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Yahoo's mapping service has been tweaked today to include a rerouting feature similar to the one Google's had since June. The new addition lets you pick up and drag your directions at any point to get the service to reroute according to the guidelines you give it. Once you've made changes, the service will pop up with a small comparison to show you how many miles have been added (or taken away) and how the change affects the time on your original commute recommendation.

Rerouting is a handy feature, and if you've given Google's implementation … Read more

Microsoft said Wednesday that has scooped up Multimap, a United Kingdom-based mapping service.

The software maker didn't say how much it was paying for the online mapping company, but said the unit should help in the company's broader Virtual Earth and search efforts.

"Partnering with Microsoft gives us a world of new opportunities to build our mapping services into new technologies and applications," Multimap CEO Jeff Kelisky said in a statement. "As one of the world's foremost technology brands, Microsoft is in a position to bring even more value to the Multimap service and … Read more

Typing your starting point on a typical cell phone search tool can get tedious, even if you've got a high-end device with a QWERTY keyboard. A GPS-enabled cell phone can wipe those tears away, but since about 85 percent of handsets do not have GPS, most users are out of luck.

Google Maps for Mobile with My Location draws enough information from local cell phone towers to figure out where you are and then uses that information to launch a search. The idea is it saves you search time and manual effort. How well does it work? Get a … Read more

When old rockers go digital, they go all the way. Led Zeppelin was one of the longtime holdouts from iTunes and other digital music stores, but in 2007 they relented and released a greatest-hits collection, Mothership, simultaneously online and on CD. (A good business move: the physical album charted charted at #7, but the digital album came in at #2.) Since the album's Nov. 13 release, the band has also launched a new Web site, the coolest feature of which is a timeline with the setlist of every single Zeppelin concert. This Seattle show looks particularly astounding, with about … Read more

Google is set on Wednesday to launch a new feature in its Google Maps for Mobile program that automatically sets your location even in phones that lack a global positioning system (GPS) device.

Until now, if you were in a cafe and you wanted to search for a nearby photocopy shop, you had to type in an address to set your location before Google Maps for Mobile could provide local listings.

The beta feature triangulates your approximate location based on nearby cell towers so you don't have to type in your address. Given that less than 15 percent of … Read more

Google Maps has added a new view layer to its repertoire today. It's called terrain view, and as the name suggests, it lets you get a detailed look at natural geographical features, as well as man made ones, like buildings and landmarks. Unlike Google Earth, you can't zoom around and change eye level to see how high something is, but Google has provided some degree of rendering on the surface of the earth to give it a 3D look and feel.

While it lacks the flash and instant usefulness of Street View (Google's latest maps addition), terrain … Read more

We're total suckers for video products that let us use our face. A few months back, Caroline put my head on a woman's body with the launch of JibJab's Starring You service, and shortly before that, Rafe played around with Fix8, which lets you overlay live video with avatar and object overlays. Both are vastly different technologies, but the idea is the same: quick entertainment with very little effort on the part of the end user. Along the same lines, Gizmoz, which has been providing 3-D face-mapping technology to the masses since late May, is launching a … Read more

Flickr has finally gotten around to rolling out their new Places feature. We got a note about it appearing sometime midday yesterday, but the service hadn't gone live yet until early today. Essentially it's a profile page for locations, letting you dig deep into both local photographers, and pictures taken around landmarks that have been matched up either by name, or geotags. Anytime people add their photos with the correct geography (something that's done through Flickr's organizer tool), the most recent shots will appear on the page. Each places page also links up with other Yahoo … Read more