Google Maps adds at-a-glance real-time transit info
Starting today it will be much easier to know how long until the 6 Train arrives at 68th Street – Hunter College. Google has added at-a-glance view of details for real-time transit.
Since 2007 Google Maps has provided real-time transit information for public services. Things get increasingly better today, however, with the expansion into two new countries and four metro areas.
Google works with more than 100 partners across the world and offers transit info on some 18,000 cities spanning six continents. To do this they employ the help of 6,000+ transit authorities.
Both the web experience and the mobile apps are expected to start offering the at-a-glance details.
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Google Maps is gaining real-time transit info in two new countries and four new metro areas
If you’ve ever missed a bus or a train, you’d know that it can make for a hectic and stressful situation. If that ever happens to you again, today’s Google Maps update might help you get through it with ease. In a new version rolling out now, Maps will display your relevant journeys, allowing you to easily see how long you’ll be waiting for the next train to arrive and what your alternate options are if you miss your bus. Check out the first image above to see what the new route summaries will look like.
Google has also announced that Maps is gaining real-time transit information in two new countries and four new metro areas. The company already works with over 100 partners to bring users this functionality, but now Google is adding more than 25 new partners to the lineup in six new places: U.K., Netherlands, Budapest, Chicago, San Francisco and Seattle. For those unfamiliar to the feature, real-time transit information allows you to see live arrival times for subways, buses and metros. It will also let you know if your route has been canceled.
All of these new features will be available to users sometime later today. Do you use Google Maps? If not, what navigation app do you use? Let us know in the comments!
Google’s big push for app ubiquity begins this fall
Google may have just wrapped up I/O 2015, but it looks like the company already has another developer-focused conference in the works. This fall in San Francisco, Google will host a Ubiquitous Computing Summit that will focus on making it simpler to bring software to different form factors and devices. The conference will also place emphasis on making software more contextually aware, and reducing the amount of duplication across different platforms to make it much easier on developers.
According to SlashGear, Google developer advocate Timothy Jordan says that the summit will focus on building apps that understand the context in which they’re being used, whether that means where, when or how. At Google I/O, Jordan explained that WhatsApp is a great example, giving users the ability to pick up active conversations whether they’re on an Android phone, Android Wear smartwatch, an Android tablet or in a vehicle with Android Auto installed. Jordan explains that the idea is to build software in which the only aspect that changes is the user interface, not the overall functionality of the software.
Making software that works across multiple platforms affects every party involved.
This is certainly not a new concept for Google, as the company has been talking about app ubiquity for years now. Making software that works across multiple different platforms with ease ultimately affects every party involved. Google is trying to say that developers don’t have to go back to square one every time they develop for a new form factor, and that in turn makes for a more simple, unified experience for users.
Google isn’t the only major company pushing app ubiquity, though. Microsoft has been ramping up its efforts to bring its own applications to many different form factors, especially with the recent unveiling of Windows 10. Microsoft’s new software can run on computers, tablets, smartphones, and even the Xbox One. The company is accomplishing this by urging developers to write apps with the same underlying code while only making adjustments for input options and various screen sizes.
Microsoft’s recent efforts on this subject seem promising, though no company has really been able to deliver quite yet. A date still hasn’t been set for Google’s big Ubiquitous Computing Summit, but we’ll be sure to let you know when more details surface. Folks interested in learning more about the summit can follow the source link below to receive updates as they come about.
Google Maps real-time transit info is now available in more places
Public transportation info has been in Google Maps for quite some time, but today the feature is seeing some handy improvements. First, when you select a transit option in the app, you’re served a a list of options that will not only show you the next bus or train, but how long you’ll be playing Candy Crush if you miss it alongside some alternative options. The details are updated in real time and you can expect to leverage the tool in more places, too. Google added partners to the list in six new locales: UK, Netherlands, Budapest, Chicago, San Francisco and Seattle. While public transit info was available for those spots, you can now access real-time info as well. The folks in Mountain View say today’s news brings schedules for over 2.5 million stations, stops, terminals and more worldwide. Heck, you’ll even be able to see when your train leaves on your wrist.
Filed under: Internet, Software, Mobile
Source: Google
Google hopes to count the calories in your food photos
Be careful about snapping pictures of your obscenely tasty meals — one day, your phone might judge you for them. Google recently took the wraps off Im2Calories, a research project that uses deep learning algorithms to count the calories in food photos. The software spots the individual items on your plate and creates a final tally based on the calorie info available for those dishes. If it doesn’t properly guess what you’re eating, you can correct it yourself and improve the system over time. Ideally, Google will also draw from the collective wisdom of foodies to create a truly smart dietary tool — enough experience and it could give you a solid estimate of how much energy you’ll have to burn off at the gym.
This isn’t going to lead to a practical product in the short term. Google only just filed for a patent on Im2Calories’ underlying technology and has no immediate release plans, so you can post dessert photos to Instagram with relatively little guilt. Eventually, though, it could be a staple feature of health apps that help you balance your food habits with your activity levels. And the potential doesn’t stop there, either. While food is the “killer app,” the image recognition code could also apply to traffic prediction and anything else where a series of photos can provide a wealth of data.
