and navigate your way to a restaurant that suits your appetite.

Let’s say you’re in New York City, home to over 25,000 restaurants, just before the start of NYC Restaurant Week (TM) (July 22 - August 16). You can quickly narrow down the choices by picking from a list of eateries participating in their summer’s Restaurant Week.

Google Maps lets you see the interiors of more than 50% of participating restaurants with Business Photos, so that you can make sure you’re choosing the right setting for your meal out. Street View allows you to take a closer look at the exterior of any destination, and even virtually stroll through the surrounding neighborhood.

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Preview and See Inside Fig and Olive

Get a preview from your phone or tablet (Featured: Cipriani Dolci & Maialino)

For more specialized suggestions, you can rely on Zagat lists, ratings and reviews, which can also be found in Google Maps. Zagat–the trusted authority for exceptional experiences—offers reviews and ratings for food, decor and service, to help you find the perfect spot every time. Or you can continue to browse and discover new places to eat and drink with our Explore feature.

Hungry for more? Find us on the NYC Restaurant Week website to explore more with Google Maps. If you still can’t decide on which participating restaurant to dine at, we offer this advice: follow your gut. That, and use Google Maps to keep up with the adventure your palate is about to embark on.

Preview and make a reservation at Aldea on NYC Restaurant Week

Happy eating!

Posted by Evelyn Chang, Google Maps Summer Intern and NYC Foodie

The new Google Maps app for iPhone and iPad is here

Last week we launched the new Google Maps app for Android smartphones and tablets.

And now, we’re rolling out the brand new Google Maps experience for iPhone and iPad that includes enhanced search and navigation features, as well as our first dedicated iPad mapping experience. With your new Google Maps app for iPhone and iPad, you’ll find it even easier to explore new places, discover local favorites, and navigate your world. Download it now.

Highlights include:

Optimized iPad experience: A dedicated tablet design brings all the features of Google Maps, including Street View, to a larger screen, which makes exploring the world from the comfort of your living room engaging and fun. Go from the Colosseum to your local pizza joint in just a few taps.

Enhanced Navigation: When you’re stuck in traffic and wondering what the holdup is, use Google Maps on your iPhone to get live incident reports on road closures, construction, accidents, and more. And as always, you’ve got voice guided, turn-by-turn navigation, and live traffic conditions right on the map. If you prefer public transportation, Google Maps has schedule information for more than one million public transit stops around the world.

Biking directions and navigation: For you bike enthusiasts out there, get turn-by-turn directions and voice guided navigation for more than 330,000 miles of trails, paths, and bike lanes around the world. So put on your spandex and start pedaling!

Explore: Not sure what you’re looking for? Explore is a fast and easy way to visually browse and discover new places without typing a single letter. Simply tap the search box and you’ll see cards showing great local places to eat, drink, shop, play, and sleep.

Reviews, Zagat and Offers: There’s a new 5.0 star rating system that gives you a quick read on how your friends and others rate places like restaurants, bars, and cafes. For an expert’s opinion, the Zagat badge of excellence and curated lists are integrated into search results so you can quickly spot the very best places. And finally, the new Google Maps app is a great way to discover valuable Offers from national brands, like Michael's and BJ’s Restaurant and Brewhouse, right on the map.

We hope you enjoy the new app! Please visit the App Store today to download the new Google Maps for iPhone and iPad. And if you have an Android phone or tablet, the new app is gradually rolling out in Google Play over the next few weeks.

Posted by Daniel Graf, Director, Google Maps

*Please note some of the features mentioned in this post aren’t available in all countries.

Growing our Map Maker community in Europe

Exploration is at the heart of the summer season, and what better way to take part than sharing your knowledge on the places you love on Google Maps? Today, Google Map Maker is diving into summertime by welcoming mappers of Czech Republic, Hungary, Sweden, and Bosnia and Herzegovina to our ever-growing team of citizen cartographers in our quest to map the world.

With Google Map Maker, you can contribute your local knowledge to make a more useful and comprehensive map of the changing world around us. Begin in your neighborhood and try adding the building footprints for local shops and restaurants. Then, embrace your inner traveler and enrich the maps of national parks and historic landmarks. If you’ve got the itch for adventure, try adding campgrounds, beaches or your favorite hiking trails.

Jajići, Bosnia and Herzegovina was a blank space on the map before citizen cartographers put it on the map.

Whether it’s a cycling route through Budapest or a cafe alongside Prague’s Vltava River, each improvement to the map will help locals and tourists alike as they navigate your neighborhood this summer. Once approved, your contributions will appear on Google Maps, Google Earth and Google Maps for mobile.

