Technologies

These two newest Google Maps features help you explore. Here’s where to find them

Plus, we’ll tell you how to use five other Google Maps tips to help you navigate.

This story is part of Holiday Gift Guide 2021, our list of ideas, by topic, by recipient and by price, to help you discover the perfect gift.

If holiday shopping has you stressed out — maybe you haven’t started yet or you’re trying to avoid going to stores when it’s busy — Google Maps can help. The app can help you figure out where to go shopping when you’re trying to steer clear of crowds of people doing the same. For instance, you can use the app to check out how busy a store or restaurant is before deciding to go.

You can also use Google Maps to let your family know your whereabouts when you’re running late. Plus, you can book reservations in advance through the app instead of calling a restaurant. We’ll tell you all the ways Google Maps can help make your holidays go smoothly and how to use all seven features.

Navigate through airports, malls and transit stations

If you need to quickly find a store in a large mall, Google Maps is expanding its Directory tab for all airports, malls and transit stations, it announced in November. This can help prevent running around the airport, trying to find a place to eat or grabbing a last-minute souvenir before catching your flight. The tab will tell you the business hours and which floors it’s on. You can look through restaurants, stores, lounges and parking lots.

Browse Google Maps to see how busy a place is

Google added a new feature to its Google Maps’ busyness tool. Before, you needed to search a location, like a business, to see a chart that showed how crowded it is in real time. But now, a new feature called Area Busyness lets you see when entire map areas as clogged with people.

Using the new feature, you open the Google Maps app on your Android or iPhone (or your computer’s browser) and move around the map to find a general area, say downtown, a riverwalk or a quaint nearby town. The busyness information will now automatically appear on the map, so you don’t need to specifically search a place to see how crowded it is. Google Maps may say something like «Busy Area,» and when you click for more details, it could say, «As busy as it gets.»

Track your trip itinerary in Google Maps

Google Maps can chart your travels, but it can also quickly show you your holiday flight, hotel, car rental and restaurant reservations, saving you the hassle of searching through your email for check-in times and confirmation numbers.

To see your upcoming reservations:

1. In Google Maps, tap Saved in the bottom menu row.

2. Tap Reservations. Here, you’ll see a list of upcoming reservations you’ve made that Maps has pulled from emails in Gmail.

3. Select an item to see more about the reservation, including date and location.

4. You can also search for «my reservations» in the Google Maps search box to see a list of what you’ve booked.

Make a restaurant reservation right in Google Maps

Planning and preparing a holiday dinner can be a multiday chore. If you’d rather spend time with family and friends instead of sharp knives and hot stoves, Google Maps can help you book a lunch or dinner reservation.

1. In Maps, tap the Restaurants button at the top of the map to see a list of places to eat.

2. Select a restaurant that looks good, and in the window that pops up, reserve a table or join a waitlist, if it gives you that option (not all do).

Remember to use the «busyness» feature mentioned above to pick the least packed place. Also, note that some restaurants are still closed to dine-in, but will often allow delivery, curbside pickup or outdoor seating.

Use Google Maps offline

Heading someplace remote where you may not have a mobile network connection? Google Maps can still give you directions when you’re offline.

1. Before you head out, in Maps search for the location where you’ll want directions.

2. In the location’s window, pull up the menu at the bottom.

3. Scroll right through the tabs and tap Download and then, in the next window, tap Download again. Maps will download a map to your phone for the area you selected.

Now, as you use Google Maps for directions in the area you downloaded a map for, when you lose your cellular connection, Maps will switch to the offline map to guide you. Because you’re offline, Maps won’t be able to offer real-time traffic info, of course.

Find EV charging spots and gas stations wherever you are

If you’re taking your electric vehicle out for shopping, dinner or a holiday drive, Google Maps can help you find EV charging stations on your route, along with estimated wait times for a charging port. You can also filter your search by connector type — such as J1772, CCS (Combo 1 or 2) and Tesla — to see just the stations that are compatible with your EV. Note you can also search for gas stations by following these same directions.

