Facebook has been at the forefront of people using their real names on the internet since its inception. However as time has gone on, it's received more and more pressure from certain groups to allow for the occasional use of faux-names to cater to different lifestyle choices. To try and have …
Read More »Online racists shamed with billboard screengrabs
We're not blowing anyone's minds when we say that some people can be dicks online. Racism, sexism, homophobia – often the internet feels like it brings out the worst in people, even if there are many pieces of evidence to counter that point. Still, Brazil is looking to change people's …
Read More »Will Zuckerberg’s paternity leave change his opinion on privacy?
Mark Zuckberg is one of those figures in the world of tech, who has had an enormous impact on the way the world works. Facebook has changed social interactions, the way we find information and online activity; whether you believe it's for the better or not. His stance on personal …
Read More »Facebook ordered to stop tracking visitors in Belgium
Facebook, Google, Yahoo, all of these companies make their money by tracking their users, figuring out information on them based on algorithms and search choices and displaying adverts to them from partner companies. That's all well and good for most governments and courts, but Belgium isn't happy that Facebook is …
Read More »Snapchat daily video views reach six billion
Snapchat is one of the biggest social communication platforms of the past few years and is still growing at an unprecedented rate. As of right now, its users are sending videos that between them all are watched more than six billion times per day. While these numbers haven't been officially …
Read More »F-Secure director accused of revealing consumer details
Finnish digital security firm, F-Secure, finds itself embroiled in an odd scandal right now. Following the dumping of some 400 names, addresses, places of work and other details of individuals by a Twitter user called MetalGodTokyo, some investigations turned up what appeared to be the identity of the person: Naomi …
Read More »Facebook warns you if you’re the victim of a state-hacking attack
As much as countries, governments and their intelligence agencies put huge counter measures and monetary backing into protecting their digital assets, it often only takes one individual slipping up to a phishing or social engineering scam to make an entire system vulnerable. That is especially easy today where there are …
Read More »Oculus Rift to sell five million units next year
The consumer version of the Oculus Rift is finally coming out next year and it looks like analysts are already predicting big things for the virtual reality headset. According to analytic firm, Suisse, Oculus will sell as many as five million Rift headsets within its first year on the market, …
Read More »Facebook to take on Youtube with new media player
While Facebook might have started its days as a way to share pictures, status updates and pokes, it's become something much more in the years since. Today one of its biggest facets is the sharing of video, which people can do just as easily as other, more video focused sites. …
Read More »Facebook wants to bring satellite internet to sub-Saharan Africa
Facebook has been working on new ways to help developing countries get connected to the web for some time now. It has experimented with more ‘out of the box' methods, like balloons and drones in the past but for now, its plans seem to rest with satellites, as the company …
Read More »Facebook accused of snooping in the EU
The Commission for the Protection of Privacy (CBPL), Belgium's data authority, has been investigating Facebook and has now accused it of NSA-style snooping. The Commission has been looking in to the social network for quite some time now and things have only gotten worse since the Snowden revelations. Back in …
Read More »Facebook’s Siri competitor has real humans behind it
Facebook has thrown its hat in the ring of digital, personal assistants with the announcement of its own competitor to the likes of Cortana and Siri, called M. The single lettered software will have something that separates it from the pack of contenders however, in that M will not only …
Read More »Facebook ‘spam king’ pleads guilty after sending over 27m messages
A man dubbed as the Facebook spam king has pleaded guilty to charges of fraud and criminal contempt, having sent over 27 million commercially themed spam messages to Facebook users and then illegally accessing 500,000 of the accounts. The incidents took place between 2008 and 2009. The man behind the …
Read More »The Zenimax VS Oculus lawsuit is still going ahead
Last year it was revealed that Zenimax would be launching a lawsuit at Oculus VR, which had recently been acquired by Facebook at the time. The lawsuit seemed to be based around the accusation that Oculus stole trade secrets from Zenimax. As you would imagine, Oculus immediately appealed to have …
Read More »Do any of us ‘laugh out loud’ anymore?
