Facebook to use Twitter hashtag style

Facebook is preparing to take on Twitter by adopting the messaging service's iconic hashtag symbol, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.

Users of globally popular one-to-many messaging service Twitter use # or pound symbols as a hashtag to indicate subjects in tweets. The style is such an entrenched part of the Twitter language that the San Francisco-based company added a hashtag search feature to make it easy for users to find messages focused on themes or happenings of interest. For example, people firing off messages at Twitter about a hurricane might use the hashtag #storm. The Journal cited unnamed sources as saying Facebook is incorporating hashtags into the social network in a move that would let members organize comments and posts by topic. The report said Facebook is testing use of the symbol but that the feature was not likely to be introduced imminently.

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Facebook does away with 'unlike' option in new News Feed

If you’re already on the revamped News Feed of Facebook, there is some bad news. Facebook has done away with the ability to unlike a page from your News Feed. "Unlike"ing pages you were following earlier is all set to become a tedious process with Facebook’s new News Feed.

An Inside Facebook report noted that Facebook has removed the option to unlike a page you previously followed from within the News Feed. Earlier, if you hid a story from your timeline, Facebook would offer you the option to unlike the page altogether. While the flow remains the same with the new News Feed, Facebook does not display the option of unliking the page completely.

Unliking is a tough job now (Image Credit: Inside Facebook)

To completely unsubscribe yourself and unlike a page, you will have to follow a more tedious course of heading to the page and unliking it by hovering on the “Liked” button. There is another way to unlike the page from the News Feed too. You need to hover your mouse over the name of the page to open up the information box that is almost like a mini page in itself. Then you need to access the unlike option from the “Liked” button, quite like you would on the page.

The move to remove the unlike option is going to benefit companies, advertisers and Facebook itself. Now, even while a fan might end up hiding a story, he will be less motivated to go over to a page to unlike it and halt further updates. Earlier, while the option was right in front of his eyes, he would click on the unlike option at once. Thus, while the page stands to lose its reach thanks to hidden posts, it will still hold on to the number of likes on it.

Advertisers will stand to benefit too as Facebook will still be able to hold on to precious data about users’ likes and dislikes and share it with them. Although this is a smart move as far as revenue generation is concerned, this redesign decision is bound to irk some Facebook users even as the new News Feed rolls out slowly to users. 

Facebook announced the new News Feed earlier last week to address growing user complaints that the existing feed was a jumble of irrelevant posts. The new News Feed is clutter free and puts more emphasis on visuals. 

Co-founder Mark Zuckerberg pointed out during the launch of the News Feed that the new look is geared for a more mobile world. Facebook will now look the same on both PCs and smartphones, as all the features and UI are consistent irrespective of which device you use. The updated app is likely to hit iOS before the Google Play Store.

The revamped News Feed not only puts more emphasis on larger images in photo uploads and links, but also introduces a brand new user interface that does away with the dull looking navigation bar on the left.

source: Tech2

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ASUS to stop netbook production

It seems that Intel’s Atom processors may have a very bleak outlook in the near future. Based on increasing demand for tablets from major emerging markets, it seems that many OEMs will be ceasing production of netbooks and completely focus on tablet PCs and ultrabooks.

Indeed Asustek’s CEO Jerry Shen has confirmed that the company will stop production of their famous Eee PC netbooks which use Intel’s Atom processors. Instead, ASUS plans to fill the 10-inch mobile device gap with their Tranformer Pad line of tablets.

Acer has so far not announced any plans to work on new netbooks, indicating that they too will leave the netbook market.

“Although netbook vendors were originally optimistic about demand from Southeast Asia, Latin America and Middle East regions, as tablet PCs are rising quickly and many government procurement orders have turned to tablet PC products instead, demand for 10-inch netbooks has dropped rapidly, accelerating the segment’s exit from the IT market,” reported DigiTimes.

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Google and NIIT join hands to introduce Google Web Academy in India

Google and NIIT have come together to introduce a training center for young professionals called Google Web Academy, in India. The main reason for this initiative is said to help students and professionals acquire digital skills and prepare for the emerging online industry, as per report. NIIT will also provide specialized courses through its centres across the nation.

