Is Facebook Finally Bringing Video Chat To The iPhone?
May 4th
Facebook Video Chat– coming soon to the iPhone?
With Facebook Video Chat having been available for Windows and Mac for almost a year now, it seemed like it would only be a matter of time before they brought the feature over to their mobile apps. And according to the site 9to5Mac, that time is finally almost here.
The folks over at 9to5Mac have gotten a sneak peak at a beta for an upcoming update to Facebook’s Messenger app for iPhone. In addition to the usual bug-fixes and performance improvements expected in a normal update they found this: the ability to make Skype Video Chats right from your iPhone/iPod Touch just like you already can from your computer. Making a video call is pretty simple too– if the person who you’re talking to is at their computer or on iPhone/iTouch you’ll see a blue arrow next to their name. Tap that arrow and you’re calling them.
9to5Mac also says that Facebook has a similar update planned for the Android version of the Messenger app (as well as a version of the Messenger app for the iPad), but that will probably come after the iPhone gets its update this summer.
DIY Tech: Go On Facebook Without A Web Browser
Nov 13th
If you’re like me, I bet you’re thankful that your cell phone has a dedicated Facebook app – and rightly so: dedicated apps offer quick access to your account, and don’t require the use of a web browser.
However, like me, you’re probably also disappointed knowing that these same joys are not shared when you want to access your Facebook account from a PC or Mac. You know the drill: opening a new browser window, accessing the Bookmarks Bar or Favorites window, entering your account info after that, and only then finally logging on to Facebook. It’s not the worst process, but it’s not as easy as your tablet or phone where all it takes is a press of a button (or touch screen).
However, there is a solution. Enter Facebook Desktop…
No, Facebook Will Not Make You Have To Pay For The New Updates
Sep 25th
An example of some of the many Facebook scam statuses
By now you’ve probably heard the news that there will be some major changes to Facebook coming out over the next few days/weeks, including a whole new design for your profile called Timeline (which we’re not gonna get into right now, but basically it allows you to fill in all your memories from literally the time you were born in to your Facebook profile so it’ll be available online for all your friends to see forever. Yes, it’s that creepy. More info here). Now whether or not you like the new Facebook (other updates include the new chat and the new News Feed which you’ve already probably seen if you’ve logged on to Facebook this past week), one of the big things we’ve been asked since the announcement were if the statuses like the ones you see above were true. These status said that unless you re-posted the status you’ll have to start paying a monthly fee to use Facebook. Put simply, this is all a scam and completely untrue.
Ever get one of those annoying mass texts that said that if you forward said text to (insert number of friends here) some company/organization/cat will donate money to a cause or that the next person you see will be your soul mate and you’ll live happy ever after forever? Sorry to say but like these Facebook statuses these are all scams and are completely made up by random people for fun. The only thing that will happen if you post them or forward them is you’ll end up annoying someone else. Facebook is free, and as they write on their homepage (which you can see for yourself if you log out), it always will be. No monthly fees, no subscriptions to get the updates– everything is free (I mean, Facebook needs you to want to continue to use their site. It’s how they make billions selling ads).
So if you see one of your friends falling for this latest scam feel free to calm them down and let them know that everything will be ok and that Facebook will still be free even after this latest update comes out.
Pic from Mashable
The Facebook Phone Gets A Release Date– HTC Status Coming To AT&T July 17th
Jul 11th
If you’re a Facebook addict and need to always have your Wall one click away this phone is definitely for you.
Previously known as the HTC ChaCha when it was announced back in February, the Status is not just a “Facebook phone” but also a pretty solid, cheap smartphone. Here are the full specs: thin design with 2.6 inch touchscreen and full keyboard underneath (at a resolution of 480 x 320 this screen isn’t as nice as HTC’s other Android phones, but it should be more than enough for the goal of Facebooking 24/7), 5 megapixel back camera with auto focus and LED flash and a VGA front-facing camera for video chat (what great timing! Unfortunately we don’t know if this will be able to Facebook video chat out of the box or if it’ll have to wait until Facebook updates their apps later this year), Android 2.3 Gingerbread with HTC Sense (including new widgets for Facebook chatting from the homescreen), and an 800 MHZ processor (again, this is not gonna be EVO 3D, Sensation 4G or ThunderBolt fast, but it should be more than enough for constantly updating your Facebook all day. And this lower processor speed should allow for much better battery life so you can stay connected even longer). And of course there’s that Facebook button on the bottom of the phone which allows you to instantly post on a friend’s wall, check in on Facebook Places, or share pictures, videos or links.
