My first contact with Microsoft's homebrew Facebook app for Windows Phone 8 revealed one of the least desirable social experiences that a smartphone user can have on any modern mobile platform. The first iterations of the company's offering were terrible, but luckily things started to pick up after the beta version that arrived in late-April.

Microsoft released a couple of major updates since then, bringing the Facebook experience on Windows Phone 8 to a decent level of usability. Some oversights can still be pointed out, such as the lack of a built-in security code generator but, generally speaking, all the important bits are there. And, today, Microsoft issued another update which brings the version number to 5.1. Let's take a look at what's new.

Continue reading →

As the Internet gets bigger and more crowded it can be increasingly difficult to find a catchy domain name. Startup company Panabee aims to provide a simple tool for individuals and businesses to find great domain names and it has just reached the milestone of 10 million monthly searches -- up 50 percent from 2012.

Given the scarcity of available names, Panabee offers a new interface for brainstorming alternatives besides dot-coms. As consumers become more Internet savvy, it allows businesses to embrace different domain endings like .co.uk, .biz, .net and more.

Continue reading →

According to a new report by the UK media regulator Ofcom, tablets are becoming the must have device for children, displacing the smartphone for younger age groups.

Around a quarter of children aged 12-15 (26 percent) and 18 percent aged 8-11 now have their own tablet computer, while household ownership of a tablet has more than doubled since 2012 to 51 percent up from 20 percent. Use of a tablet computer at home has tripled among 5-15s since 2012, 42 percent up from 14 percent, whilst a quarter of 3-4s now use a tablet computer at home.

Continue reading →

Facebook's Graph Search is being updated to include more information from the social network. The personalized search engine previously allowed for searching of people, photos, places and interests when it was launched back at the beginning of the year. Now posts from you and your friends as well as status updates can be included in searches allowing you to get even more specific about what you're looking for.

Also included in the update is the ability to search for status updates, photo captions, check-ins and comments. There are various ways in which searches can be used to hone in on the content you're looking for, and natural language searching is the order of the day. Want to see the posts your online contacts have made about Microsoft's latest operating system? Just search for "posts about Windows 8.1 by my friends". Results can be limited by date as well, so you could search for "posts about Nexus 7 from the last month".

Continue reading →

It's extremely irritating. You change your Facebook status and immediately notice that you've made a stupid spelling mistake. This could come as a result of a slip of the finger, or your phone's autocorrect might be to blame. You could, of course, simply delete the status update and recreate it without errors. But what about if you've already managed to amass dozens of comments that you don’t want to lose?

Now there's no need to fret because Facebook has made it possible to make edits to statuses. At least this is the case if you're using the Android app or the website -- iOS app users will have to wait a little longer for an update. This is great news! No more stupid typos! No more statuses that sound like they were written by someone with their eyes closed after an evening of heavy drinking! Or is it such great news?

Continue reading →

Facebook wants to show you more relevant ads. Advertisements are the price we pay for free online content and services, and there are no signs of it vanishing any time soon. Even though this is something internet users have accepted for some time, there are often complaints about the unsuitability of ads. Far fewer people have a problem with seeing adverts for products and services they might genuinely be interested in than those that have no relevance to their lives.

In a blog post Engineering Manager for News Feed Ads, Hong Ge explains that Facebook would like to ensure that the ads that make it into your timeline are more relevant. If you're anything like me, you've probably built up something of a mental filter for "pointless" ads, and maybe even those that might be of interest, but Facebook is keen that you see more ads and that you respond to them positively.

Continue reading →

Working from home is something of a luxury, but it's also not easy -- this is something I know from personal experience. I've been a home worker for around a decade now, but it does take some getting used to. Tell people that you work from home and there's usually a look of jealousy in the eyes the ones who have to stay behind at the office each evening. Home working means being able to pick your own hours, not having to deal with the daily commute, and not having to do the coffee round, but would you be happy to pay for the privilege?

We already know that most people would rather work from home than have to trudge to the office every day, but a new report from GetVoIP reveals that taking a pay cut would be an acceptable compromise for most tech professionals. A survey of 501 workers shows that 53 percent would be willing to earn a smaller pay check each month if it meant they could work from the comfort of their own home.

Continue reading →

Twitter announces details of its new Twitter Alerts service which will make it possible to disseminate information when other methods fail or when large groups of people need to be notified about something. What does this mean? In times of national emergency, crisis or natural disaster, Twitter Alerts could be used to provide details about what is happening and what steps are being taken by authorities.

