Categories: Mobile

Anyone can add 360-degree panoramas to Google Maps with Android 4.2’s new Photo Sphere feature

One of the most exciting feature announcements to come from yesterday’s Android 4.2 launch and Google’s new suite of Nexus devices is Photo Sphere, a feature that enables anyone to capture full 360-degree panoramas intuitively, which can then to added to Google Maps.

“Inspired by Street View”, Android 4.2 Jelly Bean’s new Camera app allows users to photograph an entire scene in every direction to create a 360-degree “immersive experience”. The images, or Photo Spheres, are stored as JPEGs and all the extra information required to view them in 360-degree format is stored as XML data attached to the images themselves.

Photo Spheres can be emailed and posted on Google+, but perhaps most importantly can be added to Google Maps to help make it more comprehensive and “enable other travelers to get an accurate preview of a location before they arrive”.

Blue circle icons denote user-contributed Photo Spheres on Google Maps for desktop only.

Albizu Garcia

Albizu Garcia is the Co-Founder and CEO of Gain -- a marketing technology company that automates the social media and content publishing workflow for agencies and social media managers, their clients and anyone working in teams.

Recent Posts

Bridging Traditional Venture Capital and the Masses: Democratizing Startup and Private Market Investments

Article by Luis X Barrios, CEO of Arkangeles For far too long, venture capital has…

8 hours ago

WEF scrubs ‘Valuing Nature’s Assets’ session from Sustainable Development Impact Meetings

The World Economic Forum (WEF) deletes a session entitled, "Valuing Nature's Assets," from its Sustainable…

2 days ago

Horasis India Meeting 2024: Here’s look at 10 key speakers this week in Athens

The theme of the 2024 Horasis India Meeting is cooperation, impact investing, and sustainable growth…

4 days ago

UN Summit of the Future Global Call: World leaders advocate Agenda 2030, UN reform

World leaders gather on the UN Summit of the Future Global Call to advocate for…

1 week ago

A Look Into AI and the Risks to Elections

Image via: Freepik When an entire nation devotes its attention to Vice President Kamala Harris…

1 week ago

5 ‘interconnected shifts’ are driving ‘profound systemic transformation’: Klaus Schwab, WEF report

World Economic Forum (WEF) founder Klaus Schwab says that the world is undergoing profound systemic…

1 week ago