You should hear Malatesta's tale about making it to the Oct. 6 launch of Windows Mobile 6.5 with just seconds to spare. It's classic. Especially the part about surviving the dude playing jazz flute. But that's for another time.

Anyhoo, what got him there in time for the keynote was Google Maps, and its inclusion of NYC subway maps. They've been there for a while now, but Google's recently publicly announced them as a feature in the Layers. To turn it on (or just test it if you're outside the city), point the map to NYC, then go to Menu>Layers and turn on the Tranisit lines. Zoom in and you can get station info. It's That simple. [Google Lat-Long blog]

Well, looky here!  Google did a major update to Google Maps for mobile.  Previous version was v3.0.1.6 and the new one is a spanking v3.2.  Such a leap must mean something new and sure enough, there is Google Layers a hitherto unknown feature from our overlords.

Layers allow you to add extra information to your current view, including Wikipedia entries.  That's right, you can now pull down localized Wikipedia info which appear as iconic "W"s on your screen.  Selecting them will bring up a lil' info bubble on that area.  Other "layers" include traffic, transit and My Maps which are your personal customized maps (done via desktop).  Huzzah!  That's pretty darn cool.

They've also fixed a few bugs, re-enabled copy/paste from various field (thank you), additional search results and...well shoot, they even put all this info in an actual 'Release Notes' file which you can read in gory detail.

Get your download here: http://m.google.com/maps