Google Inc launches beta site for US maps

Google Maps allow users to find location information, navigate through maps, and get directions, writes Saurabh Azad.

The ongoing battles among Google, Yahoo and Microsoft have led to new features coming out almost every week. This time, the salvo has been fired by Google Inc.

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Unique Features

* Draggable maps - You can click and drag Google maps to view adjacent sections; no more long waits while new areas download. * Integrated Local search results - Google Maps integrates local search results from Google Local. So to find a pizza place, simply type in "pizza in San Jose", and pizza places appear at various locations on your map, with phone numbers for each location on the right side of the page. * Turn-by-turn directions - Type in an address and Google Maps plots the route for you, displaying it visually on the map itself, together with step-by-step directions for getting there (or back from there). When you click on one of these steps (say, "turn left"), you see a floating bubble with a magnified view of the area mentioned in the directions. * Keyboard shortcuts - You can use arrow keys to pan left, right, up and down. The Page Up, Page Down, Home and End keys let you pan out even wider. And you can zoom in with the plus (+) key and zoom out with the minus (-) key.

Upping the ante in the cyber war, Google Inc on Tuesday quietly launched a beta site for US maps.

Google Maps (www.maps.google.com) allow users to find location information, navigate through maps, and get directions.

"Google is not offering anything new. Yahoo has been offering this service for years. But there are some good new features, for example - click and drag maps, instead of having to click and reload and magnified views of specific spots pop up in bubbles which gives this service an edge over others," says Amit Aggarwal, an Internet expert.

However, there are some chinks in the new service. If have found a location and want to save it for future use, the new Google site doesn't offer this facility.

However, Google, defending its product says, "Google Maps is still a beta product in our Google Labs program. But we agree that "Saved Locations" is an important feature, and we're working on providing this as quickly as possible."

But this argument seems to be stretched too far by the Google, considering its news service has been in beta for about two years.

"Most of the Google product are beta," Aggarwal said. "Probably we need to redefine the term beta."