Nokia heats up mapping space with trending hotspots feature

(Nokia)

After unveiling a new design for Nokia Maps last week, mobile maker Nokia is now helping people zoom into local hotspots and cool places with a new heat maps feature.

Heat Maps is a Nokia Maps overlay that pinpoints Points of Interest (POI) to show users what's popular in the area. The more popular a place is, the redder it will be on the map while less dense POI will show up in orange and yellow.

"The premium POIs are provided from services, such as Lonely Planet, WCities and Michelin to name a few, and these bring reviews and some great photos, too. So you know what to expect before you set off out on your travel to the hotspot," said Nokia in a July 27 post on its Nokia Conversations blog.

Heat Maps can be accessed in most major cities by visiting http://maps.nokia.com/, searching for a location, and clicking on "Sights & Museums" option (where available) in the dropdown menu on the top left of the page.

"As the POIs are constantly being updated to add more great restaurants, bars, sight-seeing spots or shopping outlets, this heat map will evolve over time, too," said Nokia. "So we’ll expect to see this feature to continually grow and evolve and maybe even see the hotspots shift, slightly." 

Clicking on a hotspot will provide additional details about the place along with the address and options to share the POI with your friends or to get directions there.

Create your own heat maps with Google Maps using this tutorial by GeoChalboard.