Those of you who have become tired of typing addresses and search terms into Google Maps for Mobile now have a reprieve.

Version 4.1 of the standalone smartphone maps app brings voice search to Symbian S60 and Windows Mobile phones, a huge convenience feature that's already eased the typing pain in many an Android- and BlackBerry-carrying fingertip.

In addition to submitting to the usual voice queries, this version of Google Maps for Mobile subtly adds language choices to the settings page. The linguistically-sensitive developers have also slipped into the options Google's characteristic variety of accents that acknowledge U.S. and U.K. English and Mandarin Chinese.

If you encounter a problem, a tattle-telling reporting feature now also comes baked into the app.

Get started speaking your search by pointing the mobile browser to m.google.com/maps to download Google Maps for Mobile 4.1.

Now that the dust has settled after Google's horrible PR misadventure with the release of social-networking feature Google Buzz, Google is trying again to make Buzz ubiquitous--this time by adding it as a layer in Google Maps for the desktop.

To read publicly "buzzed" points of interest from your computer, there's a new Buzz layer in Google Maps that you can add from the "More" button that resides between the "Traffic" and "Map" buttons on the map face.

Buzz, which is read-only on Google Maps.com, will also give you a chance to comment on a public ping and click to see the buzz plotted on a fresh Google map. Although Google Buzz is also accessible from Gmail, Buzz for Google Maps is intended as a kissing cousin to Buzz as a location-tracked layer in Google Maps for Mobile. We played around with the feature a bit to see how many geotagged hotspots came from Google Maps for Mobile; most tips that we clicked on at random were Twitter-generated.

Buzz's read-only status from the desktop is a much more tentative move from the Maps and Buzz team. We're sure it's a feature that will grow more assertive over time; in light of the original fiasco, we appreciate Google's initial restraint.

Originally posted at Webware

McAfee pushed out a malformed security patch early on Wednesday that wound up crippling computers running Windows XP, but there is a fix available. Users should note that it's labor-intensive and must be applied manually to each computer. If you're running Windows Vista or Windows 7, your computer shouldn't be affected by the bad update.

If your computer is shutting down automatically, you must address that before you can fix anything else.

Step 1: Open a command prompt: Start menu, Run, then type cmd and hit Enter

Step 2: Type shutdown -a, which will prevent the shutdown from occurring

McAfee has revealed two fixes for the problem. Each one requires multiple steps, and can be confusing. If you're not comfortable with advanced computer fixes, you should get help with this.

For the first fix, go to the McAfee interface through the Start menu, and disable Access Protection and On-Access Scanner.

Step 1: Click Start, Programs, McAfee, and then VirusScan Console

Step 2: Right-click "Access Protection"

Step 3: Select "Disable"

If you have Internet access, download the EXTRA.ZIP file provided by McAfee and unzip the EXTRA.DAT within. (Note that Nai.com is a safe site maintained by McAfee, for those who were wondering.) Once EXTRA.DAT has been extracted:

Step 1: Click Start, Run, then type services.msc and click "OK"

Step 2: Right-click the McAfee McShield service and select "Stop"

Step 3: Copy EXTRA.DAT to "\Program Files\Common Files\McAfee\Engine"

Step 4: Then restart the McAfee McShield service by right-clicking on it and choosing "Start" from the context menu

Step 5: Re-enable access protection by going back to the VirusScan Console

Step 6: Right-click "Access Protection"

Step 7: Select "Enable"

Step 8: In the VirusScan Console, go to the Quarantine Manager Policy

Step 9: Click the Manager tab

Step 10: Right-click on each file in the Quarantine and choose "Restore"

There is, of course, one massive hang-up with this McAfee-recommended solution: More likely than not, you don't have Internet access on your McAfee-borked computer. In fact, it's highly unlikely that you have access to much of anything, since deleting SVCHOST.EXE prevents key Windows 32-bit sub-system processes from functioning at all. To get the EXTRA.DAT on your computer, you'll probably have to download it on an unaffected computer, then copy it to either a USB drive or a CD-ROM and use the command prompt to copy it over to your C: drive.

The second workaround requires that you apply the EXTRA.DAT fix as detailed above before beginning and that you have access to a second, unaffected Windows XP computer. On that computer, go to C:\WINDOWS\system32 and copy SVCHOST.EXE to a network location or a removable media device such as a USB stick. Then copy the SVCHOST.EXE from the unaffected computer to the affected computer, and restart the McAfee-afflicted computer. There are details on applying the EXTRA.DAT via ePolicy Orchestrator at McAfee's fix on Nai.com.

