Hasta La Gadget!

Visiting your Facebook news feed can feel like a chat with parents eager for grandkids — it’s sometimes a flood of engagements, weddings and baby photos. Whether you enjoy it or not, that not-so-subliminal messaging is about to get more prominent with a US trial for promoted posts among everyday users. Just as with earlier deployments, American socialites can click a link to push a given post higher in others’ news streams and get feedback on just how many have taken a peek. The testing is limited to those with under 5,000 friends and subscribers to keep the celebrities and social media experts on the sidelines. However, anyone with a quiet life might want to duck and cover for the next few days while more sentimental friends push all their sugary updates to the top.

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Facebook lets Americans try promoting their posts, won’t let you escape saccharine updates originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 03 Oct 2012 15:26:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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They say that money makes the world go round, but so too, does it have enough kinetic energy within to help promote your Facebook posts – at least for those living in the US. The Promoted Posts feature has arrived Stateside, where it will cost you $7 per post which Facebook hopes will be able to help the social networking giant earn some side income along the way (economy of scale and all that), where promoting your posts should come in handy if you are going to throw a garage sales, hold a party, share your wedding photos or make any other important announcements.

Promoted Posts has seen action in 20 other countries to date, and will target the market where one has fewer than 5,000 total friends and subscribers. Does this mean a new age of Facebook posts will rise, where one with more money in their pockets than the rest will have more eyeballs look at the promoted posts? At the end of the day, it remains to be seen what Facebook’s ultimate objective for Promoted Posts will be – to make money, or make Facebook a more fun place to be?

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Like-A-Hug Facebook-connected vest lets you know you are liked, Facebook now allows you to give real gifts to your virtual friends,

Now here is a piece of technological fashion that is certainly very different from others that we have seen before – the Like-A-Hug vest which is connected to your Facebook account. Basically, whenever a friend in your Facebook account “likes” a photo, video or status update, the vest will inflate inwards, letting you feel a virtual hug. Of course, those who wear this in hot and humid countries would probably prefer something far smaller, like say, an inflatable wristband, and it is not exactly the most fashion forward piece of clothing iether. If you want to send back a hug, just squeeze and deflate the vest – of course, there are many other considerations to take into such as the kind of data plan you will need to attach to the Like-A-Hug vest for it to remain constantly in touch with your Facebook account, or does it work over Wi-Fi only? How about battery life for the sensor and electronics, is there a warning system?

This is definitely not a vest you would throw into the washing machine, that’s for sure. Hopefully creators of the Like-A-Hug vest, Melissa Chow, Andy Payne and Phil Seaton, from MIT will be able to come up with a workable solution for the masses soon. I won’t be surprised to see this appear as a Kickstarter project though, how about you?

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Facebook now allows you to give real gifts to your virtual friends, Facebook bug results in messages on friends’ walls that cannot be deleted,

Zuck’s tour of the Red Menace just became zanier: after meeting with Russia’s Prime Minister and giving him a t-shirt emblazoned with his Facebook URL, the IPO baller sat down with Russia’s Jimmy Fallon. It’s kind of hard to watch! More »

Ready the spandex and decide on a name for your alter ego, because come October 16th, you’ll have the chance to fight crime from the comfort of your computer. On that date, the “Connected To The Case” website goes live with the aim of crowd-sourcing tips from its users to help the cops solve active investigations. You’ll use your Facebook login for access, as the service pulls data from your profile to prioritize cases with which you might have a connection. Morgan Wright, CEO and Chief Crime Fighter of Crowd Sourced Investigations, told us its system looks at five key areas when digging for pertinent triggers: “date, location, time, relation and demographics.” It then uses that data to tailor notifications of unsolved crimes based on — for example — proximity to your school, or where you used to work. Rest assured that you control the privacy settings, and if you’ve got useful info to share, you can do so anonymously.

Law enforcement agencies can register to include their cases from today, with the initial roll-out targeting the US. The plan is to expand first to other English-speaking countries, with foreign language support in the future to build a global network of internet do-gooders. Including data from other social networks is also in the pipeline, starting with Twitter and later, Foursquare and Pinterest. A smartphone app is also on the agenda, so get your detective devices ready — we can be heroes, if just for one click.

Continue reading Connected To The Case to use Facebook for crowd-sourced crime solving

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Connected To The Case to use Facebook for crowd-sourced crime solving originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 01 Oct 2012 20:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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