Google has released a beautiful news-reader app for iOS and Android. The new Google Currents app acts like a magazine for your device, and let you read all your news whether you’re connected to internet or not. The app gives your favorite blogs a magazine touch, and make everything simple and easy to access. Google Currents includes different categories featuring a large variety of sites from lifestyle to business.

The app also packs Facebook, Google+ and Tumblr integration to let you share the contents with a single click. If you don’t find your favorite blog there, you can add it via your Google Reader account.

Google Currents app is fully optimized for iPad, and Android tablets running Android 2.2 or later. iOS users can download the app from iTunes App Store [link]. While Android users can get the app from Android Market [link].

More screenshots and video tour of Google Currents app:

Never be disconnected from Facebook! Isn’t that the dream? Well it just might come true in a few months when Facebook launches it’s very own phone. Although it is thought to be a rumor at the moment, the reports started surfacing again. The suggested phone’s name is “Buffy”, named after the television series, “Buffy – The Vampire Slayer”. According to reports, Facebook has allied with HTC to design the hardware for the phone while it might go on similar paths as the rest of the smart phones and tablets these days about the operating system and adapt Android. While most of the apps for the phone would be built using the HTML 5 technology.

How it will make way in the already so competitive market of phones is something to see. And what about the companies that Facebook had partnerships with to make it available through mobiles? It would be very interesting to see how Facebook maintains a friendly relation with all the other companies while trying to get a fair share for its very own phone!

Source: AllThingsD

The world’s largest social networking website Facebook has came under a huge wave of a fresh attack of viruses and spams with an effect of hundreds of thousands of users getting their accounts hijacked. The incidence is one of the biggest ever security breaches that have ever happened in Facebook’s history.

The problem occurred reportedly due to an error in Java Script in some internet browsers. The hackers took advantage of the problem and intruded into the Facebook accounts of many users. According to Facebook, users were tricked into pasting links of malicious and pornographic content in the address bars of their web browsers. This act rendered those user’s accounts vulnerable and gave an access to the hackers into their account. The sexually explicit and porn stuff became posted on the walls of the user’s Facebook friends. Naturally, the content shared by the friends is trusted and then shared all around.  The scams and viruses thus spread when other users click on those links. Facebook, however did not name the browsers that were affected.

Some experts are also of the opinion that some apps might have been the cause of such a large scale attack. Facebook apps seek permission of the user to get access to his personal information and then may continue to use it. Facebook has said it built mechanisms to quickly put an end to the malicious pages and accounts that attempt to exploit the loop holes and vulnerabilities.  It urges its 800 million users never to copy and paste the unknown codes and links in their browsers.

Facebook spokesman Andrew Noyes said in a statement. “We are always working to improve our systems to isolate and remove material that violates our terms. Our efforts have drastically limited the damage caused by this attack, and we are now in the process of investigating to identify those responsible.”

New York Daily News has reported that Facebook user accounts are hacked 600,000 times daily during user’s log in. The company however says that less than 5 percent users receive spam per day, whereas not more than 4 percent of all the shared content of Facebook is spam.

Finally Facebook has released a major update to its Facebook app for iPhone and iPod touch. The update brings new sharing options, new design for Profile and Groups design, several improvements and bug fixes. New sharing features include ability to tag friends and places, web view for external links, privacy controls on posts and more.

Facebook app was having loads of bugs but after updating to v3.5 everything is fine and more responsive. You can update your app from App Store or the latest version from here.

What’s new in Facebook 3.5 for iPhone:

Made it easier to share with who you want

• Added the ability to tag friends and places in posts
• Added the ability to share external links from a web view
• Added new design for Profile and Group Walls
• Improved the sharing tool to add privacy controls on posts and match your settings on the web site

Improvements and bug fixes:

• Improved Notifications speed
• Fixed a number of Chat bugs
• Made it easier to select filters in News Feed
• Fixed a bug with the Notifications bar disappearing
• Fixed a number of Photos bugs
• Improved performance and stability overall

More screenshots:

Facebook today has released a separate instant messenger for Android and iOS devices. The messenger allows users to chat with their Facebook friends and send them messages using their iPhone, iPod touch, iPad, or Android device. Users can send group messages to their friends. It also allows users to share photos with their friends.

Here are the features of the application

• Message friends, groups of friends or anyone in your mobile contacts
• Map your location, find your friends and make plans on the go
• Get mobile notifications so you never miss a message
• Include photos so friends can see what you’re doing

You can download Facebook Messenger for your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad from the App Store here for free.

Android users can download the app for free from Android Marketplace here

Minimalist for Facebook is a Chrome extension available in Chrome Web Store for free. Using this extension you can fully customize your Facebook home page easily, you can also hide about 50 UI elements, select different colors, remove ads and much more. So now you don’t have to bear the blue color every time you login to your Facebook account if you don’t like it, and change the colors according to your mood.

You can completely or partially hide both the right and left sidebars, you can zoom photos by hovering mouse over thumbnails etc. Minimalist for Facebook also allows you to import/export personalized settings to apply on Chrome browsers running on different computers.

You can get the Minimalist for Facebook from here.

Via: Lifehacker

HTC has announced its official Twitter featured smartphone called HTC Tata on Twitter. HTC previously announced an identical device named HTC ChaCha that is a Facebook featured device with dedicated Facebook button, same as ChaCha, Tata features a dedicated Twitter button right below to the QWERTY keyboard as you can see in the image above. The HTC Tata comes preloaded with a new version of the Twitter app and a new HTC Sense widget built specifically for Twitter.

HTC Tata runs Sense UI on top of Android 2.3.3. It features a 600MHz Qualcomm dual-core processor, full QWERTY keyboard, 2.6-inch HVGA 480×320 display, 1GB of RAM and 1GB of ROM.

No word on pricing or availability has been revealed, but we will surely let you know when it becomes available.

Via

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Skyfire Labs has released the most significant update of its popular web browser for iOS devices. Skyfire 3.0 is now available for download at iTunes App Store for $2.99. The new version brings enhanced performance and deep Facebook integration. Using the new Skyfire you can share the web pages and articles with your Facebook friends with a single tap only. Skyfire 3.0 now support more Flash videos from different sites. Complete changelog is given below.

• Enhanced capability to give you more video designed for Adobe Flash Player from more sites. Flash videos will be optimized for your device and network, giving you smooth video playback, and (for users on capped or tiered data plans) saving you bandwidth and money.
• Our favorite new feature; instantly see what content on any given site is most popular with your friends and within the Facebook community. Recommendations from friends are prioritized and show up at the top of the list.
• Fireplace™ Feed Reader – A simple but addictive tool that provides a filtered list of your Facebook feed that includes links to web pages, images, and videos posted by your Facebook friends. A great place to start for browsing.
• Facebook Like Button – Skyfire 3.0 puts the Facebook Like Button on every page of the Internet. No scrolling around searching for the button on the page, simply click on the SkyBar™ Like Button to easily “like” or “unlike” the page you are viewing.
• Skyfire OneTouch Search™ – Enter a single search term and choose between Google, Video (from VideoSurf), or Wikipedia with a single touch without the need to navigate to separate sites

Download Skyfire from iTunes App Store

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