Google hasannouncedthat it has made Google Map downloading available in the Labs for Android devices. While this doesn’t mean that the feature is arriving quite yet in your favorite Android navigation app, it’s a good first step and you can test it now in Google Maps right on your phone. The ability to download sections of a Google Map right to your phone is a very cool feature. This allows you to grab a map of an area that has very poor data coverage to ensure that you can still see all of the map details when you get there....

Google has justreleasedGoogle Maps 5.5 for Android. The new version adds ‘Check-in’ and ‘Rate’ buttons to Place pages, the option to edit your home address for Latitude and redesigned transit station pages. When you’re viewing a Place page from Google Maps on your Android device, you now have the option to check in to that place or submit ratings and reviews. This makes leaving a review much easier to access directly from Maps....

Google hasannouncedtoday that it’s releasing Google Maps 5.7 for Android. Less than a month after Google released version5.6for Android, the latest version which is due onAndroid Marketsome time today, introduces Transit Navigation (Beta), updated access to directions, optimized suggested search results and a photo viewer to Place pages. Google Maps already hadnavigationfunctionality, which it says is providing over 12 billion driving and walking directions per year, using GPS technology. With the introduction of Transit Navigation, GPS is used to identify a user’s current location alongside their route, and it alerts them when it’s time to make a transfer....

AI can leavea staggering carbon footprint, but it can also help us fight climate change. Unsurprisingly, Google has been keen to highlight the field’s more positive impacts. On Tuesday, the tech giant unveiled two new AI-powered attempts to support sustainable travel. The first is eco-friendly routing for Google Maps. The service has been updated with a new model that’s designed to reduce a driver’s carbon footprint. The model analyzes factors such as road incline and traffic congestion to display the most fuel-efficient route....

It’s usually a two-step proces for me. I first check Google Maps to get directions, then I look at Weather.com or some other service to find out what I’ll need to pack. Now, with anaddition to Google Maps, I get to cut out one of those steps: Weather comes in a layer, just like everything else in Google Maps. If you want to see it, you’ll need to hover over the right corner of Google Maps and select Weather from the dropdown menu....