Hasta La Gadget!

Facebook has just received the “go-ahead” to build a second campus in Menlo Park. Menlo Park’s city council, minus one member, voted 4-0 to allow Facebook to build its second campus. The new campus will be a 433,555 square foot building located on the other side of Facebook’s headquarters. It will be located on 312 and 313 Constitution Drive, just west of Bayfront Expressway.

The campus will be span across 22-acres of land. It will be designed by Frank Gehry, a renowned architect known for his work on the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, and his work on the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, California. However, unlike the flashy designs Gehry made for both the Guggenheim and Walt Disney Concert Hall, the design of the Facebook campus will be much more low-key.

Gehry’s creative partner, Craig Webb, stated, “They felt some of those things were too flashy and not in keep with the kind of culture of Facebook, so they asked us to make it more anonymous.” Surprisingly, Gehry was comfortable with designing a more low-key building. Facebook’s new campus will follow an eco-friendly design. It will have a rooftop garden, be hidden by the landscape, feature a park-like entrance accessible by the public, and will have an underground tunnel that connects it to Facebook’s other campus.

Webb stated, “Our intent is that it almost becomes like a hillside.” Many of the city council members were enthusiastic about the campus’s new design. One of the members, Kirsten Keith, stated that it’s very lucky for Menlo Park to have a building designed by Frank Gehry. Another member, Rich Cline, stated that he was impressed that Facebook’s rooftop park will also have oak trees. Construction for the campus is expected to start right away, and upon completion, the campus be able to accommodate up to 3,400 Facebook staff members.

[via Mercury News]

Facebook gets approval to build a low-key second campus is written by Brian Sin & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

The WSJ is reporting that Facebook’s upcoming Android event will be a home screen—as in the first screen you see when you flip on your phone—dedicated to Facebook. It will “display content from users’ Facebook accounts on a smartphone’s home screen.” More »

When the original Facebook phone was introduced, it was created by HTC, and it certainly didn’t do very well on the market. With both the HTC Salsa and the HTC ChaCha having been released and selling so few units that they didn’t warrant a follow-up in the many, many quarters that followed, it doesn’t seem very logical that the social network and the manufacturer would want to create such an amalgamation again. And it’s not as if HTC is swimming in cash at the moment, either.

But here it is, courtesy of a couple of tipsters speaking with the New York Times about a Facebook phone to be revealed at next weeks’ Facebook event. Here the suggestion is that both a Facebook employee and “another person” who shall remain nameless were briefed on a project coming up – a so-called “special version of Google’s Android software system”. With the wording the NYT uses, it would appear that this software could appear on a new phone OR a phone that’s already coming on quick to the market – perhaps the HTC One?

“The software will debut on a handset made by HTC, according to a Facebook employee and another person who were briefed on the announcement.” – New York Times

Facebook has repeatedly denied that they’d be making a smartphone – but there’s never really been a denial of the possibility of a smartphone with major Facebook integration. Now that Facebook’s level of involvement with the iPhone is so base, might it be time that the social network gets big on Android?

With the launch of the HTC One here in the United States so very close (we hope), we can’t help but wonder if these two events might coincide. Keep your eyes tuned to two tag portals, both Facebook and HTC will be running hot next week – and we’ll more than likely see some manner of leak happening before then. More than we already have, that is.

And don’t miss the big event – 10AM PST on April 4th right here on SlashGear!

HTC “Facebook phone” Android software integration tipped is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Seen a few profile pictures change in support of gay marriage recently? The all-seeing eye of Facebook has seen quite a few, and from that ocean of data, it’s whipped up a comprehensive map of gay marriage support in the America. More »

Next week, Facebook is going to show us its “new home on Android.” What does that mean? We’re not sure—we could be days away from The Facebook Phone, or just a lovely new life-consuming app. But here are our best bets for what Zuck has up his Androidy sleeves. More »