NIIT and Google team up The news has it that Google will be providing NIIT with its training curricula and certification standards. By offering its advanced training programs, the aim is to create highly qualified professionals with skills that are essential in the online job market. While this program will be initially launched in India, it will soon be made available in the other parts of the world.  "As the Indian internet market continues to show robust growth, we believe a capacity building program to help young professionals gear up for the opportunity is the need of the hour. Google Web Academy is part of our initiative for emerging Internet economies,” said Rajan Anandan, VP & Managing Director Google India.  This program is also said to offer technical courses for IT professionals and developers. These courses will revolve around building new web and mobile applications by utilizing Google technologies, Google products integration, cloud computing and more.  Vijay Thadani, chief executive officer, NIIT said the courses offered by NIIT under the Google Web Academy program will include certification programs for online professionals covering topics like search engine marketing, optimising online presence with web analytics and enhance business productivity with Google products and technologies.  The Indian educational system has been undergoing a lot of technical makeover. AICTE recently announced its plans for an in-house job portal to assist its students and employers. Along with the job portal, AICTE also plans to launch the academic networking website and a repository of doctorate papers to check for duplication and cheating. This academic networking site plans to interconnect 7.5 million students who are enrolled in AICTE-approved institutions linked through email IDs. AICTE issues e-mail IDs to each of the students of the technical institutes approved by it. The AICTE is working on a Project Factory, a repository that has been aimed at capturing abstracts of all post graduate projects in an online bank. All these abstracts of research work will be available to industry stakeholders and research labs. So, those interested can get in touch with the concerned student. This project has proposed that the employment portal will possess every student’s semester-wise results online and link it to the CV of the student. Moreover, the CV will automatically be forwarded to HRD heads, so they can select a particular student depending upon the vacancy.  AICTE has also emerged as the biggest customer of Microsoft’s cloud solution as it will begin deploying Live@edu soon. Live@edu is a hosted communication and collaboration service that offers e-mail, Microsoft Office Web Apps, instant messaging and storage. source:tech2.in

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Samsung unveils gesture controlled Angry Birds smart TV app

  
Samsung has officially announced a new Angry Birds app for its smart TVs. The app is entirely gesture based– no controller needed. The Angry Birds app will be available via free download later this month on Samsung 2012 LED 7500 and up models and Plasma 8000 models. In addition, a dedicated app for Angry Birds animated content will be available later this year.

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Karbonn Mobiles announces Rajnikanth Kochadaiyaan mobile phones

Whatever Rajinikanth does, he does it with style, and you cannot possibly leave out the actor's latest release, Kochadaiyaan. News has it that Karbonn Mobiles will be launching an exclusive mobile phone range, called Rajinikanth Kochadaiyaan mobile phones, coinciding with the movie's release. As per a report by CIOL.com, roughly five lakh Rajinikanth Kochadaiyaan mobile phones will be introduced to the market, using which, claims the report, "fans can enjoy the movie to the fullest." Interestingly, the phone will come packed with Rajinikanth's 'punch' dialogues and acts - which, needless to say, will be any Rajini-fan's delight. Speaking of fans, the phone will also sport his autograph on the front as well as the rear. 

Going Karbonn... Mind it!

Those curious about the movie will find insights on its making available on the phone, along with videos. At the moment, however, there is no telling as to what the price of this mobile phone will be. The movie is slated to release on 12.12.12, which is also when the mobile phone range will be introduced, and incidentally, is Rajinikanth's birthday too. The movie will see Rajinikanth's star alongside Deepika Padukone and has been directed by his daughter, Soundarya. 

A mobile phone range to his name is not all that Rajinikanth can boast of. We had carried a report sometime ago about his website running without an Internet connection. Bollywood news hub Desimartini.com actually created a microsite that only let you use it if your computer was not connected to the Internet. The site welcomes you warmly when you visit it, but the tab to enter the website will only work once the website has detected that you aren't connected to the Internet. Once you've removed the ethernet cable or disabled Wi-Fi, the website will let you in. It then takes you through the life and times of the action hero. To continue using the site, your Internet connection has to be off. Otherwise, you will be greeted with the message, "Aiyyo! That was unexpected. To keep browsing, switch off your Internet."

source: tech2

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