Laughing out loud, or “lol”, has been the go to phrase to communicate amusement online (no matter how small) forever. However according to new statistics, that may no longer be the case, with many Facebook users rarely, if ever using the acronym any more, preferring more speech-like “haha” and “hehe,” as …
Read More »New York rules Facebook must hand over data on fraud cases
In a ruling that is likely to have knock on effects for the privacy of New Yorkers, a state appeals court has ruled that when it comes to users suspected of Social Security fraud, Facebook must bend to the will of warrants applied to the site's users and hand over …
Read More »AMD begins development of its third major semi-custom design
Advanced Micro Devices recently started to design its third semi-custom accelerated processing unit for an undisclosed customer. Some believe that this third semi-custom system-on-chip will eventually power Nintendo’s next-generation game console code-named “NX”. However, AMD claims that the new SoC “expands the base” of its semi-custom business beyond gaming, which …
Read More »Is latest security hole the death of flash?
Flash was once a mainstay of the online world, providing us with everything from animations, to games, to vibrating pop-up banners, but no more. With the advent of smartphones that dropped support for the oft-insecure platform, it's fallen by the wayside. It continues to be used in some corners of …
Read More »Facebook denies reports that it is building a music service
This week, there have been rumours floating around stating that Facebook would be joining the likes of Apple, Spotify, Google and Microsoft in the music streaming game with a service of its own. The service was touted to launch at some point over the next few months however, it seems …
Read More »Facebook wants to share ad revenue with video posters
It looks like Facebook might be taking notes from YouTube as the social network has come out and said that it wants to share more videos and offer posters a cut of the ad revenue generated from them. The move would likely challenge YouTube's dominance when it comes to video …
Read More »VR headsets could boost GPU sales, bring billions to AMD, Nvidia – analyst
Virtual reality hardware market is something that does not really exist today. Oculus VR sells its virtual reality headsets to game developers, Samsung supplies Gear VR to hardcore enthusiasts, other VR gear just cannot be bought for money. But many believe that already next year sales of virtual reality headsets …
Read More »Microsoft is ridding itself of Facebook integration in key Windows services
Microsoft has decided to axe Facebook integration in the Windows Phone and Windows desktop operating systems. Windows Phone was one of the first mobile operating systems to feature a deeper Facebook integration tool, allowing for Facebook contacts and the news feed. However, Facebook recently updated one of its API's, forcing …
Read More »The FBI is terrified of encryption
Even though much of the world still seems rather complacent about the Edward Snowden revelations, there's no denying that the two years since then have seen a surge of interest in encryption and other message obfuscating technologies. Proponents of governments spying on their own citizens, don't like that at all, …
Read More »Could Facebook bring back silent movies with muted ads?
Adverts online are always quite a contentious topic. Whether you're talking about the use of adblock cutting into the revenue of independent sites like the one you're reading right now, or endless annoyance inducing ones like pop-ups and those seemingly designed to give you a seizure; everyone usually has an opinion. …
Read More »Snapchat to go public, could be worth as much as $15 billion
Snapchat, unlike many of its earlier rivals, is not going to let itself be folded into a larger social network and is instead, planning on going public, according to the company's founder, Evan Spiegel. With more than 100 million daily users, the service was recently able to drum up millions …
Read More »Oculus VR headset and a PC to run it will cost $1500 – CEO of Oculus VR
Brendan Iribe, chief executive officer of Oculus VR, said that virtual reality gaming will be a relatively expensive thing, when it becomes commercially available early in 2016. The head of the company claims that a starting VR package will cost around $1500, which is considerably more than the price of …
Read More »Oculus buys UK VR firm to make AR possible
Facebook has purchased the British based, Surreal Vision, in order to incorporate it into Oculus VR to aid further development within virtual reality and augmented reality technologies. The company, founded by students from the Imperial College London, specialises in converting real world scenes into virtual ones through 3D cameras, thereby …
Read More »Would you heat your house with a Facebook server?
As more effort goes into making our societies more environmentally friendly, it's becoming apparent that along with switching to greener methods of energy production, we also need to focus on making ourselves more energy efficient. That's why Nerdalize's idea for using some of the world's biggest datacentre servers to heat …
Read More »Zynga to cull another 350+ staff
Zynga has fallen far from its peak when share prices were good and tens of millions of people played its games every day via Facebook. It still makes a reasonable living from its various freemium titles, but things aren't what they once were. Which is perhaps why the higher ups …
Read More »The consumer Oculus Rift headset will launch Q1 2016
Oculus has finally announced an official release window for the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset. Regular consumers will be able to get their hands on one during the first quarter of next year, so any time between January and March. Unfortunately, we still don't know any final hardware specifications or …
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