Chalk this new feature within Google Maps up to “possibly useful and potentially creepy.” Like so much of AI, the rules around “how” it works are murky and involve trading your data—in this case, the content of your photographs—around like a hot potato to a bunch of different servers.
The new feature is live on iPhones right now, so you can test it out with an old photograph you have saved on your phone. There’s no Android support yet, although it’ll supposedly be released there at a later date. Android is, after all, Google’s own operating system.
merging photos with google maps
“If you ever have trouble keeping track of all of the screenshots you take of travel blogs, news articles or social media posts when you’re researching places to go for an upcoming trip, you’ll want to try out this new Google Maps feature,” wrote Google in a May 7 post on its blog to announce availability of the feature.
“It uses Gemini capabilities to identify places mentioned in your screenshots and helps save them to a list for you, making travel planning a breeze.” More than travel planning, I could see this being useful in the aftermath of a vacation, sorting through photographs that you were too busy taking in the moment to jot down the names of their locations.
As long as you’ve got Google Maps installed on an iPhone, you can make sure you’ve updated Google Maps to the latest software release. Then, to test out the feature, open up the app, navigate to the You tab, and under the Screenshots list, you’ll see “Try it out!” Click that.
Google Maps will ask for permission to access your Photos app. The easiest way is to agree, but if you decline to award it such unfettered access to your photo albums, you can manually upload the photographs to Google Maps.
If Google Maps recognizes a place based on the photograph, you’ll get a pop-up message. Then just follow the on-screen directions. Are you ready for Google to be sneaking peeks into your photo library, though? Given how greedily it sucks up consumer data, I wouldn’t blame you for being hesitant. I’d be.
For now, iOS is the only recipient of Google’s new technology. Android phones will have to wait.
The post Google Maps Can Now Use AI to Scan Your Photos for Places appeared first on VICE.