To get started, join other mappers on the Google Map Maker community forum, explore the Help Center for tips and tricks, or watch mapping in real-time with Map Maker Pulse. Now, from the Heart Shaped Land, through Central Europe, to Swedish Lapland, you can help Google Maps to embody the rich culture and spirit unique to your homeland - starting today!

Posted by Kaushik Sridharan, Software Engineer

Scaling the heights of the Eiffel Tower

Since its construction in 1889, more than 250 million people have visited Paris’ iconic Eiffel Tower. The highest monument in the world for more than 40 years (today that title is held by Burj Khalifa in Dubai), the Eiffel Tower remains the most visited monument globally. But not everyone has been or can hope to go—until now. If you’ve ever wondered what the view is like from above the City of Light or wanted to learn more about the Tower’s history, now’s your chance to find out.

The Google Cultural Institute and the Eiffel Tower Operating Company have teamed up to create three immersive online exhibitions which blend fascinating historical material with a sprinkling of technological magic. In order to capture the imagery, the Street View team followed in the footsteps of 7 million annual visitors and ascended multiple floors of the Tower. Using the Street View Trolley (designed especially for monuments and museums) they filmed 360-degree views of the monument’s architecture and its views over Paris.

These modern-day Street View panoramas sit alongside nearly 50 archival images, plans, engravings and photos telling the story of the Eiffel Tower’s development and social impact in the 19th century. Some of the archive material is quite rare and precious such as a recording of Gustave Eiffel’s voice by Thomas Edison.

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The first exhibition presents the birth of the Eiffel Tower from the initial idea until its realization. You can then follow the construction of the monument step-by-step through photos and sketches. Details on the inauguration and the first visitors lie in the third exhibition, with photos of people admiring the Paris vista on the opening day leading into today’s Street View imagery from the top floor. Did you know that during the Tower’s inauguration for the Universal Exhibition of 1889, the elevators were not yet in service but 12,000 people per day rushed to climb the 1710 steps leading to the top?

As a product manager and designer, it’s been awe-inspiring to get to see the spectacular vision and the detailed architectural capabilities exemplified by the plans more than 100 years ago. It required tremendous knowledge of special planning and physics to ensure that 18,000 separately made pieces would come together as one. So if you’ve never visited the Eiffel Tower before, want to get insider knowledge or simply want to re-discover it in a new way, visit our site and immerse yourself in one of the most well-known attractions on the planet.

Posted by Mark Yoshitake, Head of Product & User Experience, Google Cultural Institute

A new Google Maps app for smartphone and tablets

Today we’re introducing a new Google Maps app for Android smartphones and tablets, also coming soon to iPhone and iPad. It’s a new mapping experience that makes exploring the world and getting to the places that matter to you a lot faster and easier. The app is gradually rolling out globally in Google Play and will be available soon in the App Store.

The new Google Maps for mobile builds on the design we released for iPhone last December and improves on it with a few useful search and navigation features. And it's the first dedicated app for Android tablets and iPads. We’re also retiring Latitude and are making some changes to offline and My Maps which we’ll explain in more detail below.

First, here are a few highlights that make this release stand out:

Explore: Explore is a fast and easy way to visually browse and discover new places without even typing. Simply tap the search box and you’ll see cards showing great places to eat, drink, sleep and shop.

Enhanced navigation: In addition to current traffic conditions, we’ve added two new features to help you navigate around traffic. You can now see reports of problems on the road that you can tap to see incident details. While on the road, Google Maps will also alert you if a better route becomes available and reroute you to your destination faster. This feature is available only on Android and is coming soon to iOS.

Designed for tablets: A dedicated tablet design brings all the features of this new app to Android tablets and iPads, which makes exploring the world from the comfort of your living room much more fluid, smooth and fun.

Reviews, Zagat and Offers: There’s a new 5.0 star rating system that gives you a quick read on how your friends and others rate places like restaurants, bars and cafes. For an expert’s opinion, the Zagat badge of excellence and curated lists are integrated into search results so you can quickly spot the very best places. From “Best Restaurants to meet for a drink in NYC” to “Best Restaurants in the Mission” in San Francisco, Zagat’s there to help you uncover the local gems.

And finally, Google Maps for mobile is a great way to discover valuable Offers from national brands like Macy's, Michael's and Toys "R" Us, labeled right on the map. All these features can make it a lot easier to navigate the world, no matter what adventure comes your way.

One important change you should know about is that Latitude and check-ins are no longer part of the new Google Maps app, and will be retired from older versions on August 9. We understand some of you still want to see your friends and family on a map, which is why we've added location sharing and check-ins to Google+ for Android (coming soon to iOS). More details about Latitude and check-in changes can be found in our help center.

