Hasta La Gadget!

Facebook has quietly pulled its contentious Find Friends Nearby feature, though the social network refuses to confirm that the decision was in response to concerns about the swiftly-dubbed “stalker tool.” Instead, the site claims that Find Friends Nearby was never intended for widespread public use anyway, and that taking it down is a regular part of its own internal testing.

Quietly launched on Sunday, Find Friends Nearby used GPS and other location tools to flag up which of your Facebook friends were physically proximate. These could be broken down into groups – such as work colleagues or old school friends – and included anyone who had the Find Friends Nearby page open on their mobile device.

However, it also raised the hackles of privacy watchdogs, with fears that it might open users up to inadvertent tracking. On the flip side, advertisers had apparently already begun salivating over the possibilities for specifically targeting commercial content to nearby Facebookers.

“This wasn’t a formal release — this was just something that a few engineers were testing” a Facebook spokesperson told Wired. “With all tests, some get released as full products, others don’t. Nothing more to say on this for now, but we’ll communicate to everyone when there is something to say.”

Facebook yanks controversial Find Friends Nearby is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Today Facebook has changed a bit of your profile – the part where you’ve got your email listed right out in the open to the public – so that it connects not to the email you entered, but to the Facebook email you never knew you had. If your specific Facebook URL is “therealchrisburns”, then your email is now “therealchrisburns@facebook.com” – convenient for some, a bit of a hassle for most. Let’s have a quick peek at how we can fix this up in a jiffy.

All you’ve got to do is head to your own profile page, hit the button that says, “Update Info,” scroll down to Contact Info, and hit “Edit.” From here you’ll see that you’ve got the new Facebook email alongside the email you already had in place. Take that Facebook email out or decide for yourself if you’d like to make the change.

Facebook is already taking quite a bit of flack over this situation as Facebook users, on the whole, don’t like to have their profile changed. A public network such as Facebook will certainly continue to change as they move towards a more profitable model each and every day, and Facebook’s users will continue to rebel while they stay inside the fold. It’s a strange social networking world we live in today, folks, that’s for sure.

Fix your Facebook email instantly is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Just like how Instagram finally allows technology to catch up with the terrible cameras we once used because out technology was so bad, so too does Facebook’s new Find Friends Nearby allow us to see the people around us. When you open this new feature, available at fb.com/ffn from your mobile device, you’ll see “People nearby and have this page open.” The only purpose this function serves is to increase the connections Facebook has between its already signed-up online citizens – for those users, there’s no goodness to be gained here.

Facebook Engineer Ryan Petterson has claimed that this function was born of a Hackathon for Facebook and was originally named Friendshake. What we’ve got here is a lovely function that’s certainly interesting enough to move forward with and implement on Facebook applications, but as far as how real-life relationships are affected, this function is a poison.

As the mobile world seeks to connect users, so too do the humans behind those users disconnect. When turning meeting someone into a game becomes reality, Facebook is to blame for the deterioration of our once-friendly society. Mister Rogers would be very disappointed. Facebook is fabulously well suited for keeping families together over long distances with photos and video. Facebook is excellent at allowing one to get in contact with someone one had once known but lost contact with.

Facebook should never be used to meet new people. Especially when those new people are literally sitting in the same wi-fi network as you are. Find Friends Nearby is a project that should have stayed just that.

Facebook Find Friends Nearby is a symptom of a larger social disease is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

RIM is considering splitting up its ailing BlackBerry business and selling off the handset manufacturing side, sources have claimed, with both Amazon and Facebook tipped as potential suitors. Details of the possible cleavage are scant, with UK newspaper The Sunday Times citing no sources in its report; RIM is supposedly weighing whether its messaging division would perform better as a standalone business.

That would leave the handset division either operating on its own, independent of the software and services teams, or – if RIM could find a buyer – spinning it off altogether. As for the messaging half, that too could be sold off if it made good business sense, with the paper mentioning Apple and Google as third-parties which might be interested.

Finally, another possibility is avoiding splits altogether and selling off the business entirely to a larger company, with Microsoft cited as a possibility. The Windows maker has made headlines recently with its push into tablet hardware in the shape of Microsoft Surface, though it’s generally believed that Nokia would make a more reasonable acquisition target given it has already adopted Windows Phone.

RIM confirmed last month that it had engaged JP Morgan and RBC Capital to examine possible options for the future, with significant job losses already on the cards. Whether it could muster sufficient interest among rivals to persuade them to open their wallets remains to be seen.

[via Reuters; Image credit: miggslives]

RIM weighing smartphone split-off: Amazon and Facebook suggested suitors is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.