On Wednesday, Google released the second iteration of its Google Maps for mobile phones, a mobile mapping and local search application that sports several new bells and whistles. The new version features Google’s “My Location” technology, which uses cell tower information to provide users with their approximate location to help them determine where they are and what’s around them. The most common source of location information to date — GPS technology — is supported on fewer than 15 percent of the mobile phones sold in 2007. With Google’s My Location technology, users who don’t have GPS-enabled mobile phones still can have Google Maps position their location on the map. According to Google, the My Location technology will complement GPS-enabled devices by delivering a location estimate more quickly than GPS can and providing coverage inside buildings where GPS signals can be unreliable. Google promises its technique doesn’t drain phone batteries as quickly as GPS does. Press Zero, Get Location “We’ve all been there: You’re out and about, and you need to figure out where you are, what’s around you, and how to get there. Google Maps for mobile can help you do all that, but first you have to enter in a starting point using the keypad. And let’s face it — entering things into your phone using the keypad is so 2006,” Mike Chu, a software engineer on the Google mobile team, wrote on the Official Google Mobile blog. With Google Maps loaded, users have only to press zero on the keypad to fire up the My Location service. The map then automatically indicates the approximate location information by centering on a blue circle. Of course, Chu admitted, the technology is still in beta. That means it might not be 100 percent accurate and it is not supported on every mobile device. Google has noted…

3G iPhone: ‘You’ll Have It Next Year’
This was surely not how Steve Jobs intended to announce the monumental news that an iPhone capable of running on 3G networks would be available. AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson didn’t even say, “oh and one more thing” before leaking the news. Speaking to reporters in Santa Clara, California, the heart of Silicon Valley, Stephenson responded to a question about a 3G iPhone. But instead of vague assurances or deferring to Apple, the CEO of the No. 1 carrier said, “You’ll have it next year,” Bloomberg reported. At least he didn’t talk price or get more specific about timing. Jobs “will dictate what the price of the phone is,” he said. Stealing Jobs’ Thunder Since the iPhone launched in June, many consumers have complained that AT&T’s EDGE network makes Web browsing on the phone a painfully slow experience. An iPhone that runs on the fast 3G network would be substantially more attractive as an Internet device. Even so, Apple has sold 1.5 million iPhones. Will the news of a 3G iPhone cause would-be buyers to hold off? Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster said any procrastinators wouldn’t be “enough to make a difference.” But the slowness of the EDGE network, along with the lack of a hardware keyboard, has been “the big complaint,” Greg Sterling, principal analyst with Sterling Marketing Intelligence, said in a telephone interview. “The timing of this may be regrettable from Apple’s point of view,” he said. By addressing the issue, Stephenson “may cause some number of people to wait” on buying an iPhone. On the other hand, the news may push some interested buyers to purchase now. Asserting Control? How likely is it that the CEO of one of the U.S.’s biggest companies just slipped up? Sterling speculated that Stephenson might have been “trying to assert some measure of control over this device.” While AT&T…

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