1. In Maps, scroll through the tabs on the top of the screen and tap More.

2. Scroll down to the Services section and select Electric vehicle charging.

3. Maps will display nearby charging stations and how many are available.

4. Tap a charging station on the map to have Maps add it as a stop on your trip.

You can also use this trick to search for other places along your route, like a coffee shop.

Share your location through Google Maps

Is anything more crazy-making during a group activity than when the group gets split up and no one can find each other? Google Maps can help bring you all back together.

1. In Google Maps, tap your profile icon in the top right corner and tap Location sharing.

2. Tap Share location and select who you want to share your location with and for how long you want to share it.

3. Tap Share, and Google Maps will send your location to everyone you’ve selected.

4. If you want to see someone else’s location, tap that person’s icon at the top of the window and then tap Request.

If, after all this, you’d rather stay inside during the holidays, here’s how to use your Prime benefits to your advantage while shopping. And if you don’t intend to leave your couch at all, here are the best new TV shows to watch.

Technologies

AI Notification Summaries Come Back to iPhone News Apps, but With a Warning

Apple disabled these summaries for most of 2025.

Apple brought AI notification summaries for news and entertainment apps back to Apple Intelligence-enabled iPhones when the company released iOS 26 in September. Apple disabled these summaries in early 2025 after the BBC pointed out in December 2024 that the feature twisted the media organization’s notifications and displayed inaccurate information.

What’s different now about these summaries is that your device’s settings warn you that the summaries might be inaccurate. Your device will also note that you should verify the information in these summaries, and the best way I can think of to do this is to tap into the notification and read the story. This might defeat the purpose of the summaries for some people, but it could also ensure people read past a headline.

Here’s what to know about those AI summaries and the new warning.

Don’t miss any of our unbiased tech content and lab-based reviews. Add CNET as a preferred Google source.

iOS 26 warns about summary inaccuracies

When I updated to iOS 26, I was greeted by some splash screens asking for various permissions. One splash screen was for the AI notification summaries. When you see this screen, you have two options: Choose Notifications to Summarize or Not Now. If you tap Not Now, the splash screen goes away.

If you tap Choose Notifications to Summarize, you’re taken to a new page where you’ll see three categories: News & Entertainment, Communication & Social and All Other Apps. Tapping one of these categories allows notification summaries for apps in that category. Beneath the News & Entertainment category, there’s a warning that gets outlined in red if you tap it.

«Summarization may change the meaning of the original headline,» the warning reads, adding, «Verify information.»

There’s also a warning across the bottom of the screen that reads, «This is a beta feature. Summaries may contain errors.»

After tapping the categories you want, tap Summarize Selected Notifications across the bottom of your screen. If you selected all the categories, this button will read Summarize All Notifications.

And if you don’t want these summaries, you can tap Do Not Summarize Notifications. If you allow these summaries and don’t like them, you can easily turn them off. Here’s how.

How to turn off AI notification summaries

1. Tap Settings.
2. Tap Notifications.
3. Tap Summarize Notifications.

4. Tap the Summarize Notifications toggle in the new menu.

You can also follow the above steps to turn AI notification summaries back on. You’ll have to select which categories you want these summaries for again, too.

For more iOS news, here’s what to know about iOS 26.2 and what was included in iOS 26.1. You can also check out our iOS 26 cheat sheet for other tips and tricks.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Connections: Sports Edition Hints and Answers for Jan. 7, #471

Here are hints and the answers for the NYT Connections: Sports Edition puzzle for Jan. 7, No. 471.

Looking for the most recent regular Connections answers? Click here for today’s Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle and Strands puzzles.

Today’s Connections: Sports Edition is a bit tricky. The blue category was a real stumper for me, though I found the purple group easy today for a change. If you’re struggling with today’s puzzle but still want to solve it, read on for hints and the answers.

Connections: Sports Edition is published by The Athletic, the subscription-based sports journalism site owned by The Times. It doesn’t appear in the NYT Games app, but it does in The Athletic app. Or you can play it for free online.