[Image credit: Ana Arevalo/AFP/Getty Images]
Filed under: Internet, Software, Google
Via: CNET, The Guardian
Source: Popular Science
Google sending gifts to Project Fi subscribers who order Nexus 6
Google appears to have decided to reward consumers who chose to jump in on Project Fi and purchased a Nexus 6 from the company in the process. Some new reports from users receiving their new smartphones from Google indicate the company is including a case, a pair of earbuds with a splitter, and a 6,000 mAh external battery.
A thread about the free gifts on Reddit reveals not all Nexus 6 buyers are receiving the free gifts even though they too signed up for Project Fi, so it is not clear how Google is picking who gets the gifts and who does not. Thus far though, no users who just purchased a SIM card to go in a Nexus 6 purchased elsewhere for use on Project Fi have received anything extra. One user claims Google support confirmed they were sending out the gifts but would not reveal any details about how long the promotion may last or how many users have been selected.
For now at least, the Nexus 6 is the only device that will work on Project Fi. Subscribers have two choices for securing their hardware – order it through Google when they sign up for service or buy the smartphone somewhere else and get a SIM card from Google to install.
source: Reddit/Imgur
via: AndroidPolice
Come comment on this article: Google sending gifts to Project Fi subscribers who order Nexus 6
YouTube wants to be your one-stop shop for live E3 game videos
If you’ve ever followed the Electronic Entertainment Expo (aka E3) closely, you know that there are a lot of events taking place in a short space of time: press conferences, live booth presentations and legions of game premieres. How in the world are you supposed to watch it all? We’ll be on the ground, of course, but YouTube wants to help as well. It’s launching an E3 2015 hub that will stream “all” the big press conferences (such as Microsoft, Sony, EA and Ubisoft), the Nintendo World Championships, loads of booth events and first-time “let’s play” sessions. YouTube might not have the same lock on live game steaming that Twitch does, but it could get a lot of your attention when E3 kicks off in mid-June.
[Image credit: AP Photo/Jae C. Hong]
Filed under: Gaming, Internet, Sony, Microsoft, Google, Nintendo
Source: YouTube Official Blog
Google Calendar SMS notifications getting phased out June 27
Google has announced, starting on June 27, that it will be getting rid of its SMS notifications for the company’s Calendar services.
Normally, whenever there were changes to your schedule, Google’s Calendar service would you send a message via SMS to let you know. However, now that smartphones are so common and easy to buy–many you can get for under $100–using the Calendar app on Android or iOS is so much easier and far more popular. That said, Google will be ushering out its SMS service for Calendar notifications on June 27.
Read more: Best Calendar apps for Android
Here’s the full announcement:
Important: SMS notifications not available after June 27th
Starting on June 27th, 2015, SMS notifications from Google Calendar will no longer be sent. SMS notifications launched before smartphones were available. Now, in a world with smartphones and notifications, you can get richer, more reliable experiences on your mobile device, even offline.
To receive notifications on your smartphone, you can use the calendar app that came with your device, or install Google Calendar for Android or iPhone. Learn more about notifications.
Note: This change will not affect Google Apps for Work, Education and Government customers.
In other words, Google recommends just using the Calendar app on Android or iOS, and the app itself will send you notifications to your notification panel, providing you with far more detail than the SMS message would. One benefit to using the app over the SMS services is that the app is not reliant on having Internet connectivity to push you notifications.
Google’s message is clear–technology is moving forward, and if you don’t adapt, you’ll be left behind.
source: Google
via: Android Police
Come comment on this article: Google Calendar SMS notifications getting phased out June 27
More than half of Android devices use Jelly Bean or KitKat
Google’s big developer conference is done for another year, which means that the company is ready to dish out some hot statistics regarding the state of Android’s union. Thankfully, the search engine can boast that Gingerbread no longer runs on a substantial portion of its devices, since it’s only running on 5.6 percent of all hardware. In fact, more than half of the ecosystem now runs Jelly Bean or KitKat, with Ice Cream Sandwich similarly dumped into the footnotes. The company also dug into the figures to reveal that almost half of all Android devices have a screen with a resolution of 240dpi, with only 20 percent of users rocking a weaker display. The TL;DR version of all that is simple: Google’s finally escaping its past, and almost everyone is rocking a device that won’t embarrass you in the playground/office/golf club.
Filed under: Cellphones, Tablets, Internet, Google
Source: Google
Nintendo’s next console won’t run Android after all
Aside from its codename, we know little about Nintendo’s in-development “NX” console. Yesterday, however, Japanese publication Nikkei claimed to have hit upon a particularly juicy detail about the next-gen gaming system, with its sources stating the NX will run some form of Google’s Android OS. The rumor wasn’t exactly far-fetched, given Nintendo’s plans to get into mobile games this year; but alas, it appears to have been a blast of hot air. Today, a Nintendo spokesperson’s commented on the hearsay — or rather, shot it down in flames — declaring “There is no truth to the report saying that we are planning to adopt Android for NX.” Denials don’t get much clearer than that, but hopefully whatever platform Nintendo’s outfitting the NX with will be less Wii U, more 200cc.
Filed under: Gaming, Software, HD, Google
Source: Wall Street Journal
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