Google Maps now scans screenshots to help you plan vacations
What's the story
Google is adding a bunch of new features to its Maps, Search, and Hotels platforms to make travel planning easier for users. The most interesting of the lot is a feature that will now be able to recognize locations mentioned in the text within your screenshots and save them to a list within the Google Maps app. It will help you plan your trips easily before the screenshots get buried in your camera roll.
Location detection
Gemini-powered feature to detect locations in screenshots
The screenshot list feature, powered by Gemini, will identify places referenced in text within screenshots stored on the device. It will then show these locations on the map and let users review and save them to a shareable list. This feature will be rolled out in English this week for iOS users in the US, with Android support coming soon.
Itinerary assistance
AI overviews in Google Search to aid travel planning
Google is also improving its AI Overviews for Google Search with new itinerary-building capabilities. These tools will generate trip ideas for certain regions or whole countries. You can use phrases such as "create a vacation itinerary for Greece that focuses on history" to explore reviews and photos from other users, along with a map of location recommendations. These suggestions can be saved to Google Maps or exported via Docs or Gmail.
Multilingual support
Google Lens to offer AI overviews in more languages
Google has also announced that AI Overviews in Google Lens, which offer information about whatever your camera is pointing at, will soon be available in Hindi, Indonesian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, and Spanish. The expansion, as you might have guessed, is aimed at making these features more accessible to a wider range of users across different regions.