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Maps Minutes Hack #3: save time with up-to-date holiday business hours

December 8, 2015

Part of our series on how to save time this holiday season with Google Maps.

Holiday hours. Not only does Google Maps provide up-to-date open hours for businesses, but it also now shows special holiday hours. When you search for a place and a major holiday is within the next seven days, Google Maps tells you whether it has a special schedule.

Popular times. Avoid long lines at the store by checking out how busy it is before you leave. For many businesses–from restaurants to shops to museums–you can scroll down on the business information page to find the days a place is most popular, and the busiest times on those days.

“Closing soon” alerts. Google Maps can help save you a wasted trip. When you search for and navigate to a place, Google Maps will show an alert if your destination is closed, or will be by the time you arrive.

Posted by Olga Suvorova, Product Marketing Manager, Google Maps

Take a snowmobile with Google Maps to the sea ice habitats of the Arctic Eider duck

December 8, 2015

Editor’s note: Today’s post is guest authored by Joel Heath, Executive Director of the Arctic Eider Society.Arctic EiderexploreCanadian geography

The Trekker collects Street View imagery of a PolynyaBelcher Islandsimages

The Arctic Eider duck takes flight in Street Viewstreets of Sanikiluaqsnowmobilesea-iceTo learn more about the unique relationship between the community of Sanikiluaq and the Arctic Eider, be sure to watch the critically acclaimed award winning film People of a Feather that started it all.

Maps Minutes Hack #2: Save time navigating inside, not just outside

December 4, 2015

Part of our series on how to save time this holiday season with Google Maps.

locationsPosted by Dai Pham, Head of Geo and Google Maps Marketing

Walk the ruins of Peru’s most historic site: Machu Picchu

December 3, 2015

Take a train ride through the Andes, above the sacred valley and atop the mist of the mountains, to the most historic site of the Inca Empire. Machu Picchu, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of the New 7 Wonders of the World, is one of the most famous, mythical and spiritual sites in the world. Now for the first time, in partnership with the Peruvian Ministry of Culture, people across the globe can go on a journey to Machu Picchu directly in Google Maps, uncovering its temples, terraces and plazas that have remained intact since the 15th century. People can also explore rare Inca artifacts and expert insights on the Google Cultural Institute.
Gazing at the Historic Sanctuary of Machu Picchu more than 2,400 meters above sea level, the site below is a lasting tribute to the power of the Inca Empire. It’s still unclear how the structure composed of behemoth stones was so precisely built without the use of mortar or modern day machinery, but its walls, terraces and stairways weave effortlessly into the mountainside and natural landscape.
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Historic Sanctuary of Machu Picchu, Peru
Standing in the Templo Principal, you can imagine how many people have stood at this central gathering place before you. Located at the highest position of the city, this site holds great spiritual meaning to the people of the Citadel. And touring the vast Plaza Principal allows you to virtually walk one of the most sacred ceremonial grounds on the site, which once hosted social and religious celebrations for the Inca.
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Screen Shot 2015-11-23 at 3.31.47 PM.png

Plaza Principal of Machu Picchu
Within the long and narrow compounds, called kanchas, you can also explore the Observatorio Astronómico (Intiwatana), Templo del Sol, and Templo de las Tres Ventanas—sites dedicated to Inti, the Inca Sun god—or marvel at the architectural complexity of structures like the Grupo de las Tres Puertas, whose doors lead to the main square.
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Screen Shot 2015-11-23 at 11.00.30 PM.png

Grupo de las Tres Puertas, Machu Picchu, Peru
After virtually touring these sacred and ceremonial spaces, discover more Wonders of Machu Picchu on the Google Cultural Institute. You can explore more than 130 Inca artifacts online thanks to the Museo Macchupicchu at Casa Concha. In three new online exhibits, the museum's curators share their expert insights on the Inca's daily life and rituals - which are still a subject of great mystery and fascination over 500 years later.
Highlights include a perfectly preserved pair of plates decorated with butterflies, and an ingenious device of strings and cords used for record keeping and accounting. We invite you to see these rare objects in the context of the museum by taking a virtual tour.

