Google maps navigation essay PDF

Running Head: GOOGLE MAPS NAVIGATION ESSAY 1
GOOGLE MAPS NAVIGATION ESSAY
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GOOGLE MAPS NAVIGATION ESSAY 2
In the year 1765, James Rennell, a 23-year-old British naval officer embarked on a
journey to explore the entire Indian subcontinent. Accompanied by some other soldiers, they
carried some advanced tools of the time which could enable them to explore the region fully, a
distance-measuring tool known as perambulator and a compass. Their mission took six years and
which saw the rest of his colleagues killed by wild animals. He, however, survived to see his
detailed mapping of the subcontinent published late1780s defining the British understanding of
the Indian subcontinent for generations. This depicts the reality during those ancient times as far
as exploration was concerned (Mansoor, 2016). The risks were uncountable considering the fact
that people were moving to completely unfamiliar places. More than two centuries later, when
people wish to explore new places across the entire world now, it has become as simple as a
click on a small application installed on smartphones and can spins around the entire globe with
the ability to identify the smallest features within certain areas like roads, rocks, buildings,
forests and even recreational facilities. The dream has now come true and exploration simplified,
all courtesy of google maps.
A Google Map is a web-based mapping service which was developed by the Google
company. The service had been developed with an aim of offering satellite imagery, panoramic
street views, street maps, real-time traffic data and route planning services for people travelling
by bicycles, cars and air (Kuperstein et al, 2015). Google maps were first launched in
Where2Technologies Company as a C++ desktop program but the company was acquired later
by Google in 2004 and converted into a web application. After some other acquisitions of
geospatial data visualization companies as well as real-time traffic analyzers, Google Map was
launched officially in 2005 by the Google Company. The front end view of this service utilizes
XML, JavaScript and Ajax (Moshfeghi, 2016). A Google Map has an API that allows maps to be

GOOGLE MAPS NAVIGATION ESSAY 3
entrenched on third-party websites and locators for urban centres and organizations in different
countries around the world. Initially, users were allowed to collaboratively update and expand
mapping services worldwide but the permission was withheld in 2017 after it was observed that
false features were being added to a suite and benefit some people illegally (Fernández et al,
2018). Crowdsourced contributions on Google Maps have not been discontinued however
following the announcement by the Google Company that those features will be transferred to
Google Local Guide program.
(Wagner, 2015)

GOOGLE MAPS NAVIGATION ESSAY 4
The popularity of Google maps has come with a number of benefits to the people and the
main advantage has been found in showing direction. In the ancient times, travelling or visiting
unfamiliar places was highly terrible and hectic because of many calls and stop-overs to ask for
direction which were involved (Geva-Sagiv, Las, Yovel & Ulanovsky, 2015). It was even more
challenging wherever someone was making a visit to places which were interior because it could
take miles before meeting people to ask for directions and a lot of time could be wasted as well
as resources in case a person was using a car. In addition to time and resource wastage, it
endangered the lives of people because sometimes they could end up in wild animals dwelling
places (Wang, Zhong, Song & Cai, 2016). This has been depicted in the case of James Rennell, a
23-year-old British naval officer who had embarked on his journey to explore the entire Indian
subcontinent accompanied by some other soldiers in a mission took six years and which saw the
rest of his colleagues killed by wild animals. Through google maps, such difficulties and
misfortunes have become history and now what is required is just connectivity to internet and
can get to know the directions to the place of destination including the choices on the shortest
routes to get you there and the estimated time as an added advantage (Shashua, Gdalyahu,
Springer, REISMAN & Braunstein, 2018).

GOOGLE MAPS NAVIGATION ESSAY 5
(Carter, Denoue & Perttula, 2017)
function initMap() {
var pointA = new google.maps.LatLng(51.7519, -1.2578),
pointB = new google.maps.LatLng(50.8429, -0.1313),
myOptions = {
zoom: 7,
center: pointA
},
map = new google.maps.Map(document.getElementById('map-canvas'), myOptions),
// Instantiate a directions service.
directionsService = new google.maps.DirectionsService,
directionsDisplay = new google.maps.DirectionsRenderer({
map: map

GOOGLE MAPS NAVIGATION ESSAY 6
}),
markerA = new google.maps.Marker({
position: pointA,
title: "point A",
label: "A",
map: map
}),
markerB = new google.maps.Marker({
position: pointB,
title: "point B",
label: "B",
map: map
});
// get route from A to B
calculateAndDisplayRoute(directionsService, directionsDisplay, pointA, pointB);
}
function calculateAndDisplayRoute(directionsService, directionsDisplay, pointA, pointB) {
directionsService.route({
origin: pointA,
destination: pointB,
travelMode: google.maps.TravelMode.DRIVING
}, function(response, status) {
if (status == google.maps.DirectionsStatus.OK) {
directionsDisplay.setDirections(response);
} else {