Severe problems caused by buggy or false positive security updates are rare, but not unheard of. Recent instances include an update from Avast that marked hundreds of legitimate files as threats in December 2009, Computer Associates flagging a Windows system file as a virus in July 2009, and AVG marking ZoneAlarm as malware in October 2008.

McAfee did not immediately responded to a request for comment.

Updated at 5 p.m. PDT with additional information.

This is a true story: Two weeks ago I'm zipping along in southern England in the back seat of a silver VW Golf, listening for the better part of an hour and a half while my sister reads aloud directions to the car's driver from the screen of an HTC Touch.

The instructions are specific ("Turn left in 100 feet") but fruitless; we flip a U on the muddy one-track road and head back toward the village to blindly pick our way to our obscure destination, a farmhouse that brews traditional cider, using just wits and luck.

Had we had an Android phone with the latest version of Google Maps Navigation beta, we might have saved far more time, splattered far less mud, and threatened to turn far fewer free-roaming cows into hamburger. That's because on Wednesday, Google's mobile team released a U.K. version of the vocal turn-by-turn navigation feature that it announced for Android 2.0 phones in the U.S. last October.

Android-toting residents of the U.K. and Ireland don't need to wait for a 2.0 device to get to the most useful attribute: turn-by-turn voice guidance that reroutes you if you miss a turn. They can download Google's beta mapping software on smartphones running version 1.6 or higher. Real-time traffic reporting, 3D maps, and street views are also onboard.

British and Emerald Islanders can upgrade to the free improved map software through the Android phone's Android Market app.

There's no guarantee we would have made it to the cider house on our first try with Google's voice navigation as co-pilot, but at least we all could have blamed the phone for the failure instead of the messenger.

Originally posted at Android Atlas

McAfee's popular antivirus software failed spectacularly on Wednesday, causing tens of thousands of Windows XP computers to crash or repeatedly reboot.

A buggy update that the company released early in the day turned the software's formidable defenses against malicious software inward, prompting it to attack a vital component of Microsoft Windows. The update was available for business customers for about four hours before distribution was halted, McAfee said.

The damage was widespread: The University of Michigan's medical school reported that 8,000 of its 25,000 computers crashed. Police in Lexington, Ky., resorted to hand-writing reports and turned off their patrol car terminals as a precaution. Some jails cancelled visitation, and Rhode Island hospitals turned away non-trauma patients at emergency rooms and postponed some elective surgeries.

Intel was also hit by McAfee's bungled update, a source inside the company confirmed to CNET. The source said that all Intel's computers inside the United States ran McAfee and many were affected, but didn't know how many or whether it impacted the company's factories.

The update releasted at 6 a.m. PT effectively redirected the PC's immune system, causing it to attack a legitimate operating system component known as SVCHOST.EXE in the same way that some diseases can cause the human immune system to turn inward. In this case, McAfee's application incorrectly confused it with malware known as the W32/Wecorl.a virus.

McAfee apologized to customers for the problem, which seemed to affect primarily Windows XP computers running Microsoft's Service Pack 3, but downplayed its impact. "We are not aware of significant impact on consumers," the company said in a statement sent to CNET at 2 p.m. PT.

That didn't endear the company to the enterprise users who were the most affected by the update, especially system administrators who were forced to trek from computer to computer and manually install the repair that McAfee had made available by midday. It's not clear how many customers were affected, and a McAfee representative said she did not have an update. (Here's a related CNET article on how to fix your McAfee-crippled PC.)

Tech-related mailing lists soon began buzzing with complaints. And the condemnation on Twitter was unrelenting, with Sonny Hashmi, the deputy chief information officer of the District of Columbia calling it a "huge disruption," adding that McAfee is now on his "blacklist." An engineer in San Francisco said that, thanks to McAfee, "the wait at my work is two days and growing to get your laptop back." Others complained that, approximately six hours after the problem was known, McAfee has yet to post a note on the home page -- which currently boasts of "technology to supercharge your network security."

A CNET News editor in Portland was affected Wednesday morning when her computer lost network and Internet connections, and McAfee prevented her from launching programs or uninstalling it.

A report at the Internet Storm Center said the errant McAfee update registered a false positive that flagged the Windows file svchost.exe as a virus.

Compounding what seems to be a day of snafus for the Santa Clara, Calif.-based company was it's initial recommendation that affected users download a file from its support site. But after tens of thousands of irate users flooded into the forums, the site abruptly went offline, and began to return an error message.

