Google Andy Rubin whipped out a prototype tablet tonight at the D: Dive Into Mobile conference. That it's a prototype Motorola tablet running Honeycomb is special enough. But it's what he was doing on it that sounds pretty cool. First up was Google Maps. And if there's one thing that frustrates us above all else with Google Maps, it's all that damned tiling, never mind how good our network connection is.

But tiling, apparently, is about to become a thing of the past. A vector version of Google Maps is about to drop "in a matter of days," Rubin said, and will bring better panning and zooming. Plus, 3D graphics and what not -- and offline caching.

Still images from a video don't do it justice, we're sure, so keep an eye out for the video, and for updated maps in a few days. [All Things D; Engadget]

Update: Engadget was given a list of phones that will support the new Google Maps. They are: Samsung Galaxy S, Motorola Droid, Motorola, Droid X, Motorola Droid 2, HTC Droid Incredible, HTC Evo 4G, Nexus S, HTC G2. No Nexus One, apparently, because of multitouch issues. How quickly we fall out of favor, eh?