The images in Google Maps (and Google Earth) are updated on a continuous basis. The update cycle is typically twice a month but only a handful of areas are updated at a time.
It's hard to say exactly when an area will be updated because some areas may be updated more frequently than others (just because that data is more readily available). While most images are no more than 3 years old in high resolution areas, low resolution imagery in some areas may be older.
It takes months of post processing new imagery before they go online so bulk updates usually happen about every 2 weeks. Google Maps and Google Earth share the same backend image database and are updated together.
When will my area be updated?
Due to overwhelming demand when a given area will be updated Google has created a new e-mail notification service. Check out 'Follow Your World' in related links below.
Bing Maps (former MS Virtual Earth) updates it maps roughly on a monthly basis.
Each imagery release typically contains more than 10TB of imagery.
Google Inc. Usually updates its digital maps yearly, including Google Earth and Google Maps.
Google Maps like Google Earth may appear to be real-time (or live) in that the Street View and satellite imagery may appear very recent but it's often many months old and sometimes years old.However, Google Maps does provide a near real-time traffic layer. Check 'Traffic' layer in Google Maps.
Google-enabled android cell phones is one of the primary sources of traffic data for traffic layer in Google Maps. If you use Google Maps for mobile with GPS enabled on your phone, then you're contributing the traffic data yourself. When you choose to enable Google Maps with My Location, your phone sends anonymous bits of data back to Google describing how fast you're moving and combined with thousands of other phones on the road tells Google where the congestion is by how fast cars are driving.
There is a live traffic layer available in both Google Earth and Google Maps. In Google Earth click on the layer 'Traffic' under More in Layers.Note the traffic data isn't available for all cities and countries.
This is unknown. Not all teachers update the maps. You would have to visit every single school to ask the teachers how often the maps are updated in the classrooms. This would be a nearly impossible task.
On average the imagery in Google Maps and Google Earth is approximately one to three years old so this is not uncommon. However, the more populous areas and major cities tend to be updated more often.
Google never lets on when it will update an area but you can subscribe to Google's "Follow Your World"notification service to get an e-mail when they do update Morocco or whatever location you pick.Sometimes newer imagery is available in 'Historical Imagery', which can be enabled from the View menu. In some cases the 'best' imagery isn't always the newest imagery.
if im not wrong, the maps on the iphone are streamed into the iphone using wifi/3g(internet access) from Google using their "Google Maps". so its updated if google updates their maps. thing is, is it possible to download/buy maps for the iphone so i dont have to stream google maps to use the gps?
The difference is simple - Google maps is designed to help you find places and get directions. Google map maker is like a wiki for Google maps - it lets you edit Google maps to make the data on it more accurate. You can use Google map maker to update marker locations, trace building outlines, mark roads, etc.
When Google updates it street view photos in its image database then these updates are made available to Google Maps and Google Earth.
In 2006 Google Maps was updated to use the same satellite image database as Google Earth. Before that Google had to update and process imagery for both Google Earth and Google Maps where the maps where often out of sync with each other. Now Google updates its central map & imagery database and the updates are made available to both Google Earth and Google Maps at once. The time between getting imagery from satellite and seeing it on Google Maps is far from real-time. Once the imagery is taken by satellite, it takes time to process the data by a commercial provider like GeoEye before it is available to Google and other customers. Google will do additional processing to convert imagery into the format and coordinate system of its internal databases. This is one reason you normally won't find any imagery younger than about 6 months. For these reasons, the Google map & imagery database is updated once or twice a month.
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