Inca accounting device
Whether you visit Machu Picchu via a train or hike up the Inca Trail, we’d be honored to be your virtual guide through this sacred space. And while in the area, enjoy exploring still more archaeological treasures from this ancient civilization at the Museo Machupicchu at Casa Concha, which holds the largest collection of Inca artifacts in the world.
Machu Picchu, a true wonder of the world, is now just a click away. Posted by Daniel Filip, Google Maps Tech Lead

Jingle all the way to Santa's Village

December 2, 2015

Santa’s Villagelearn about holiday traditions

Join the elves on all screens as they get ready for Santa’s big night—with Chromecast, Wear, App for Android, and more

Brush up on your computer skills with new coding games throughout the month

Get into the spirit of giving - learn about charitable organizations and discover how SolarAid is working to make the season brighter with renewable energy

Take a study break to jam out with friends to elf-made holiday tunes

For those on the ho-ho-go, get the Santa Tracker App for Android to check out new games on the phone or through Cardboard

Holiday Maps Minutes Hack #1: Save time beating bumper-to-bumper traffic

December 1, 2015

This post is the first in a series about how you can use Google Maps to save time this holiday season. automatically re-routesPosted by Olga Suvorova, Product Marketing Manager, Google Maps

Street View gives you a window into climate change

November 30, 2015

From polar bears in the Canadian Arctic, to communities in the Brazilian Amazon, to blue oak trees in Central California, the impacts of climate change are being felt by plants, animals and people across the planet. As world leaders gather for the COP21 conference in Paris this week to discuss our changing climate, we want to take this opportunity to show you how to explore its impact yourself. With Street View, you can get a window into some of our world’s changing ecosystems, and learn how nonprofit and other organizations are working to keep our planet healthy.
Polar bears are in trouble because of the melting sea ice, on which they depend to survive. That’s why Polar Bears International (PBI) borrowed the Street View Trekker to map polar bears in their fragile sea ice habitat around Churchill, Manitoba, to share the remote ecosystem with people all over the world. And to educate classrooms, PBI created a lesson plan and activity for schools to do their own exploration of this precious habitat.

Polar bear on the edge of Hudson Bay, waiting for the sea ice to freeze (see more here)
Ever wonder how plants are faring in a changing climate? Scientists at the Nature Conservancy-California do, too. To help them learn more, they borrowed the Trekker earlier this year to monitor the health of blue oak trees in Central California, which have declined due to stress from changing temperatures. Scientists predict that blue oaks may lose up to 41% of their population by 2100 because of climate change, so they plan to capture Street View imagery again in the future so they can keep a digital record, log their changes, and design conservation strategies to protect the life of these blue oak trees.

Blue Oaks in central California (see more here)
Experts agree that one way to slow climate change is to protect the standing forests that we have now, as these trees remove and stock carbon dioxide from our atmosphere. The Brazilian nonprofit Amazonas Sustainable Foundation (FAS) borrowed the Trekker to show people exactly what the Amazon forest looks like on the ground and put isolated local communities on the map. They captured imagery from three different reserves in the Brazilian Amazon, including hundreds of kilometers walking through pristine forests and floating down Amazon river tributaries. The nonprofit is using the imagery to educate the world about rainforest protection and sustainable ecosystem management.

Pristine Amazon rainforest in Juma Sustainable Development Reserve (see more here)
Street View is great for visualizing the impacts of climate change, but we’re also using our Street View platform to measure climate data, which can be used by scientists, policymakers, businesses and citizens to drive better decisions.
For the past few years, Google Earth Outreach has worked with the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) to map thousands of methane leaks from natural gas lines under select U.S. city streets using Street View cars equipped with methane analyzers. Recently, one of the largest U.S. utilities, PSE&G announced that they will use data and maps from our Street View mapping effort to prioritize the replacement of hundreds of miles of gas mains and thousands of service lines for their newly approved multi-million dollar pipeline replacement program.
Google Earth Outreach has also partnered with Aclima to measure many more pollutants with Street View cars, including particulate matter, black carbon, and carbon dioxide—pollutants that are harmful to both our climate and our health. Essentially, we’re turning Street View cars into environmental sensing platforms, and plan to map California communities in the San Francisco Bay Area, Central Valley, and LA regions through 2016.
We hope this post has opened your eyes to the ways the world is being impacted by climate change. If you’re interested in getting involved, consider submitting an application to the Trekker Loan Program, which allows nonprofit and other organizations to borrow the Trekker to capture 360-degree imagery of the places they care about on our changing planet. Posted by Karin Tuxen-Bettman, Google Earth Outreach Program Manager

Maps Minutes Hack #3: save time with up-to-date holiday business hours

Take a snowmobile with Google Maps to the sea ice habitats of the Arctic Eider duck

Maps Minutes Hack #2: Save time navigating inside, not just outside

Walk the ruins of Peru’s most historic site: Machu Picchu

Jingle all the way to Santa's Village

Holiday Maps Minutes Hack #1: Save time beating bumper-to-bumper traffic

Street View gives you a window into climate change

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