Google now can use cell towers to determine your location on Google Maps.. The new feature, called “my location”, is in the latest version of Google Maps for mobile phones.
Instead of having to type in your location, Google Maps is able to find it automatically, even if there’s no GPS. Google Maps can approximate your location via nearby cell towers. It’s not as accurate as GPS, but it comes pretty close (approximately 1000 ft, on average). To find your location on the map, just press 0 and look for a blue dot.
The video shows how it works.
If you have a GPS-enabled device, a blue dot appears that corresponds to your GPS location. If you do not have a GPS-enabled phone, the blue dot is surrounded by a light blue circle (as shown on the right) to indicate uncertainty about your location. Google says that this feature should work on most “Java, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, and Nokia/Symbian devices”, but not all.
To get the new version (2.0), go to http://google.com/gmm on your mobile device. It’s still in beta, so don’t expect it to be flawless.
Meanwhile, Google Maps has added a new layer to its maps, called terrain view, explains C/Net. It lets you get a detailed look at geographical features.
Unlike Google Earth, you can’t zoom around and change eye level to see how high something is, but Google has done a little rendering to the map, giving it a three dimensional look.
While it lacks the flash and instant usefulness of Street View (Google’s pedestrian photo perspective), terrain view is a great way to look at topographical features than one can’t get from the plain map view alone.
Google has also updated its My Maps service to let several people collaborate on a single map. My Maps offers a variety of marker icons and colors to choose from which can be inserted onto the map by dragging and dropping.
In related news, PhillyHistory Mobile gives residents, tourists and visitors the ability to access more than 47,000 historic and cultural photos, one of the largest municipal archives in the US, from their cellphone or wireless device.
PhillyHistory Mobile provides an easy-to-use search screen where users can enter an address, intersection, keyword, or year, and the resulting display returns a map of the area showing locations of historic and cultural assets as well as photos of those assets.
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