Hasta La Gadget!

Time Magazine released its list of the 100 most influential people in the world today, and many technology visionaries made the list, including several executives. Apple’s Jonathan Ive, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, and Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer, and Samsung CEO Oh-Hyun Kwon all made it on the list.

Each of the 100 people selected for the list comes with a short essay on why that person deserved such an honor. However, the essays are written by another prominent personality or someone close to them. Ive’s essay was written by U2 frontman Bono, while Mayer’s essay was written by former Google CEO and current chairman Eric Schmidt.

Other people that made the list include Minecraft developers Markus Persson and Jens Bergensten, who came in at number 2 in the reader poll for the list. Tesla Motors and SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk is also on the list, as is director Steven Spielberg and Netflix’s Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos.

The list is split between five categories, which include Titans, Pioneers, Leaders, Icons, and Artists. Interestingly enough, Jony Ive was included in the Artists list because of his iconic design work at Apple, while Mayer was included in the Pioneers list for her shake up at Yahoo, where she aims to turn the company completely around.

Jony Ive, Marissa Mayer, Sheryl Sandberg among Time’s 100 most influential people is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Considering how Microsoft are the ones behind the official Facebook for the Windows Phone platform, this would mean official Facebook software developers are unable to keep track of it too well. Well, earlier this morning, the folks over at Facebook could very well have made modifications to unknown bits within the APIs which are used in the Windows Phone 8 Facebook app. Just how did we arrive at this particular conclusion? As the adage goes, the proof of the pudding is in the eating, and it seems that the Facebook app for Windows Phone 8 tends to crash consistently whenever one makes an attempt to access either comments or notifications in their Facebook account.

In fact, reviews for the Facebook for Windows Phone 8 app have seen a flood of complaints concerning the app and its tendency to proverbially go down in flames, and since there has been no recent updates introduced to the app itself, it goes without saying that in all probability, the issues lies in the back end side of things. Word has it that only the Windows Phone 8 Facebook app version 4.2.0.0 is affected, as users of the Windows Phone 7.x version 2.7.0.0 runs fine and dandy.

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Samsung Galaxy S4 Arriving On Verizon This May, New Motorola Phones Could Be Unbreakable, Google CEO Drops Hint,

At its Mobile DevCon in New York today, Facebook took the wraps off a new SDK for iOS. This marks version 3.5 of the development kit, with the biggest news being improvements to Open Graph. While devs have been able to leverage Facebook’s Open Graph for mobile products before, new APIs being released should simplify the act of tapping into the vast repository of social data. One of the big improvements is the creation of an Object API, which removes the need to host a website with Open Graph-specific tags. There’s also a new native dialog for sharing content to Facebook from any application. Perhaps less immediately important to users are the improvements to the login system, but it’s a major initiative for Facebook. As the network moves to become a single sign-on platform for the web, streamlining the act of logging in to other properties using your Facebook account becomes increasingly important. The company’s Douglas Purdy claims that the process is now 20-percent faster than the previous dialog. The biggest question still left hanging in the air is just when we can expect the SDK upgrades to be made available on Android. Purdy did promise that it would be coming “very quickly.”

Filed under: Internet, Software, Mobile, Facebook

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Source: Facebook Developer Blog

The world of technology might be a vast one, but some names just tend to go around the market from time to time, simply because their expertise in a particular situation is always valuable. You know what they say – one man’s meat is another man’s poison, and one of those folks who were affected in the fallout due to Apple’s iOS 6 Maps snafu was project head Richard Williamson, who was speculated to have been dropped from Cupertino at the end of last year. While these are just speculations with no actual details (at least until now), Williamson might soon be back on a payroll as Bloomberg’s sources point out that Williamson has already joined Facebook’s mobile software division over the past fortnight.

Needless to say, it remains to be seen just what Williamson will churn out for Facebook, although one would be wise not to question the pedigree that Williamson brings with him where interface development is concerned, considering how he helmed that segment for key iOS apps as well as played quite a sterling role in assisting Safari to get off the ground.

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Cooler Master Unveils Quickfire Stealth Mechanical Keyboard, Chrome Makes Itself More Useful At The Office,

Facebook is gearing up to launch video ads on its network come this summer. The ads are expected to arrive in June or July, and Ad Age reports that there will be 4 slots, each slot costing around $1 million daily for advertisers to use. While Facebook has yet to decide on what video ad format it wants to use, sources have told Ad Age that Facebook has conferred with 3 executives about the new product.

Facebook will make these video ads targeted towards specific users. There is a category for women over 30, women under 30, men over 30, and men under 30. Each ad will be about 15 seconds long, and users will only see a maximum of 3 ads per day. The ads will be on auto-play mode, and will either cover the entirety of the user’s Facebook page, be smaller ads located on a corner of your Facebook feed, or be something else entirely. The video ads will also be implemented onto Facebook Mobile.

If Facebook is successful in getting advertisers to pay the elaborate fee, it can generate at least $120 million a month and $1.44 billion a year. It’s speculated that Facebook wants to target those in the TV industry who have a huge budget for advertising. One executive who was briefed on the new product, however, says that the current price tag will most likely deter many advertisers, and would most likely spark outrage among Facebook’s users.

Launching video ad units on its social network, while may generate a massive amount of revenue for Facebook, will not be well-received by its users. Facebook users want to quickly get into their Facebook feed, check out any new status updates, message a few friends, and get out. Having to close out of Facebook’s video ads, or worse, be required to sit through a 15 second ad will anger a lot of people. But as we know, Facebook’s main goal is to generate as much revenue as possible.

[via Ad Age]

Facebook wants advertisers to pay $1m a day to display their video ads is written by Brian Sin & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.