McAfee has posted a Web page on a separate site with detailed instructions on how to fix XP computers that have been crashing because of Wednesday's update. It recommends manually downloading and installing an "EXTRA.DAT" file, and then restore files that have been incorrectly quarantined.

But that option requires a least a modest amount of technical ability, and as of 4 p.m. PDT, the company had not offered a better way. "McAfee is continuing to work on an automated solution," the page said.

Last updated at 4:45 p.m. and rewritten to include more details, background

Originally posted at News - Security

It may not be as dramatic a discovery as the likely iPhone 4.0 prototype in the San Francisco Bay Area that inundated tech headlines this week, but RIM is getting a taste of the premature spotlight as details of the latest operating system for BlackBerry smartphones circulate around the blogosphere.

Boy Genius Report said it got its hands on a BlackBerry smartphone running the OS 6.0 from a secret source at AT&T and wasted little time detailing some of the features within. When asked, RIM's representatives declined to comment on the disclosed information.

The OS 6.0 prototyped home screen (pictured right) looks similar to the touch-screen BlackBerry Storm interface with a prominent digital clock, centralized wallpaper, and two rows of touch-friendly icons. Beyond a refreshed design, some UI changes we noticed right away include the e-mail and search shortcuts front and center above the wallpaper, and a sliding bar just below the wallpaper for filtering home screen icons by all and favorites.

The uncovered images also highlight a new browser--long RIM's weak point--which is reported to finally make use of tabs and multitouch, and will be based on the open-source WebKit engine that drives the iPhone's Safari browser.

A refurbished music player dumps the bland-looking skin we see on our Bold 9700 running OS 5.0 in favor of a more sophisticated view that makes use of album art in a pyramidal, tiled design. We took one look and immediately equated the visuals to Slacker Radio's BlackBerry interface, just minus the onscreen elements to mark favorites and block songs.

There are plenty more details to read from Boy Genius Report. Descriptions of the e-mail in-box, kinetic scrolling, and new mechanisms for tapping and holding the screen to surface a menu option caught our eye. The latter sounded much like the long press functionality found in Google's Android platform. We're pretty interested in seeing the OS for ourselves, just in case any errant engineers out there accidentally drop a newly decked-out BlackBerry in the bar...(oh, we kid, we kid.)

If you're the type of crazy that follows just about anyone on Twitter, your stream is likely filled with all manner of languages. A very easy solution is to unfollow these folks. But in the spirit of making things work, you can also just download new Firefox extension Twanslate.

Just like the translate functionality in Brizzly, and this translation Greasemonkey script, Twanslate adds a simple button underneath any tweet that's in another language. You then click it anytime you want to convert it into English. The option to do this sits right below Twitter's star-shaped favorite button and works in your Twitter stream as well as an individual user's profile page.

The two places where the translate option cannot be found are in Twitter's search result pages, as well as on individual tweets. This can be a bit of a downer, but is an easy fix if you're willing to click through to a user's profile.

The technology behind it is Google's translate service, which means you'll get a mix of very good, and sometimes comical, results. In any case, it's a nice site-specific add-on that you won't see or be bothered by until you need it.

Originally posted at Web Crawler

Is it just me, or does the planet seem really angry these days? Earthquakes galore, tsunamis, and now this ash-spewing volcano! We're doomed, I tell ya. Doomed!

Anyway, pity the poor traveler who's stuck in Europe until flights can resume. As we reported Tuesday, to help make those folks' lives a tiny bit easier, travel-guide publisher Lonely Planet is offering 13 European iPhone guides free of charge.

That's pretty generous, as they normally sell for $9.99 apiece. And, psst, you didn't hear this from me, but you don't actually have to be stranded in Europe to get the apps. You just have to download them before tomorrow, April 22, which is when the offer ends.

The available freebie cities are as follows:

• Amsterdam
• Barcelona
• Berlin
• Budapest
• Copenhagen
• Istanbul
• London
• Moscow
• Munich
• Paris
• Rome
• Stockholm
• Vienna

By the way, apparently there was some confusion about whether the apps would continue to be free after the giveaway ended, but Lonely Planet has clarified that once you download them, they're yours to keep. You won't be charged anything in the future.

My question for all of you: Would you still plan a European vacation knowing that some crazy, unpronounceable volcano might leave you stranded there for days or even weeks? Gives me a little pause, to be sure, but I can think of worse places to be stranded. Ah, Paris...

