Bing versus Google Maps: Voice navigation compared

We tested Bing's voice navigation alongside Google's Android offering.

(Credit: CNET)

We've been using Google's voice-guided driving directions on an Android phone since October, but we didn't have too many equivalent apps to compare it with until Microsoft released its own voice navigation service for Bing last week for Windows phones.
We took Bing on a few test drives against Google's map navigation, all in the San Francisco Bay Area. Both apps will likely eventually get you where you want to go, but both exhibited overly creative directions and produced their own frustrating errors.
What we liked
We immediately noticed Bing's less tinny-sounding directions bot. Sure, "she" still sounds robotic, but less so than Google's navigatrix. We also appreciated how the Bing app "bings" before sounding off the next direction. The chime was a natural and unintrusive interruption to signal that voice guidance is imminent. It would have been nice if Bing also chimed to indicate that it's time to make a left or right turn, as Magellan's GPS units do, but that's a more minor quibble.
What we didn't like
Bing was the more navigationally flawed app in our tests compared with Google's navigation. Google's maps also have more features and options; for example, a street-level and bird's eye perspective of the map.
Within our first two test runs, Bing thrice dispensed misdirections that didn't correlate to the real world, including directing us to circle around a neighborhood even when we were on the same street as the destination address. There were also more trivial directional errors that turned up in subsequent testing.
We should note that commercial GPS navigators also run into the same pitfalls we noticed with Bing's navigation--like offering directions too early or too late and temporarily dropping GPS fixes (specifically within urban canyons)--so we can't dump all our blame on Bing, especially for issues that actually generate from the hardware and environmental access to GPS signal, and not from the software itself.

What else Google does better than Bing
On an absolute basis, we prefer Google Maps navigation to Bing's naviagion for its more faithful directions and more numerous map views, but also for its interface design. It's not exactly a fair fight. Specs-wise, the HTC Incredible on which we tested Google's Android-enabled navigation outclasses the Windows Mobile HTC Pure loaded with Bing. Yet  resolution and screen size aside, Google's navigation visuals--with its sharper corners, larger characters, and higher-impact color palette--provide an easier-to-read experience that's essential for drivers who might glance at the app to get their bearings.
Although Bing has a ways to go to catch up to Google's overall quality, if you've got a Windows phone, the "pro" of free voice navigation outweighs the service's cons. As with similar voice guidance software, Bing fetches directions after you add an address or location, pick a place on a map, select from favorite locations, and choose destinations-by-address book contacts--and it'll automatically reroute if you've missed a turn.
Just take Bing's voice guidance, like all navigation units, with a grain of salt.

Google Earth Pro unveiled for African NGOs

Google has unveiled its Google Earth Pro software to coincide with the upcoming climate change conference in Copenhagen in December.

The software is available through the Google Earth Outreach Program, which lets local NGOs (nongovernmental organizations) and other public-benefit organizations visualize their projects and demonstrate their impact.

"With the launch of Google Earth Outreach in Africa, we are enabling nonprofit and public benefit organizations in Africa to access the knowledge and resources they need to organize their data, build their maps, tell their story through geographic visualization using Google's Geo Tools," said Karin Tuxen-Bettman and Tanya Keen, of Google Earth Outreach, in a blog post.

The Save the Elephants organization has used the software to show efforts taken to protect the last of the Mali Desert Elephants. The Mali project uses KML touring, a feature in Google Earth 5.0 that lets non-profit organizations tell their story with a narrated tour.

In a video provided online, Iain Douglas-Hamilton, founder of Save the Elephants in Samburu, Kenya, narrates how the NGO has worked in Africa against the backdrop of drought and a rising number of poachers. With Google Earth, the organization, in conjunction with wildlife officials, tracks the movement of elephants to precise locations.

"Google Earth links perfectly with our remote tracking system in Africa; when an elephant stops, it sends a signal to the station," said Douglas-Hamilton. "We are at a crucial stage and we need to make use of the technology to help in decision making. We are very worried we could see another round outbreak of illegal elephant killings for ivory trade."

The Mapping Africa's Protected Areas Project, meanwhile, has mapped parks and reserves in Southern and East Africa. The maps show features such as park boundaries, tracks, and various images. The project offers previously unavailable data about land and wildlife in protected areas in Africa.

"By annotating Google Earth and Maps with pictures and information, organizations can tell visual and compelling stories of the work they do to the over 500 million people in Google Earth," Google said.


By Rebecca Wanjiku