At SXSW, Google’s VP of  Location and Local Services, Marissa Mayer, took the stage and dished out some interesting Google data, including mobile stats. During her talk, Mayer revealed the following statistics we found interesting:

• 40% of all Google Maps usage is from mobile devices, and Christmas and New Years day mobile usage surpassed desktop usage for the first time.
• 150 million mobile users on Google Maps
• Google Maps Navigation, included on Android handsets, has guided users 12 billion miles a year, and the latest version with traffic routing saves users 2 years per day in time that would have been spent in traffic.
• Google Maps could get smarter, and become contextually aware. For instance, if you were trying to catch a flight, Google Maps could see your flight schedule to see when your flight was, then look and analyze real-time traffic data and weather conditions to try and figure out the exact time you should leave
• Google would like there to be better Google Maps for iPhone. “We like being the default provider, but we’d like to get some of these updates out to a broader audience. That’s still a debate/question we’re considering.”

With Google’s Android explosion continuing, it looks like there will plenty more Google Maps and Navigation users over the next few years.

A sometimes overlooked feature that has been made incredibly simple on the iPhone is the ability to subscribe to a variety of calendars. Many are familiar with CalDAV as it adds a quick and easy way to keep your iPhone or iPod touch in sync with your Google Calendar, but did you know you can also add a wide range of publicly available calendar subscriptions in a matter of seconds? One of the more common subscriptions is the US holidays calendar but you can also quickly and easily add TV show schedules, network premier schedules, sports team schedules, movie releases, concert tour schedules and plenty more to your iPhone calendar. Hit the jump to find out how.

The easiest way to add calendar subscriptions is to start by finding a good directory. There are a few decent ones out there but for the purposes of this quick how-to we’ll use iCal World (another popular one is iCalShare). Simply pull the site up in Safari on your iPhone and have a look through the various available subscriptions. When you find one you like — yep, you guessed it — click on it.

Provided the link is alive of course, Safari will ask you’d like to subscribe to the calendar in a pop up message. Tap “Subscribe” and your iPhone will do just that. Once you see a confirmation message you’re good to go, and you can even tap “View Events” in the pop up to see your new events in the Calendar app.

As with most things, there is a “but” involved. You’ll find that many of the calendars you try to subscribe to are no longer maintained. As such, it can take a bit of searching to find what you’re looking for. Once you do find it though, adding the subscription to your iPhone couldn’t be easier.

RIM announced on Tuesday their new Web Signals technology that lets content providers push relevant and timely alerts directly to your Blackberry. Like SMS alerts on steroids, the new Web Signals will alert Blackberry users of the latest news, weather, sports, entertainment, financial information, etc. You won’t get plain old 160 character text alerts sent out en masse at regular intervals; the new Blackberry alerts will be automatically generated when new content is published and will provide one-click access to the associated online content. Can you see the content providers jumping for joy as they envision large increases in site traffic? Oh, yeah. Can you also see Blackberry users sinking under a deluge of push content? Nah, we didn’t think so either. Berryheads love their push content! At launch, RIM has Canada’s CBCNews, Thumbplay, Dada Entertainment, and The Washington Post on board and ready to launch their Web Signals powered alert services. Hey Blackberry users, let’s crank it up a notch and get on with some serious pushing!

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