Google is on a roll these days. First it was the launch of Gmail Offline, then it went under sea with Google Earth 5.0, now it has provided a nifty feature which lets you and your friends know about each others' current location, and going by the way Google is launching these services, I believe there’s more in store for us Google addicts.

Google Latitude, this is the name of the new enhancement to Google Maps which lets you notify your friends about your location.

Now, before anyone cries out ‘Privacy’, there’s an option which enables you to hide your location, it also allows you to select only those friends with whom you are comfortable sharing your location. Just as you would add your friends in Google Talk, the same way you can accept or block your friends who can see your location. One also has an option to ‘Accept but hide your location’.

The only requirement is that your phone should support Google Maps version 3.0 .

The many ways through which you can install Google Maps v3.0 and then use Latitude:

• Visit google.com/latitude using your mobile web browser
• Or go here, select your country, key in your mobile number, you'll receive a text message with a link which will take you to the Latitude page

You can use Google Latitude using your PC too, you can do so by using iGoogle. The location is updated automatically if you have Google Gears installed in your browser, otherwise you’ll have to manually update your location. Check it out here.

Google has tried to protect user privacy as much as it can. When you install Google Maps with Latitude on your phone, it will prompt you for a limited number of times that you are currently sharing your location thereby providing you an option to stop sharing your location.

For all those people who are still concerned about their Privacy, Google has released a video to answer the most common questions.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXmcoadcoJY&feature=channel]

To check if you can use Latitude using your phone or not, click here.

Read more about Latitude here.

Check out some screen shots below