Best part about all this? The price. The Status will cost a very solid $49.99 with new 2 year contract and data plan (which starts at $15 a month for 250 MB or enough for more status updates than you could imagine) when it launches next Monday, July 17th (and for those who can’t wait you can pre-order the Status right now from AT&T).
Personally, I would rather just a more powerful phone like the Infuse 4G or iPhone 4 and just install the Facebook app as opposed to a “Facebook phone,” but AT&T readers we wanna know: are you completely addicted to Facebook that you need a phone like this or would you rather a phone like the Infuse 4G or iPhone 4 and just have the Facebook app installed? Let us know in the comments.
Facebook Announces Skype Video Chat– And Yes, It’s Awesome
Jul 6th
As expected, Facebook today finally announced one of its most long-awaited features– the ability to video chat with your Facebook friends. Powered by Skype and starting today, you’ll be able to easily video chat with any of your Facebook friends just by clicking on the video camera icon in the normal chat window. That’s it and it works in all the major browsers– Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, Safari– on Mac or Windows, so no matter what you use you should have no problem video chatting (and like Skype on the computer, if you don’t have a webcam you can still see and hear the other person but they can only hear you). Done with the chat? Just close the video and you’re done.
And like regular Skype you can also leave video messages for a friend if they’re not online (like a private version of posting a video message on their wall which is open for all of their friends to see), and you can also now call or chat with your Facebook friends right from an updated Skype app (available for Windows users here).
The new Facebook group chat
Facebook also today introduced two other updates to Chat– a better, more organized Friends list that has a sidebar for easy access to the friends you message most, and the ability to easily group chat with multiple friends (again, just by clicking the “add friends to chat” icon in the normal chat window).
Yes all this isn’t “groundbreaking” by any stretch, but the fact that it is such an easy and simple way to make an already very good instant messaging system better does in our opinion make it awesome.
The new Chat features will be rolling out to everyone over the next “couple of weeks” but if you can’t wait you can get right now here. Let us know what you think and don’t forget to Like us!
Facebook Launching Something “Awesome” Next Week– Is It Facebook Video Chat?
Jul 1st
You may have heard recently about Google’s big new Facebook competitor, Google+, and how it looks to take everything you currently do on Facebook and make it even more social by connecting you with all your Gmail/Google account friends.
With new features like Circles (creating groups out of all your friends for easier organizing and communicating like say family, classmates or friends from camp. Now you can post updates for just certain people to see instead of your whole Friend’s list), Huddle (think of this like Group Text on the T-Mobile Samsung Sidekick 4G and myTouch 4G Slide– its group texting to your Circles from your phone or computer that should make figuring out what you’re all doing later a lot easier), and most importantly, Hangouts, Google+ looks to be the first real rival to Facebook. Hangouts is the real big thing here and allows for video chats with specific friends or Circles right from your phone/computer– something we all know has been badly missing from Facebook over the last few years.
And while Google+ is right now only in a very limited beta (or testing, not yet ready for everyone) stage, it looks really good and could finally be something that really threatens Facebook for your social networking attention. Facebook of course isn’t taking this new threat without a fight back and has sent out invites for an event next Wednesday, July 6th, where they promise they’ll be launching something “awesome.” And what is this rumored new “awesome” feature? Well if these latest rumors are to be believed (and we believe them) then next week we’ll finally see Facebook video chat thanks to a partnership with Skype.
To us this all makes perfect sense. Facebook needs to steal some of the buzz around Google+ before it grows any larger and what better way to do that then by partnering with one the largest providers of video chat in the world in Skype (oh, and Microsoft– who also is a big rival of Google– is a big investor in Facebook and just so happens to now own Skype).