Read more: NYT Connections: Sports Edition Puzzle Comes Out of Beta

Hints for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups

Here are four hints for the groupings in today’s Connections: Sports Edition puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.

Yellow group hint: On the ice.

Green group hint: Run and jump.

Blue group hint: Baseball bosses.

Purple group hint: Golden State schools.

Answers for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups

Yellow group: NHL teams with singular nicknames

Green group: A bit of track and field equipment.

Blue group: MLB managers.

Purple group: Mascots for University of California schools in the singular.

Read more: Wordle Cheat Sheet: Here Are the Most Popular Letters Used in English Words

What are today’s Connections: Sports Edition answers?

Don’t miss any of our unbiased tech content and lab-based reviews. Add CNET as a preferred Google source.

The yellow words in today’s Connections

The theme is NHL teams with singular nicknames. The four answers are Avalanche, Kraken, Lightning and Mammoth.

The green words in today’s Connections

The theme is a bit of track and field equipment. The four answers are baton, hurdle, javelin and pole.

The blue words in today’s Connections

The theme is MLB managers. The four answers are Cash, Counsell, Marmol and Vogt.

The purple words in today’s Connections

The theme is mascots for University of California schools, in the singular. The four answers are Banana Slug, Bruin, Gaucho and Golden Bear.

Technologies

Yes, This Swimming RoboTurtle Is Adorable. It Also Has an Important Environmental Mission

Beatbot is best known for making pool-cleaning robots, but it was its swimming robot turtle that won our hearts at CES 2026.

Few things in life have made me feel more privileged and awestruck than the opportunity to swim with sea turtles in their natural environment. The way in which these gentle creatures navigate through their underwater world with their deliberate and careful fin strokes is utterly mesmerizing to watch.

It’s a distinctive style of movement — so much so that when I saw Beatbot’s RoboTurtle swim across a water tank on the show floor at CES 2026, I knew that this wasn’t simply just a pool cleaner robot with turtle features tacked on. This was a studied example of biomimicry in action.

The reason for this is that the company’s engineers went on a two-month expedition to study sea turtles in their natural environment, Beatbot’s Eduardo Campo told me as we watched Turtini (the team’s affectionate nickname for RoboTurtle) splash around in its pool. «We did a lot of motion capture, like the things they use in movies, because we need to develop those joints that it has,» he said.

This isn’t RoboTurtle’s first time at CES — it also appeared in 2025 as a static concept. This is the year, however, it’s found its fins, so to speak. Not only can it swim, but it can also respond to hand gestures: I throw it an OK gesture, and it dances in response. But as cute and limber as it is, RoboTurtle is a robot with an important mission.

RoboTurtle is an environmental research tool, built with input from researchers and NGOs, which can go where humans or other machines cannot for fear of disturbing complex and delicate underwater ecosystems, particularly coral reefs. It can move silently and naturally in a way that won’t scare wildlife, monitoring water quality and fish numbers with its built-in camera.

«One of the groups that we’re working with, they want to study the coral reefs in near Indonesia,» said Campo. «There was a very big incident over there with a boat that came up onto a coral reef and it disrupted the environment, [so] they want the least intrusive robot possible.»

The group wants to deploy RoboTurtle for certain periods every year to monitor the recovery of the coral and monitor the fish population, he added. Beatbot is currently training the built-in AI to give RoboTurtle monitoring and recognition skills.

At CES, I watched RoboTurtle paddle about only on the surface of the pool, but it can also dive down up to five meters. However, it needs to resurface to send data and its GPS signal back to base, much like a real turtle that needs to come to the surface to breathe. This also gives it a chance to recharge via the solar panel on its back.

Even though I was impressed with RoboTurtle’s swimming ability, Campo estimates that the Beatbot team is still a year and a half away from perfecting its technique, with the robot ready for full deployment in between three to five years.

CES 2026 is a show where tech with a real purpose feels scarce, so it sure is refreshing to see a company use its expertise to build something designed with a sustainable future in mind. It might be a while until we see RoboTurtle take to the seas, but I’m glad that I got to witness it at this stage of its journey.