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Don't try this on game day, but the new Google Maps Navigation application will show you how to take a spin past Boston's Fenway Park.

(Credit: Google)

You can almost hear the portable navigation industry swearing already.

Google is announcing plans Wednesday to release a new Android application called Google Maps Navigation. When combined with a GPS-equipped mobile phone running Android 2.0, it provides turn-by-turn directions powered by Google Maps and a slick user interface that combines features such as voice recognition and Google Street View. Google Maps Navigation, like seemingly everything that emerges from Google, will be free.

"Mobile platforms--Android and others--are so powerful now that you can build client apps that can do magical things connected to the cloud," said Google CEO Eric Schmidt in a briefing for reporters at Google's headquarters on Tuesday.

The standard Google Maps Navigation view.

(Credit: Google)

Companies in the cell phone navigation industry have seen this day coming for quite some time. Right now, the beta application only works on phones that will use the Android 2.0 software, which is scheduled to be available very soon with the expected arrival of Motorola's Droid phone on Verizon's network.

Google's Vic Gundotra appeared to demonstrate the application on the Droid: he wouldn't confirm it, but it was a shiny black Android 2.0 phone running on Verizon's network and bearing Motorola's stamp, so we're probably not going too far out on a limb here. (Update, 7:24 a.m. PDT: Says Google's Wednesday morning press release: "The first phone to have Google Maps Navigation and Android 2.0 is the Droid from Verizon.")

However, Google is working with Apple on bringing it to the iPhone, and it's not ruling out licensing the software to makers of portable navigation devices used in cars throughout the world, said Gundotra, vice president of engineering at Google for mobile and developers. The process involving Apple is slightly different from the usual App Store submission process, because Maps is a built-in iPhone application, he said.

The application works like any navigation system that you may have used, but it combines Google Search and Google Maps functions that are normally only available on the desktop and brings them to the smartphone. Perhaps the most interesting and useful feature comes from Google Street View, allowing Google to provide a Street View image at every turn that the application suggests during your journey.

Google is notoriously slow and calculating about changing it the user interface of its services.

In fact, Google hasn't made any major changes to the look and feel of Google Maps since its launch in 2005.

On Friday, the company launched several refinements to Maps--the biggest changes to its look since launch. While you might not notice these changes immediately--unless you are a hardcore Google Maps user--they are designed to enhance the readability of the maps.

Notice how roads and names are called out more effectively in the new version.

(Credit: Google)

As seen above, the thick street outlines that can make maps harder to read have been eliminated.

Google describes the update here:

(L)ocal and arterial roads have been narrowed at medium zooms to improve legibility, and the overall colors have been optimized to be easier on the eye and conflict less with other things (such as traffic, transit lines and search results) that we overlay onto the map. Hybrid roads have gained a crisp outline to make them easier to follow, and the overall look is now closer to an augmented satellite view instead of a simple overlay.

Google Maps' comparison of London in the old and new views.

(Credit: Google)

(Credit: Screenshot by Matt Hickey)

For most people, Sir-Mix-A-Lot is synonymous with his hit "Baby Got Back." But for his real fans, or fans of early hip-hop in general, the greatest song Mix ever did was "My Posse's On Broadway," an homage to my home neighborhood in Seattle. It's a detailed step-by-step trek with Mix and his posse as they hit up local landmarks like Dick's Burgers and generally have a good time.

It's a great, fun song, and Google Maps user Adam Cohn has done fans a favor by making a map of Seattle that details every stop along the way. This is one of the most fun things I've seen in Google Maps in a long time.

An image of the map is above, but for a more interactive version you can check out Cohn's map for yourself. To make it more fun, below is the video for the single so you can follow along while you follow along. Try not to get the song stuck in your head.

Google's Street View is now live in Canada.

(Credit: Google)

Google announced on Wednesday that it has launched its Street View service to 11 cities in Canada, including Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal, and Ottawa, among others.

Google Street View, which originally launched in May 2007, allows users to virtually navigate neighborhoods in 14 countries around the world. When the service first launched, it was only available in five U.S. cities.

