Phonedig

Google’s Christmas gift this year is free WiFi to all weary travellers at 47 airports. Starting today and ending on January 15th, the free service doesn’t have any strings attached and flyers on Virgin American will receive free in-flight WiFi starting on the 18th.

Click here for a full list of participating airports.

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Google announced the availability of a new Google mobile app for S60 phones, featuring search with your voice capability. Now all you Nokia users can perform a search on Google by simply speaking into your phone. Yep, long overdue but it’s finally here, eh?

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Looks like the mumblings were true as Google officially announced their Maps Navigation App. The new app features a 3D map, supports layers (e.g. Wikipedia), offers turn-by-turn voice guidance, and automatic rerouting.

As of now it’s only available on the Motorola Droid in beta form with no word if it’ll be made available on other platforms. But if Google releases this app to all phones, traditional GPS makers will have something to worry about, especially if they have to compete with the likes of the Google behemoth.

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Rumors on the street is that Google will be releasing a free, ad-supported turn-by-turn GPS application. And yes, that was the collective trembling of Garmin, Tom Tom, and the rest of the traditional GPS makers as they shook in their boots. Assuming this is true, of course.

I always wondered why Google never released such an app that would be a natural extension of Google Maps. It just makes sense, right?

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Great news all you BlackBerry users, Google finally added the cool and highly useful Layers functionality to their Google Maps for BlackBerry. With the new Google Maps 3.2, users can stack “Layers” on top of Google Map to view things such as traffic, Wikipedia articles, transit lines, and My Maps (create a route on your PC and view it on your BlackBerry). Click below for more info.

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Google announced the availability of their Android 1.6 “Donut” SDK to developers. So what’s new in this version? Quite a lot, actually. Check it out:

• New version of Android Market
• Re-worked search function with the ability to search browser bookmarks, history, contacts, and the web from desktop
• Redesigned camera, video recorder, and gallery applications (with an emphasis on speed)
• Revised VPN menu page
• Improved CDMA support
• Increased support for screen resolutions
• More telephony and gesture APIs
• Text to speech engine

Look for this release as early as October.

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Google announced the release of Google Maps for mobile 3.2 for Windows Mobile and Symbian series 60 devices.  So what’s new with this release? Layers. You can now add multiple layers on top of the map. Say you’re viewing the map and want to see the traffic. Click, there you have it. Maybe you want to Wikipedia the area to see what’s interesting. Click again and there you see it on top of the traffic layer. Another layer? Click, I’m sure you get the point. The following layers are available to you:

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Google recently announced that Google Search is now optimized for all feature phones in over 60 countries and 38 languages. This means any Google searches on your particular phone will be properly formatted and displayed and will effectively eliminate the need to zoom or scroll sideways. Check it out

• When available, News, Images, Blog, Video and Product Search results are blended right into your result page
• Many of your favorite Google Search features now appear in the first result to provide direct answers to your searches
• We continue to optimize specific results for mobile, so local listings for restaurants in London, for example, provide easy-to-select phone number links

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If you ain’t heard, Android officially released the SDK for Android 1.5 today!  Also, HTC has provided the necessary system images to upgrade your phone to the matching OS, which has long been referred to as Cupcake.  The only catch: You’ll need an Android Dev Phone 1 (ADP1) to make the jump.  As they note, 1.5 is not intended for daily use, but for development and will lack some of the features found on an end user’s device.

Sorry, still no word on an official launch date of Android 1.5, but you can probably expect it in early May.

[via Android-Developers]

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The good folks at Google released their highly useful Google Product Search for the Android and iPhone. So what’s it do? Say you’re looking for that high-end speaker set you’ve been drooling over for the past two months, but you were waiting for that “aw-screw-it-that’s-good-enough-for-me” price, and wanted to read just one more review, while pouring over the technical specs for the umpteenth time, desperately seeking to unload your hard earned cash before the significant other drags your sorry arse to the Bloomingdale’s one day sales event to buy the “must have” shoes to match the outfit bought from the last one day sales event from a couple of days ago…

Yeap, if that’s you then the Google Product Search IS for you. Simply type in the specific product model, click search, and out pops a list with the best prices, product reviews, specifications, etc, etc. Not only that but you can now do this anywhere with your iPhone or Android device.

[via Phonescoop]

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