Author: Richard

Facebook is building an as-yet-unreleased Facebook Messenger app for Mac desktop that would help Apple users to instantly access it straight from the dock, a media report said. Instead of getting buried in one of many Web browser tabs that users have to switch to so they can text friends, the dedicated Messenger desktop app would be instantly accessible from the dock present on desktop, TechCrunch reported on Saturday. The news portal said it has obtained photographic evidence and an eyewitness report that Facebookemployees are working on Facebook Messenger for Mac. According to the eyewitness account and the photo, the…

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Peach, a new messaging app, lets you find your friends and upload gif images, photos, and status updates in your news feed using “magic words”. Available on the Apple App Store, the app looks like Twitter, Slack, and Instagram, and is created by Dom Hoffman, the founder of Vine – a short-form video sharing service – TechCrunch reported on Saturday. “Peach is a refreshingly fun and simple way to keep up with friends and be yourself. Share tiny updates as you go through your day. Posting is as easy as texting ‘with a twist’. Some words are ‘Magic Words’ that…

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Facebook founder and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg has dropped himself into the riotous social media debate over childhood vaccines after posting photos of himself taking his newborn daughter to get immunization shots at the doctor’s office. His Facebook post on Friday shows a photo of Zuckerberg holding his daughter, Max, alongside the caption “Doctor’s visit – time for vaccines!” Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, announced the birth of their child on December 1. By Monday, the image had generated more than 3 million likes and 69,000 comments, with many presuming the post was an implicit endorsement of child vaccinations.…

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If you are a chain letter hoax, then heaven is for real and it is Facebook. The site has hosted an army of copyright and giveaway hoaxes in recent years with a fury not seen since the heydays of the emailed chain letter. And now, the social network is trying and failing to shake off a month-long, obviously false viral post claiming that anyone who shares it will win part of the social network founder’s fortune. The hoax began on or around December 1, shortly after Zuckerberg announced the birth of his daughter – and said that he and his…

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A federal judge has certified two shareholder class actions accusing Facebook Inc of hiding concerns about its growth forecasts prior to the social media company’s May 2012 initial public offering. US District Judge Robert Sweet in Manhattan said retail and institutional investors who claimed to lose money from buying Facebook shares at inflated prices in connection with the $16 billion (roughly Rs. 1,06,179 crores) IPO may pursue their respective claims as groups. The decision is dated December 11 but had been kept under seal, which Sweet lifted in an order made public on Tuesday. Other Facebook defendants include Chief Executive…

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Facebook is currently testing multiple News Feeds on mobile devices which will appear alongside the single News Feed format that appears currently. Some users are sharing the redesigned News Feed screenshots from their Facebook apps on social platforms, showing secondary news feeds for topics such as Headlines, Travel, and Style among others. Notably, the primary news feed still exists and is not completely gone. The new Facebook news feed screenshot was first shared by Jason Stein on Twitter. A Facebook spokesperson confirmed the testing to The Verge and said, “People have told us they’d like new options to see and…

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A program that had been giving free basic Internet services to over three million Egyptians was shut down on Wednesday, social media site Facebook said. In a statement to The Associated Press, Facebook said it hoped to “resolve this situation soon” so the program, which it had launched with Etisalat Egypt some two months ago, could be restored. “We’re disappointed that Free Basics will no longer be available in Egypt,” it said. “More than 1 million people who were previously unconnected had been using the Internet because of these efforts.” The service, which is aimed at users in developing countries,…

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Vietnam sought to discourage its internet-savvy public on Wednesday from reading Web postings that disparaged its Communist Party, warning of an increase in “toxic” activity just weeks away from its scheduled leadership shakeup. Using its new Facebook page, the government vowed to tackle social media criticism of the party without interrupting the Internet ahead its five-yearly congress in January, and said most attacks originated from outside of the country. “These pages are most distorting and talking bad about our party’s leaders, government and policies,” Truong Minh Tuan, the deputy minister of information and communications, wrote in the Facebook posting. “We…

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A plea by the leader of the Islamic State terrorist group for Muslims to fight on its behalf against “disbelievers” prompted many to respond online with defiance and sarcasm. The audio recording of the leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, released last week on jihadi social media sites, was the latest attempt to lure would-be militants to fight for the Islamic State’s self-proclaimed caliphate. “This isn’t just a new crusade, the entire world has joined forces against us,” al-Baghdadi proclaimed. “But don’t worry, our state persists and expands.” The Twitter backlash, by Muslims and others, seems to have been prompted by Iyad…

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Facebook’s aggressive Free Basics campaign backfired Thursday with the telecom regulator Trai asking respondents to its ‘Net Neutrality’ consultation paper to comment on specific issues rather than following a template provided by the social media giant. Trai, which yesterday extended the deadline for submission of comments till January 7 amid an intensified campaign for and against Free Basics, said a large percentage of the record number of 18.27 lakh responses have been only about supporting the specific Facebook product without answering the larger issue of ‘differential pricing’ concerning Net Neutrality. Free Basics, which Facebook is promoting with double-page newspaper advertisements…

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