Waze finally shows up in desktop Google Maps
Waze's real-time traffic conditions come to Google Maps for desktops, along with more Street View in step-by-step directions and auto-generated tours.
New features that began arriving in Google Maps on Wednesday show that the company has begun to cross-pollinate Maps features throughout the service.
Traffic incident and road condition reports from real-time traffic app Waze, which Google bought in June for $966 million and began showing up in Google Maps' mobile apps in August, will now appear in desktop Web browsers.
Google also has tweaked the interface of Maps a bit, pushing its Pegman character to the lower right corner, and making roads with Street View appear in blue when you click on Pegman. New blue and orange circles will indicate photos contributed by users and business interiors, respectively.
Street View imagery will begin to appear in step-by-step directions, as well. The Street View photos will appear in the cards for directions, which will make it easier to recognize landmarks in directions.
For people running the latest versions of the five major Web browsers, which use WebGL, you will be able to take an automatically generated 3D tour of famous points of interest. Google points to the Swiss Alps as an example, although its list of operating systems and browsers that support WebGL is out-of-date.
However, the new version of Google Maps remains in an experimental phase, as indicated by users having to opt in to see it. A Google spokesperson said that it works best "on recent hardware and with certain browsers," and that the company is "gradually rolling out" the new desktop Google Maps.