The offline maps feature for Android is also no longer available. Instead we’ve created a new way for you to access maps offline by simply entering “OK Maps” into the search box when viewing the area you want for later. Finally, My Maps functionality is not supported in this release but will return to future versions of the app. People who want to create powerful custom maps can still do so with Maps Engine Lite on desktop.

Helping you find great places is what we love to do. And as more of us use mobile phones and tablets in our daily lives, information that’s useful to you isn't just about what you need, but also where you might find it. Today’s update is an exciting step forward for Google’s maps—one that we hope will make it faster and easier for you to explore and discover places you want to go.

Posted by Daniel Graf, Director, Google Maps

*The new Google Maps for mobile is compatible with Ice Cream Sandwich and Jelly Bean Android devices and iOS 6+ when available. Please note some of the features mentioned in this post aren’t available in all countries.

A New Look at Jefferson’s Mountaintop

Editor’s Note: Today’s guest author is Leslie Greene Bowman, President & CEO of the Thomas Jefferson Foundation. The Foundation was incorporated in 1923 to preserve Monticello, the home of Thomas Jefferson, in Charlottesville, Virginia. Street View images of Monticello’s grounds and some building interiors are now available on Google Maps.

“when I contemplate the immense advances in science and discoveries in the arts which have been made within the period of my life, I look forward with confidence to equal advances by the present generation, and have no doubt they will consequently be as much wiser than we have been as we than our fathers were, and they than the burners of witches.” –Thomas Jefferson, 1818

Thomas Jefferson would have loved knowing that in 200 years, his architectural masterpiece would be explored by a cutting-edge technology and seen by people all over the world on Google Maps. His legacy as a founding father is well-celebrated in the course of American history, of course – but Jefferson was also an innovator, always trying new things and exploring new possibilities to make a better world.

The spirit of Jefferson’s innovation and insatiable curiosity to learn more about the world still resonates with us today as we continue to push boundaries and implement new technologies. It’s no question that Jefferson, one of the country’s foremost visionaries in science and technology who was also fascinated by cartography and owned hundreds of maps, would surely have spent weeks on end exploring every corner of our planet through Google Maps. That Google Maps is the most accurate map of the planet and is available to the entire world, for free, would surely make him smile. We’re all inspired by seeing new parts of the world and trying new things – two things that Jefferson was very passionate about. Google Maps’ Street View brings out the explorer in all of us.

Naturally, we’re thrilled to have both the exteriors and interiors of Monticello now available through the Street View of Google Maps, which makes it possible for people around the world to explore the house where Jefferson lived and experimented.

A few highlights to point out while you tour the grounds and house include:

Monticello’s Hall, which doubled as a waiting room for Jefferson’s guests and a museum of American natural history, western civilization and American Indian cultures. The room’s most interesting features include numerous maps, paintings, and natural history specimens, the double-acting glass doors to the Parlor that open together when either side is moved, and the Great Clock, which was designed by Jefferson.

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Monticello’s Hall

The Dining Room, where Jefferson entertained many guests. Notice something different? In 2010, Monticello removed the famous, but incorrect Wedgwood blue wall color and reinstated a vibrant Chrome Yellow after restoration experts found evidence of the original shade through paint analysis. This bright room features one of Monticello’s thirteen skylights and double-pocket doors on rollers that separate the Dining Room from the Tea Room.

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Monticello’s Dining Room

The Cabinet, Jefferson’s study, served as his personal “laboratory” where he thought about ways to improve everyday life.  With his scientific apparatus, he observed the world around him. Look for his scientific instruments, the revolving chair, a table with a revolving top, a revolving bookstand and his polygraph, a machine for copying letters.

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Monticello’s Cabinet, Jefferson’s Study

As Americans from coast to coast take pause to celebrate our nation’s liberties and heritage this Independence Day, we’ll also remember those from whom we’ve inherited this great nation. Jefferson would have loved to see how his innovative spirit is being showcased to viewers around the world – in places he didn’t even know existed – today.

For those who cannot make it to the mountaintop in person, and for those who want to relive their memories of time spent here, we welcome you inside Jefferson’s home – please explore. Visitor information for Monticello can be found here.

Also, Thomas Jefferson founded the University of Virginia in 1819, which he considered to be one of his greatest life achievements. So today, Google is also publishing updated Street View panoramas of the walking paths and roads around Mr. Jefferson’s beloved University. Highlights include the famous Rotunda, and other sites around central Grounds, as well as the surrounding Charlottesville area.

Posted by Leslie Greene Bowman, President & CEO of the Thomas Jefferson Foundation