Google’s Local Guides program has over 120 million members in 24,000 global locations. Although they are largely invisible, they are indispensable part of the Google Maps experience. They provide reviews, images and other content as well as answering questions (Q&A) about local businesses and places. Guides are about to become even more visible than before, […]

Here’s an interesting story for you – there seems to be a group of locksmiths who has filed a class action lawsuit against Google, Microsoft and Yahoo. It’s being claimed that the search engines (Google in particular) are purposely “flooding” organic results with “scam locksmith listings” that are known to be fake. These locksmiths are arguing […]

In the next big version of Google Maps, we might see something akin to a kind of “urban operating system.” This is what Urban Engines, a Lost Altos, California-based two-year old startup that Google has acquired, is envisioning.  Within Urban Engines, there are four co-founders that are former Google engineers.  Deal terms weren’t made available to […]

In anticipation of the 2016 Olympics in RIO, Google has enhanced its mobile mapping experience.  The company launched “real-time transit for 1,300 bus lines in the Rio metro area in April, as well as bike routes throughout Rio and the rest of Brazil. On August 5th, Google announced the addition of Street View imagery for the many […]

During Apple’s WWDC this week, the company announced a “beautiful redesign” of Apple Maps and opened it up to third-party developers.  During the same time last year during WWDC, Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO, said that Apple Maps were being used 3.5 times more than “the next leading mapping app”  (I think we all know they were referring to […]

Something new has arrived at DuckDuckGo!  The privacy search engine has launched a new Directions! feature that offers location results with the option to choose directions through a number of map services including Apple, Bing, Here, OpenStreetMap and Google Maps. In the announcement, whatever map provider is selected during the first use will become the default provider […]

There’s some interesting news coming out of an  extensive report in 9to5 Mac that Apple is going to be bringing out a potential search competitor to Google Now that has comparable “predictive search” functionality.  Microsoft’s Cortana possesses predictive capabilities that Apple’s Siri lacks. This new capability, which is currently known as “Proactive,” has been built partially […]

Apple has been getting ready to launch public transit data, as previously reported, with iOS according to sources that had time to speak with 9to5 Mac.  This public transit data was intended to launch with iOS 8, but it was pulled before it was released. Supposedly, the transit data is going to include bus, subway and train schedule […]

Who is the latest company to purchase Nokia’s mapping unit HERE?  That company would be Uber.  According to the NY Times, Uber was reported to have submitted a $3 billion bid for the mapping provider.  At this point, that amount hasn’t been confirmed. Assuming that Uber can obtain HERE, this will be the second successful mapping acquisition […]