Google is adding many new features to the Maps and Earth apps. The Google Earth app is introducing a new feature that allows users to view historical aerial imagery of places that date back up to 80 years. With this feature, users can witness how landscapes have transformed over the decades.
Using the Google Earth historical imagery feature, users can look at the changes and understand "how forests have been affected by human activity and the changing climate." The feature is available in Google Earth on the web and mobile.
Major cities like London, Paris, and Berlin are among the areas that users can explore using the historical imagery feature and observe transformations, with some photos dating as far back as the 1930s.
On top of this new feature for Google Earth, the company is also expanding the Street View feature to the Google Maps app in more countries, specifically 80 countries. Some countries such as Bosnia, Namibia, Liechtenstein, and Paraguay, are receiving Street View for the first time. Moreover, Street View will offer enhanced coverage in countries such as Australia, Brazil, Denmark, Japan, New Zealand, and Rwanda, among others.
Google also mentioned that it has employed a lightweight camera to capture imagery of hard-to-reach areas. The new design also enables the camera to gather fresh data, and users can expect the expansion of Street View in more areas.
Additionally, the Google Earth and Maps apps will be sharpening satellite imagery across the apps. In the official blog, Google notes, that starting this week, users will "see a brighter, more vibrant globe made possible thanks to our cloud-removal technology." Google added that:
We"ve used our Cloud Score+ AI model, trained on millions of images, to recognize and remove things like clouds, cloud shadows, haze and mist. At the same time, this model keeps real-world weather patterns — like ice, snow and mountain shadows — visible on the map. The result is a refreshed global mosaic that gives you a clearer, more accurate look at Earth.
Overall these new features will allow users to take a look at the earth in both its past and present forms, in much detail.