Google is working on improving walking navigation in big cities
If you've ever tried to use Google Maps to get about on foot in the middle of a well built-up city, then you'll know how inaccurate location tracking can be. Google is working on a solution to improve this in the near future.
Global navigation satellite systems generally rely on line of sight logic. In other words, they need to see you in order to accurately track your movements and translate that into useful navigation data. That becomes a problem when you're in a massive urban sprawl where tall buildings and dense structures disrupt that signal. Then the guesswork comes in and that's where things start to go wrong.
Gooogle's developers are working on a fix for this problem. That fix doesn't use Bluetooth or local Wi-Fi signals as you might expect, but instead uses data Google already has to improve the accuracy. Google already has 3D maps of many locations it has gathered for Google Earth that it can then use to improve user experience.
With some intelligent machine learning, the company can then supplement the GPS data with the 3D mapping to reduce errors. Google says this "...reduces wrong-side-of-street occurrences by approximately 75%."
This is, however, limited to walking navigation and won't work when you're driving. It also requires that Google has a 3D map of the area you're travelling in. Google has 3,850 cities around the world mapped, but that's certainly not everywhere.
The update is coming to the Pixel 5 and Pixel 4a (5G) this month and will roll out for other Android phones (as long as they're running Android 8 or newer) over the next few weeks.
from Pocket-lint https://ift.tt/37LVXQU
via IFTTT
No comments: