Google is strengthening AI features in maps and photos

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This year’s Google IO is all about artificial intelligence. This is reflected in the feature set of many apps, above all Google Maps and Photos.

Google Maps and Photos receive hundreds of small and a number of large improvements that would be inconceivable without Google’s new AI models. In Maps, the Californians are implementing an expanded AR concept that comes very close to the utopias of modern AR glasses.

Navigation by car should become safer. For this purpose, Maps now takes into account routes in route planning on which emergency braking is particularly frequent, and sorts them out if the alternative route does not take much longer. The ML training runs continuously and continuously improves route planning.

Live View isn’t new. The AR view for pedestrians has been used for a year to navigate from A to B in supported cities. Now Live View can do more.

In the future, you will be able to access Live View directly from the map and display helpful details about the shops and restaurants in your area, including visitor frequency, current reviews and photos. Virtual street signs should provide a better overview at complex intersections. Tourists always see directly where their hotel is so that they can always find their way back to the starting point of their tour.

The road maps themselves are also becoming more detailed. By the end of the year, 50 more cities – including Berlin – should be able to offer more map information. This includes information on where sidewalks, zebra crossings and pedestrian islands are. Likewise, the shape and width of a street should be displayed true to scale. Pedestrians with prams or wheelchairs in particular may need this additional data.

Instead of just showing the liveliness of individual places, as is already possible with Maps, the app should also be able to show the liveliness of entire city districts in the future. This makes it easier to plan trips to sights.

With the increasing data density in the Google maps, their clarity decreases. That’s why the manufacturer brings the context into play. If you look at the map at around eight in the morning, Maps shows you breakfast cafés, but not the restaurants that open later. Maps reduces the amount of information so that an overview is always given. The app also knows whether you are traveling and in this case highlights any sights.

The staggering four trillion photos are stored in Google Photos. So many that most of them will never be looked at again. This is mainly because the sheer volume makes it difficult for us to find meaningful memories in the tangle of images.

So far, Google Photos has suggested “this day five years ago” or the “trip to Tenerife” with the reminders function. Now the function gets even better. On the one hand, she can now use significant days as an anchor for putting together a series of pictures and videos. On the other hand, the AI ​​searches for patterns in images and builds its own, very special series on the basis of these patterns, which Google calls “Little Patterns”. They can be based on particular shapes or colors that are identical or similar in all images found.

In addition to the already known reminder formats, the “Best of the Month” and “Travel Highlights” are now being added. These two formats are available now, while the other news will come throughout the year.

Cinematic Photos, which uses machine learning to create lively 3D versions of photos, has been around since December 2019. Now Google is bringing the so-called Cinematic Moments.

The photo service takes advantage of the fact that most people take more than one picture of the same subject. With the help of neural networks that synthesize the movement between two almost identical photos and fill in the gaps with new images, lively, moving images are created. This should even work if the basic recordings do not come from the same camera.

On this occasion, Google takes on the problem that not every memory likes to be evoked. Therefore, the controls already contained in Google Photos for hiding photos of certain people or periods of time have been expanded to include additional control options. They should be available over the summer.

The existing memories can also be edited more finely in the future. So, in no time, you should be able to remove a single photo from a memory, remove the best memories of the month, and rename or remove memories based on the moments you’re celebrating.

Finally, there will be some kind of restricted area for photos. This is a password-protected area. Photos stored there will not appear in Photos or in any other app with photo access. The feature will come first on the Pixel devices, but should then also be usable for other smartphones. Only on the Pixel will you be able to save photos and videos directly from the camera in the locked folder.

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