Google Maps goes off-roading

If fear of get­ting lost in the woods has deterred you from hik­ing the great out­doors, pretty soon you’ll have no excuse. Recently, Google announced that they are devel­op­ing Google Street View Trekker, an exten­sion of Google Maps’ Street View fea­ture, but taken off the grid. His­tor­i­cally, Google Maps fea­tured only places where cars could travel— because they cap­tured almost every view using cars.

How­ever, with Trekker they’ve adopted a new way of cap­tur­ing the world: extremely advanced back­packs that fea­ture panoramic cam­eras, an inven­tive method that will now allow Google Maps to access all man­ner of off-road loca­tions. The project is still a work in progress, but the prospect of hav­ing this fea­ture in the city is exciting.

Some hik­ing purists will prob­a­bly object to the mech­a­niza­tion of the pas­time; but hav­ing Trekker as a resource that allows them to dis­cover new trails will prob­a­bly bring a change of heart. And imag­ine how grate­ful they’ll be when it’s pitch black and they don’t have to check every tree for that lit­tle stripe of faded paint.

Photo: Joanna Stern/ABC News.