Google updates maps to display natural disasters

Google is improving its SOS alerts by adding visual information about natural disasters and a navigation system on Google Maps. Google says the upgrade will extend the capabilities of the SOS alerts to provide crisis information via relevant news stories and Twitter updates from local authorities to include detailed visualisations about hurricanes, earthquakes and floods. In the days leading up to a hurricane, users will receive a crisis notification card on Google Maps that appears near impacted areas.
July 2, 2019 Read time: 2 mins

1691 Google is improving its SOS alerts by adding visual information about natural disasters and a navigation system on Google Maps.

Google says the upgrade will extend the capabilities of the SOS alerts to provide crisis information via relevant news stories and 2171 Twitter updates from local authorities to include detailed visualisations about hurricanes, earthquakes and floods.

In the days leading up to a hurricane, users will receive a crisis notification card on Google Maps that appears near impacted areas. A forecast cone shows the prediction of the storm’s trajectory along with information about what time it is likely to hit certain areas, the company adds.

The crisis card is also expected to display a visualisation of an earthquake’s magnitude along with colour coding to indicate the intensity of shaking in surrounding areas.

According to Google, users in India will be able to see forecasts of where flooding is likely to occur in addition to the expected severity in different areas.

This summer Google intends to offer another alert which informs people of routes which may be affected by crisis activity.

UTC

Related Content

  • February 1, 2012
    Cooperative systems and privacy not mutually exclusive
    Are co-operative systems and personal privacy mutually exclusive? Not necessarily, says Neil Hoose. But the more advanced the application, the greater the concession of privacy may have to become. ITS Stockholm in 2009 and the Cooperative Mobility Showcase event which took place alongside Intertraffic in Amsterdam in March this year both featured live, on-street demonstrations of safety and driver information applications that used Vehicle-to-Infrastructure (V2I) and Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V) communications,
    Read More
  • February 6, 2012
    Cooperative systems and privacy not mutually exclusive
    Are co-operative systems and personal privacy mutually exclusive? Not necessarily, says Neil Hoose. But the more advanced the application, the greater the concession of privacy may have to become
    Read More
  • December 3, 2018
    When will Google wake up to MaaS gold mine?
    Mobility services are a potential gold mine for data-hungry tech companies. That being the case, Andrew Bunn asks: what exactly happens when giants such as Google and Amazon decide to get their teeth into MaaS? There are many different perspectives on Mobility as a Service (MaaS), with many different views on what the latest and future applications of technology are going to bring to transportation infrastructure. However, there is one question that does not seem to come up at all. Up to now, MaaS-relate
    Read More
  • March 22, 2012
    Decline in global shipments of PNDs
    According to a new research report from the analyst firm Berg Insight, global shipments of personal navigation devices (PNDs) declined to about 33 million units in 2011, while the number of subscribers using a turn-by-turn navigation app or service on their handset doubled in 2011 and reached 130 million worldwide. The subscriber base is forecasted to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 21.9 per cent to reach 340 million users worldwide in 2016.
    Read More

Highlighted Content