Street View has come under some fire since its debut for the service's alleged potential to infringe the privacy of those people found in its images. To address that issue in Canada, Google said in a statement that it "has gone to great lengths to ensure Canadians' privacy."

The company said that all the images in Canada's Street View are already visible from public roads. Identifiable faces and license plates were blurred to ensure no one in the images could be identified. As with its other Street View services, Google's Canadian Street View features a "Report a problem" link, allowing concerned users to request images be taken down.

Whether Google would ever be able to bring Street View to Canada was very much up in the air not too long ago. In September 2007, Canada's Privacy Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart wrote to Google saying that she was concerned that the service might violate her country's privacy regulations. She believed that Street View could infringe Canada's Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, which went into effect on January 1, 2004.

For its part, Google said in the statement on Wednesday that it "consulted with Canada's federal and provincial Privacy Commissioners in developing Street View and its privacy safeguards." Evidently, that has helped the company bring Street View to the country.

Could Google be adding mortgage information to its real-estate search pages?

(Credit: Screenshot by Tom Krazit/CNET)

Add Google Mortgage to the list of potential services that might soon appear on Google's Web site.

The New York Times noticed a lawsuit pending between LendingTree, an online mortgage quote service, and a company called Mortech, which helps LendingTree run its site. The connection to Google is that apparently, Mortech is gearing up to sell that technology to Google, which LendingTree thinks is a breach of the deal between Mortech and LendingTree.

LendingTree believes that Google is planning to launch the service in late August or early September--basically now--according to the complaint. Google is supposedly going to offer mortgage information and even quotes for home loans. You can already search for home listings on Google Maps, so this would perhaps make an interesting addition.

Google played it coy, telling the Times that "we are currently working on a small ad unit test that will run against a limited number of mortgage-related search queries in the U.S."

Is this Nessie? Probably just a boat, unfortunately.

(Credit: Google Earth/Daily Mail)

Stop the presses: According to the U.K.'s Daily Mail, a security guard was hunting around on Google Earth and spotted a mysterious object that he believes is the storied Loch Ness Monster.

The most shocking part of the report: The fact that it took this long for anyone to claim that Google Earth has found something funny swimming around in Loch Ness. I mean, hello, people. Google Earth has been feeding us tasty satellite maps for over four years now. If Google Street View can surface multiple puking drunks and streakers, you'd think that a massive sea monster (enthusiasts claim it may be a long-thought-extinct reptile called a plesiosaur, to be more specific) would have a tough time staying hidden from Larry and Sergey's snooping.

As you may recall, earlier this year someone with way too much free time on his hands claimed he had found the lost city of Atlantis off the coast of North Africa, as evidenced by a grid-like pattern on Google Earth. Google's response was that it was basically feedback from sonar data collection (so boring), not a legendary sunken city.

Unfortunately for conspiracy nuts and "X-Files" loyalists, the "Nessie" of Google Earth is probably just a boat, as the Daily Mail article points out. The 65-foot-long object really does look pretty similar to other Google Earth aquatic oddities that are more obviously man-made watercraft, after all. So the search remains fruitless, I'm afraid.

But a side note: Shouldn't whoever was in that boat on Loch Ness be concerned that the monster might think they'd make a nice snack? Safety first, people.

Traffic on the Bay Bridge (right, with the exclamation point) was light Tuesday morning in San Francisco, but side streets were backing up, as shown by Google Maps' new traffic feature.

(Credit: Screenshot by Tom Krazit/CNET)

Say goodbye to your favorite shortcuts.

Google Maps is adding traffic data for side streets this week, in addition to the data it already offers up for major highways. Major "arterial" roads, such as state highways or prominent boulevards in cities, will now have their own color-coded traffic information in Google Maps, giving drivers the option of selecting an alternate route based on current traffic conditions.

So how is Google expanding its traffic reports to side streets? If you're using Google Maps on your smartphone (with the notable exception of the iPhone, which doesn't support the feature, according to Google) you're automatically sending speed data back to Google wherever you go.