Again, Facebook hasn’t said exactly what they’ll be announcing next week (some rumors are it’ll be an iPad app or some better photo uploading from phones), but we wanna know: what do you want to see from Facebook next week? Would you use a new Facebook/Skype video chat over iChat, Google Talk, ooVoo or whatever other video chat app you use? Let us know in the comments.
PSA: Facebook Plans to Share Your Address and Phone Number With Advertisers
Mar 1st
We all love Facebook and use it for hours daily to share so much of our lives with our friends and other people we know. And while just like everything else on the internet there are risks to all this sharing, it’s our choice and we can control what information we share, who we share it with and can stop it at any time.
As you’ve probably heard, from time to time Facebook the company has had some interesting “ideas” (for lack of a better word) on how to use all the information we put onto their site to run their business (just think about The Social Network movie for an idea on the sketchy story on how Facebook was created). Obviously, when you build your business on others info, your biggest issue is how you handle privacy, and by that I mean how do they make money without selling out all of our information to advertisers and other companies. Thankfully, privacy on Facebook has been greatly improved over the years with some much better privacy controls (such as filters for exactly who can see particular posts, better controls on how people can find you and what they see if they’re not your Friend etc.), but now some possibly much more dangerous news has come out– if you added your address or phone number to Facebook they can now share that information with advertisers.
An example of a Facebook app that plans to get your phone number and address from Facebook
According to the Facebook developer blog this type of “sharing” will only be used in applications (such as playing a Facebook game or logging onto Facebook from a Facebook Share button on a different site to post something directly to your wall), and these apps will need to explicitly ask your permission to get access to this info (see pic above. Note: these apps only have access to your info and not any of your Friends’ phone numbers or addresses). Of course when you think of how many times we all just click “I agree” or “Allow” to something– the legal thing that comes up every time you want to create an account on a website or install a program like Word or iTunes on your computer– without reading the full fine print its easy to see this move causing a lot of unexpected trouble for people.
We’re not gonna go into all the possible legal trouble in all this (for example what goes on with the info for all the Facebook users under 18) but you can fix this in a pretty simple way– go to your Facebook page and remove this and all other info you don’t want out there for the whole world to see (and yeah, we know this may make it harder for you to stay in contact with your friends– but you could always Facebook Chat them your info). Otherwise, don’t be surprised if sometime in the future you start getting calls or letters from a “Nigerian price” asking for your credit card info so he can send you a free iPad all because he found you on Facebook.
And I think this part goes without saying, but be careful what you share online.
More info: Huffington Post.
Update Your Facebook Security NOW
Feb 2nd
Facebook over the past few days has begun rolling out a new security update for its users, an update that you really got to switch to ASAP! This new update allows you to connect to Facebook much more securely, reason enough for you to want to enable it ASAP.
What this new update, which can be found in Settings–>Account Settings–> Account Security, does is it turns your connection from HTTP to HTTPS (HTTP is the protocol needed to load websites, which is why you see it in your browser’s address bar on every site you go to. The “S” added to it makes your browsing much more secure and is used by sites like PayPal and Amazon to protect your info like your credit cards). Basically, this makes it much, much harder for hackers to spy on and take your information– like your password– particularly if you’re accessing Facebook from a public internet connection such as a WiFi network in your school, in a mall or at a Starbucks that doesn’t require you to enter a password to connect.
It takes literally 30 seconds to do (once you’re in Account Security all you’ve got to do is check a box saying “Browse Facebook on a secure connection when possible” and hit save– the box in the pic above). And seeing all the protection this offers, it is definitely worth it.
And if you don’t see the update on your profile yet, don’t worry, Facebook has said it should be available to all users by mid-February so check back periodically until then.
For more info on this and other new Facebook security updates, see Facebook’s site here.
Facebook’s New Messages- What It Means to Teens
Nov 16th
You may have heard some news of Facebook introducing an update to their Messages system, taking it well beyond just a private version of Chat. Seeing as most of us spend most of our time on Facebook, this new update is pretty newsworthy particularly for us teens. So what exactly is it, and more importantly– what exactly does it mean to you? We’ve got the full breakdown after the jump, so read on.
