News

Google has rolled out a significant update to the Google Maps application for Android 1.6+ devices, which includes a new search results page, support for multiple accounts, a new Latitude homescreen widget, and a new Maps live wallpaper for 2.1 devices. Previously, when you performed a search in Maps, you would have to choose a result from a list of markers on the map. When you clicked the marker, it would open a page with three tabs: Address, Details, and Reviews. Under the Address tab, there were options to Show the result on the map, get directions to it, call it, look at it in Street View, or add it as a contact. The other two tabs contain exactly what you’d expect, details and reviews. If you wanted to pick a different listing, you’d have to go back to the map view and pick a different marker. ...

Del Harvey who leads Twitter’s Trust and Safety team blogged yesterday that the social networking/micro-blogging service has begun filtering all links in Twitter Direct Messages to stop phishing: “Since these attacks occur primarily on Direct Messages and email notifications about Direct Messages, this is where we have focused our initial efforts. For the most part, you will not notice this feature because it works behind the scenes but you may notice links shortened to twt.tl in Direct Messages and email notifications.” ...

I use Google Reader a lot — not only to stay on top of the news, but also to find interesting blog posts and articles. I’m always telling my friends about Google Reader, and while some of them love it, others don’t want to take the time to set it up. For those of you who fall into this second category, Google is announcing Google Reader Play, a new product that makes the best stuff in Reader more accessible for everyone. Reader Play is a new way to browse interesting stuff on the web, customized to the topics you’re interested in, with no setup required. ...

Swiss security blog Abuse.ch has reported that the worst Zeus botnet hosting ISP was taken off line yesterday, cutting the botnet’s number of servers from 249 to 181 – including the six worse ones. Abuse.ch wrote: “As you can see in the chart above, on March 9th 2010, the number of active ZeuS C&C servers dropped from 249 to 181! The first thing I thought was: There has to be some problem with the ZeuS Tracker cron script. I checked the script – everything looked ok. So the massive drop of ZeuS C&C server is fact. I noticed that six of the worst ZeuS hosting ISP suddenly disappeared from the ZeuS Tracker. _ _ “I verified the subnets of the affected ISP and came to the conclusion that Troyak-as (AS50215), the upstream provider for the six worst ZeuS hosting ISPs, was cut from the internet on 2010-03-09. ” ...

We’ve long believed that personalization makes search more relevant and fun. For nearly five years, Google has been tailoring results with personalized search. They’re announcing a new feature in search that makes it easier for you to mark and rediscover your favorite web content — stars. With stars, you can simply click the star marker on any search result or map and the next time you perform a search, that item will appear in a special list right at the top of your results when relevant. That means if you star the official websites for your favorite football teams, you might see those results right at the top of your next search for [nfl]. Here’s what the new “Starred results” feature looks like: ...

Opera and Safari don’t currently allow browser extensions in the same way as Firefox, Internet Explorer and Google Chrome does, and therefore, providing WOT for these environments is not feasible. However, as a response to requests from our users, we have created a WOT bookmarklet that brings at least some of the functionality to the users of these two popular browsers. If you are using Safari or Opera, you can add the WOT bookmarklet to your browser simply by dragging this link to your bookmarks: WOT Rating. ...

Google is set to launch an app store for business next week, Mashable has learned from sources close to the company. It will be focused around creating software for Google Apps and could launch as soon as Tuesday. Early last month, news leaked about Google working on its own app store that would give third-party apps and developers the opportunity to sell their software to customers of Google Apps. This included options for increasing security, word-processing and information porting/syncing. ...

New comScore data shows that Facebook and Twitter use has skyrocketed on mobile devices over the past year, and that on-the-go MySpace use is now on the decline, according to MediaPost. Here are the numbers: Facebook now sees 25.1 million mobile users as of January 2010, which is more than double the January 2009 total. Twitter grew to 4.7 million during the same period, which is four times the year-ago total, the report said. ...

It’s official: Twitter has surpassed 10 billion tweets. While Gigatweet’s counter is down due to over-traffic., you can tell by the actual tweet ID numbers that we have crossed the magical threshold. The milestone shows that Twitter’s still growing at a rapid pace: it broke 1 billion tweets in November 2008 and 5 billion tweets just four months ago. So who was the lucky person that sent out tweet 10 billionth tweet? Tweet #10 billion apparently belongs to a protected user, as API calls won’t allow us to see that specific status update. Via @timdorr, here is Tweet #9,999,999,999 and tweet #10,000,000,001. ...

Barcode and QR code reader applications are now standard fare for smartphones and can be commonly found for free in any of the major app stores. But far less common are comprehensive services that let users make their own QR codes for free. This is why Microsoft’s TagReader, which was released in the Android Market today, is worth checking out. It’s similar to any number of barcode scanners available on the Android platform, except that it is designed to read Microsoft’s unique “Tags.” ...