In times of emergency, it is very common for people to turn to the internet. But as we know all too well, the internet is home to a wealth of misinformation so this could end up to be less helpful than it should be. A number of international organizations have already signed up to be part of Twitter Alerts including the American Red Cross, FEMA, the World Health Organization, and various police and fire departments. Other interested organizations are invited to take part.

Continue reading →

Now here's a blast from the past. RealNetworks (remember it?) is launching RealPlayer Cloud, a new service that aims to make it easier than ever to share videos between devices and across platforms. The service has been developed to help avoid the need to transfer videos from one device to another or upload them to an online storage repository ready to download elsewhere.

The idea is that users do not have to worry about the platform videos will be viewed on, or the format they are saved in. There are a huge number of video codecs in use, so the appeal of something that helps to overcome compatibility issues is understandable. There are plenty of services that already make it possible to stream video wirelessly from a PC to an iPad or other device. This is nothing new, nor is the ability to pick up from where you left off watching when you switch devices.

Continue reading →

Twitter is in the process of rolling out a new notification system designed to help users find interesting people to follow. It is not an entirely new system -- the micro blogging site is basing the feature on its @MagicRecs account, which started off as an experiment earlier in the year, making "magic recommendations" about who Twitter users might like to follow.

@MagicRecs monitors the activity of the people you follow and people in your network and sends out direct messages letting you know when several people you are connected to follow a particular user. The thinking is that if two or more people are interested in following someone else, there's a high chance that you will be too. In a blog post, Senior Software Engineer, Venu Satulur explains how the recommendation system has been tweaked and updated.

Continue reading →

Not content with its new logo, Yahoo is now pushing the personal homepage with the relaunch of My Yahoo. It's a blast from the past in many ways. The personalized portal is something that had virtually died off, but Yahoo is keen to dust it off, give it a polish and entice people back into using it.

If you’re the kind of person who likes to be able to access everything in one place, the resurrected My Yahoo just may well appeal. "Resurrected" might not be the right word. My Yahoo never really went away, it just faded into obscurity and everyone forgot about it. But now it's back with knobs on -- and quite a lot of purple.

Continue reading →

It seems that every online company is in a sharing mood at the moment. Facebook has already come clean about the data requests it has received from the US government, Microsoft wants to tell us more and Google is really keen on the idea. The latest company to express concern about the restrictions on reporting about government data requests is LinkedIn.

In a "Letter to the LinkedIn community", Vice President, General Counsel, and Secretary of LinkedIn, Erika Rottenberg, not only announces the publication of the social network's Transparency Report for H1 2013, but also expresses "great disappointment and frustration" at the limitations on what can be reported. Rottenberg reveals that she has written to the FBI to ask that LinkedIn be permitted to release additional data about requests that have been made.

Continue reading →

IBM has been at the forefront of social business software for a while and today the firm launches its new SmartCloud, a set of cloud-based social business tools aimed at empowering global workforces.

It's aimed at enabling executives such as human resource managers to create communities for new employees to speed up induction time, for example, or sales executives to conduct impromptu video chats with colleagues and share information. By combining social tools and mobile devices in the cloud it aims to help people work more effectively, collaboratively and securely from any location.

Continue reading →

Microsoft is no stranger to finding itself on the receiving end of complaints about security issues that are found in Windows and its other software. But now the Redmond company is turning the tables on consumers, saying that they need to do more to secure their own computers. Microsoft's research shows that Internet users are taking fewer precautions when they're online.

This is based on declining Microsoft Computing Safety Index (MCSI) scores over the last couple of years. The MCSI system was developed in 2011 as a way to measure the security savviness of web users. The system takes into account whether users do common things such as installing anti-malware software, enabling a firewall and keeping software up to date. It also factors in whether users are aware of the importance of using secure websites, using unique passwords and taking care of the personal information they share online.

Continue reading →

Philip Pullman -- UK author of His Dark Materials and Golden Compass fame -- is upset. In a column for the Index On Censorship he bemoans the invention of the Internet as a vessel that makes the lives of thieves easier, saying that piracy is theft "as surely as reaching into someone’s pocket and taking their wallet is theft".

Often, the argument against piracy is a slightly odd one. For many people it is a simple black and white affair -- it's not yours, and  if you take it without paying for it you are stealing. But for others, online piracy -- be it movies, music or software -- is not tantamount to theft. It is the ethereal, non-physical nature of these types of goods that seems to bring about confusion.

Continue reading →