TechBlog

BlackBerry users rejoice, Google Maps for mobile just got a huge update that adds support for voice search, Google Buzz and more. Google Maps for BlackBerry has always been a feature rich application, but the additions to Google Maps 4.0 bring it more in line with their offerings for the iPhone and Google’s own Android platform. Here are some of the highlights of the new version: Search by voice: Google’s voice search feature is now supported by all BlackBerry devices, meaning users can search using phrases or even addresses, just as users can on the iPhone or Android. Google Buzz: Google Buzz for mobile is also now available with a heavy focus on Buzz’s geolocation feature. This means that you can see what’s going on nearby and also post your own public Buzz messages. This instantly adds some Yelp-like functionality to the app. Personalized searches and starred item support: If you have Web History enabled on your Google Account, you can save time typing search queries in maps.google.com because Google will provide you with suggestions based on your previous searches. So if you found a place at home but didn’t write down the number, you can just type in a few letters on your phone and it will pop right up. You can also synchronize your starred items between your computer and your phone, which is great for keeping track of places you want to visit or need to get directions to. Labs: Google Maps 4.0 supports Labs features like the terrain layer and scale adjustments. Find nearby businesses: You can view nearby businesses by selecting a point on a map or your current location. ...

Oh dear — looks like it’s time to add FarmVille to the list of internet addiction scares after a 12-year-old UK boy has amassed £905 in FarmVille debt. About £288 of that came from the boy’s own savings, while £625 was billed to his horrified mother’s credit card. The debt — which is equivalent to about $1400 USD — was racked up in all of about two weeks’ worth of gameplay. In the popular casual Facebook game, players can spend real money to accrue virtual currency and items. It’s a business that’s booming enough to garner the game’s developer Zynga an estimated valuation as high as $5 billion. ...

Farmville has been launch in June 2009 and after month it has been rated at #8 in Top 25 Facebook Games. Farmville has become the most popular games on Facebook. It has been rank at #1 Facebook Game on August 2009 up until now. Farmville users can’t get enough of farming. They make impressive hay bales art farm just like the Image below. Fake AV gang launches its attack to the Farmville users by poisoning Yahoo and Google search results using the following keywords (see Image 1): ...

Just after the launch of iPad, Apple has just announced iPhone OS 4.0 Event at 8th April 10 AM PT. A lot more speculations are being made about the upcoming features of iPhone OS 4.0 Following are some most closest guesses on the features of apple iPhone OS 4.0 Key Features iPhone OS 4.0 There will be multi-touch gestures support everywhere on iphone OS 4.0 Multitasking will be there to allow to run third party apps in background Many graphical and UI changes to make navigating through iPhone OS easier and more efficient. The update will be most probably available for only the iPhone 3G and 3GS There might be some new way to sync contacts and calendar applications. Lets what all out of these features listed above to be come out as truth, on 8th April 2010 at iPhone OS 4.0 Event

“Shadows in the Cloud” hang over the otherwise sunny PRC A spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign ministry has tried to minimize a report from investigators in Toronto that hackers based in China breached computers of the Indian Government and others and downloaded classified material. The Information Warfare Monitor and the Shadowserver Foundation extensively documented an eight-month investigation that revealed a network of infected government and military computers. The net was controlled from servers in China and stole a variety of classified documents. They posted their 52-page report, “Shadows in the Cloud: investigating cyber espionage 2.0” today on scribd.com ...

A blog contributor who goes by the name of “jeremy” has continued to research the possibilities inherent in the recently discovered .pdf-file weakness that could enable the execution of code. Jeremy posted earlier this week that he had created a proof of concept .pdf file that could spread to other .pdf files on a system or network (which makes it a worm). “Within the proof of concept I infected a single benign PDF file from another PDF file, but this proof of concept could easily be modified to recursively traverse a users computer directories to find and infect all PDF files on that users computer and/or accessible to that user at the time of execution with any payload of my choosing.” He wrote on the SudoSecure.net site. ...

Here’s a nice little update for Picasa Web Albums users – Google has upped the previous limit of 1,000 albums per account to 10,000. When it comes to storage space for your photos, it’s the same (7.76 GB, shared between Gmail, Google Docs, and Picasa Web Albums), but you can still buy more at very affordable prices. The default view, however, still only shows a hundred albums. If you have more and want to see the rest, click on either “show more albums” or “show all albums” at the bottom of your page.

Apple iPad is launched few days back and many tips and tutorials related to it have started appearing all over the web. We’ve a quick iPad tip – Taking screenshots in iPad. The way of taking a screenshot on an iPad is almost same, as it is on iPhone and iPod touch. Follow the steps below to do it: Open any app or window of which you want to take the screenshot in your iPad. ...

Just two years after acquiring social network Bebo for $850 million, the newly-independent AOL has decided to abandon its social networking investment, either by selling it or simply shutting it down. According to PaidContent, AOL sent a message to employees earlier today stating that it “is not in a position” to support Bebo: “The strategy we set in May 2009 leverages our core strengths and scale in quality content, premium advertising and consumer applications, positioning us for the next phase of growth of the Internet. As we evaluate our portfolio of brands against our strategy, it is clear that social networking is a space with heavy competition, and where scale defines success. Bebo, unfortunately, is a business that has been declining and, as a result, would require significant investment in order to compete in the competitive social networking space. AOL is not in a position at this time to further fund and support Bebo in pursuing a turnaround in social networking.” AOL is committed to working quickly to determine if there are any interested parties for Bebo and the company’s current expectation is to complete our strategic evaluation by the end of May 2010.” ...

Chrome’s share of the browser market is growing at a breakneck pace, according to data from Net Applications. Between February and March, Google’s browser rose to capture a full 6.1% share of the market, maintaining its lead over browsers such as Safari and Opera and closing the gap between Firefox, which currently holds a 24.5% share. While most browsers rose a fraction of a percent, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer continued to decline, losing almost a whole percent over the past month alone. ...