The trigger is the "My Location" button in Google Maps, which automatically signs you up for the traffic crowdsourcing program when that button is pressed. In addition, Palm Pre and MyTouch 3G users are automatically enrolled in the traffic crowdsourcing program.

You can opt out of the program, but at the expense of the My Location feature. Hit the "My Location" button again to figure out where you are in an unfamiliar city, and you're automatically re-enrolled in the program.

Traffic data has been available on major highways for years through Google Maps, but that data is collected from road sensors and private car fleets and is also available to dozens of third-party traffic providers. The number of people using GPS-enabled smartphones with Google Maps installed has dramatically increased since 2007, and many of them may not know that by using the My Location feature, they're also participating in a traffic-related survey.

Google took great pains to address the security and privacy concerns of the feature in the blog post announcing the new feature.

"We understand that many people would be concerned about telling the world how fast their car was moving if they also had to tell the world where they were going, so we built privacy protections in from the start," wrote Dave Barth, product manager for Google Maps. "We only use anonymous speed and location information to calculate traffic conditions, and only do so when you have chosen to enable location services on your phone."

Google also said it would delete the data it collects about the starting point and ending point of your journey as a natural course of the program: after all, it has to differentiate between someone stuck in traffic and someone parked outside the office.

Plenty of in-car navigation devices transmit real-time traffic information back to the mother ship, so it's not like Google's breaking new ground. But the popularity of Google Maps for cell phones means that Google has an edge in terms of the number of data points it can bring to the table.

(Credit: CNET)

Google Maps has added additional local landmarks and "prominent" businesses right on top of any map area you're browsing. Just like any other points of interest, you can click on any of these to get the a summary, which includes things like related Web sites, phone numbers, hours of operation, photos, and user reviews.

In Google Earth (Google's globe software) this layer of information is something you can turn on and off, however for Maps, Google has decided simply to bake it in. It's definitely a logical next step, considering Google recently added nearby businesses on top of the results of your original search. This made it far easier to discover a local business, even if it wasn't at the top of Google's index.

Purists may find that all the extra points of interest may clutter things up. Although to combat this, the number of on-screen items increases with the zoom level, meaning that most of the time, you're only seeing landmarks.

One thing to note is that the new mapping tiles do not yet appear on mobile devices like the Google Maps apps for iPhone and Android. We've pinged Google to see if the new tiles are headed there anytime soon.

Article updated at 4:35 p.m. PT with more information from Google's official announcement.

(Credit: CNET/Screenshot by Stephen Shankland)

Starting Thursday, iPhone users surfing to m.google.com/latitude can access Google Latitude, Google's friend-tracking feature. Latitude plots friends' pictures on a Google map when they opt to share their location with you.

Earlier this morning, some CNET employees were able to start experimenting with Google's Web-based Latitude for iPhone ahead of the official announcement.

Once loaded, Latitude becomes a tab on m.google.com, Google's mobile face.

The main interface presents a list of contacts. Clicking on your own icon lets you set your status and edit your privacy settings.

Clicking a contact's icon presents the option to send an e-mail, get directions to the contact's location, and change the precision of location information you'd like to share with the person. The options are "best available location," "only city-level location," and "hide from this friend."

The three privacy options let you set the application to detect your location automatically, to require you to set it manually, and to hide your location altogether.

The Web app integrates with the Gmail contacts list, letting you select contacts you'd like to invite from the list; those who already are Google Latitude users get a special icon to let you know they're signed up already. You also can invite people by their e-mail addresses without using Gmail contacts.

In addition to tracking friends, the menu supplies options to search or clear the map, view traffic, get directions, and see a satellite view.

Before Google announced Latitude for iPhone, we surmised that the Latitude feature is meant as an upgrade--or at least as an alternative--to maps.google.com for iPhone users. In a statement, Google explained that the company worked closely with Apple to create the Latitude experience that works around Apple's inability to run apps--even browser-based--in the background. Google gets around this by updating location when you launch the app, and while it runs in the foreground.

Google's Latitude Web app runs on iPhone operating system 3.0. It is currently available in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and in the U.K., and U.S.