13 European countries with Live traffic information

Since introducing the live traffic feature on Google Maps in 2008, our team has been working hard to make this feature available to more users in more countries. Just in time for summer travel, we’re delighted to announce that today we’re making traffic available in 13 countries in Europe. The new road traffic information is in the traffic layer on Google Maps and Google Maps for mobile, and Google Maps Navigation (Beta).

Today we’re announcing new coverage in Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Ireland, Israel, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Poland, Slovakia, Spain and Switzerland. Coverage includes all freeways and highways, as well as large roads in major cities. Users in the UK will also benefit from a finer grain of street level coverage.

 

Our Maps team in Zurich is especially excited about this release because many of us will now be able to personally benefit from the expansion of this traffic feature. For example, although I take public transit to work every day, I enjoy weekend drives to the Austrian Alps or the Italian lakes region, and having live traffic available on my phone helps me avoid the traffic at the Gotthard tunnel.

Traffic in Gotthard Tunnel, Switzerland
The live traffic layer is regularly updated to show information for traffic events from the last 5-10 minutes. Finally, you can learn more about typical traffic conditions for specific times and days of the week by clicking the “change” link in the traffic legend on Google Maps, and setting the day of week and time.

Meir on Crossing The Line

 

“Our secret weapon is
no alternative.”

–Golda Meir (1898–1978)
Russian-born former Prime Minister of Israel

John and Abigail Adams had been more concerned with themselves and work/life balance than creating a democracy (if you’ve not seen the HBO miniseries – great stuff)?

What if… Abraham Lincoln (born on 2/12… coincidence? maybe) had quit trying after having a business go under and losing his first local legislative race (and then 3 congressional races and 2 senatorial races)?

What if… Martin Luther King didn’t have a dream and played it safe (and didn’t travel over 6 million miles giving more than 2500 speeches). What if he thought he was too young to have an impact (he did everything he did in a life of only 39 years)?

What if… Gandhi, Teresa, Roosevelt, Ford, Disney, Walton, Gates, Winfrey, Jobs, Stewart, and Ash hadn’t stepped up and worked hard. (What if the thousands of people who supported them hadn’t?) What if your police, military, firefighters didn’t?

What if… No one pushed it, risked it, and pushed it again (and again)?

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Session videos from Google I/O now live

With Google I/O 2011 just two days behind us, we wanted to thank the nearly one million developers who joined us at Moscone Center, attended I/O Extended events, and watched online via I/O Live from 161 countries around the world. In addition to the announcements made at the keynote presentations, we had more than 30 announcements in our 110 sessions. HD recordings of all these sessions are now available online. Here are some of the announcements:

Highlights from this year’s event are posted at www.google.com/io, where we are featuring photos, announcements, and the latest videos. Also, stay tuned for a feature on “Backstage at Google I/O” where we will highlight the developers and artists who helped to make the event possible this year.

Google I/O kicks off the year as our biggest developer event–but we’re only getting started. As of today, we are announcing locations for our eight Google Developer Days (GDDs), which will take place all over the world with more than a few DevFests in between. Stay tuned for more info on the 2011 event details, but we’ll look forward to seeing you in Brazil, Argentina, Prague, Moscow, Tokyo, Sydney, Israel and Germany for our Google Developer Team world tour.