Originally posted at iPhone Atlas

A couple years back, iTunes faithful were rewarded with TuneUp Companion, a handy plug-in that makes filling in, cleaning up, and correcting ID3 tags for tracks in one's music library a cinch. Now, those who prefer Windows Media Player for their music management and playback have been invited to the party. As of today, users will be able to download a version of the software for WMP from the TuneUp Web site. Even better, the first 50 CNET readers to e-mail TuneUp will receive a code to activate a Gold account, which regularly costs $29.95.

Those who opt for TuneUp Gold won't be subjected to the restrictions of the Lite version of the software, which only allows you to to clean up 1,000 songs and add 50 pieces of cover art to the tags. In addition to automatically downloading missing album art, the program offers a super straightforward "click to clean" interface that mounts directly within the right-hand frame of WMP.

In addition to offering a no-hassle tool for cleaning up your ID3 tags, TuneUp includes a few other handy features. For instance, simply play a track and the plug-in window will populate artist bios, on-demand music videos from YouTube, and even upcoming concert information with links to buy tickets. You can also share your "Top 5" artists, albums, and songs directly via Facebook and Twitter.

Along with the TuneUp app for WMP, the company is launching a new feature called Tuniverse, which allows users to access comprehensive artist information by clicking on an artist or song shared via the software.

Have you always wanted a scanner, but held back because of size and cost? Do you have a Mac and a digital camera? Then good news: Prizmo for Mac offers a good enough solution to let accomplish most of your scanning needs without the extra hardware.

The $40 software, made by Belgium-based Creaceed, has long been offered as an alternative to the pack-in software that often comes with flatbed scanners. Its latest version sports three handy features, one of which can turn your digital camera into a very powerful text-archiving tool.

The first new feature is camera tethering. This lets you attach a tether-ready SLR or point-and-shoot to your computer, then have the app automatically import the shot as you take it. There's not a whole lot of user dialogue here to let you know your camera is attached. In my test, I simply connected my Nikon D90 (which does not feature USB mass storage support) and began taking photos, and it did the rest.

Users can also grab photo files from their hard drives, or from a camera that's attached in USB mass storage mode, although I found the latter a little jittery when trying to browse for a single file on a crowded memory card. The app would only let me see the top 40 shots or so, and I couldn't scroll down--a problem I didn't have when browsing the same set of files from a USB-powered memory card reader.

To go along with the tethering feature is curviture correction; this lets you fix warping due to the natural bend of pages. The tool itself is simple to use, but lacks some much-needed automation. You can, for instance, only work on one page at a time, so if you've snapped both pages of an open book, you have to open each one individually. This isn't a huge dealbreaker unless you're trying to archive something large, but it does slow things down.

All that's needed in the way of tech know-how is how to click on the four corners of a page, as well as where to line up the top and bottom of each page curve. This whole process only takes a few seconds once you know what you're doing. The harder part, however, is making the minute adjustments, which can be hard to control.

Possibly the most irritating part of the process is that the tools you use to make the adjustments pop up over what you're working on cannot be moved elsewhere. Also, the preview showing what the document will look like when you're done cannot be zoomed in on while you're making changes, which in my tests meant I couldn't see a reasonably sized product until I had exported my work. What I'd really like to see in a future version is a layer of intelligence that can give a page a quick scan, figure out where the distortion is, and correct it automatically. Such a feature would take a lot of the guesswork out of the equation.

On top of the camera tethering and the curve fixing, better optical character recognition (OCR) is quietly one of the most important improvements to the software. Prizmo can cull through your scans for words, all of which are indexed within the document's metadata. This means anything you've scanned within the app can then be found within OS X's Spotlight search. Now, when it's done scanning, you now see what it's come up with, as it highlights sections that have been scanned, and shows you what it's come up with as you mouse over the text.

The software is quite fast at doing the OCR scan of a page. In the dozen or so pages I experimented with, it finished the job in just under five seconds. And the accuracy, while imperfect, was quite good on large chunks of clearly captured text.

Just for kicks I tried it on the photo I had taken of a page, versus a proper scan at 300dpi. The OCR job on the scan knocked the photo version out of the park. But if you have a sharp enough shot and you spend the time to correct any lens distortion or page curvature, the software can do an admirable job at pulling out the words.

So at $40, is it worth it to ditch a scanner for a piece of software that lets you use your camera, fix distortion on bent pages, and do a good job at hunting down words? If you have a good camera and some technical know-how, then the answer is yes. But a cautious yes.

Scanners are still invaluable pieces of technology, and do things even very high-end digital cameras can't, like spit out incredibly high-resolution scans or provide near-perfect color reproduction. However, if you're just looking for something that can do a good job of turning photos of open books and magazines into scans that can be archived and searched, then this is a very capable app.

Originally posted at Web Crawler