Hasta La Gadget!

This week on the Gadget Lab Show, the gang goes over absolutely everything Facebook Home.

Welcome to Thursday evening everyone. Today Facebook unveiled Facebook Home on the HTC first at an event in California. As a result, the social network saw its stocks jump 3-percent. Word was passed down that other devices will support Facebook Home in the future, but will initially be available on the HTC first and a few others on April 12.

We’ve got a hands-on review of Facebook Home and the HTC first, as well as the run down of the differences between Facebook Phone and Facebook Home on the HTC handset. We’ve got a detailed piece on the Facebook Home lockscreen, and it seems advertisements will eventually be part of the system. You can check out what Zuckerberg had to say; we’ve detailed the Chat Heads messaging system, as well as how to get Facebook Home.

In non-Facebook news, AT&T has rolled out a Jelly Bean update for the LG Optimus G (and its CEO was spotted at the Facebook event today). Verizon has released a 4G LTE router for $99, and Samsung’s Galaxy camera with Wi-Fi has hit the US for $449.99. In addition, Qualcomm will be improving WiFi in MLB stadiums.

On the Apple front, a patent has surfaced suggesting a convertible Macbook is on the way, its spaceship campus is behind schedule, and age recommendations have been added to the App Store. Rovio plans to launch Angry Birds: Friends for Android and iOS, Diablo III’s patch brings multiplayer improvements, and Peter Jackson teased the Star Wars VIII script. And finally, there’s something for Arrested Development fans: Season 4 will be hitting Netflix on May 26. That does it for tonight’s Evening Wrap-Up, we hope you enjoy the rest of the night folks!

SlashGear Evening Wrap-Up: April 4, 2013 is written by Brittany Hillen & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Earlier today, Facebook lifted the veil from its Facebook Home. It’s not a smartphone, but rather a new suite of apps that include Cover Feed which replaces the default lock screen application and allows users to access Facebook data more efficiently, with less friction, thus fulfilling Facebook’s goal of keeping people more connected. The demo above shows how Facebook Home runs on the new HTC First, the first smartphone to feature Facebook Home out of the box.

More information about the HTC First and Facebook Home in the full article.

(more…)

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Facebook Home Demo at Facebook HQ, Sailfish Mobile OS Demo by Jolla’s CEO Marc Dillon,

This week the Android user experience known as Facebook Home has been revealed, and with it, whispers of advertisements served to you front and center. Not unlike what you’ve seen with Kindle series of tablets, the Facebook Home app will indeed be serving advertisements to you through the lockscreen portion of the UI. What’s not known at the moment is if this will be a reality just on the app download version of Home or if it’ll be present on the Facebook Phone experience too.

If you’ll take a peek at our Facebook Phone vs Facebook Home article you’ll find that there are indeed a few differences between the two. With the app download you’ll not be getting notifications from all of your apps the way you will with the HTC first smartphone (see our hands-on here!) With advertisements popping up in the Question and Answer portion of the presentation today, we must assume there’s another big feature difference between the two.

“There are no ads in this [Facebook Home] yet, I’m sure that one day there will be.” – Mark Zuckerberg

After being asked about advertisements and hearing that response, another Facebook team member made it clear that ads would be coming to the Cover Feed portion of the Facebook Home experience. Soon after this, Zuckerberg was asked to repeat whether or not there’d be ads on the Cover Feed – responding with a resounding “yup!”, it was made clear that Facebook believes “[advertisements] are just another kind of content.”

Another question was asked during the Q and A session on searching:

Q: How will what I search for influence the ads I see?

A: Searches will be tracked in your activity log, and search won’t influence ads at all.

So no worries on having your activities tracked in Facebook Home… for advertising through the search bar, anyway. Sound reasonable to you? Let us know if you’re all about the Facebook Home experience right this minute!

Have a peek at our new Facebook Home tag portal as well as our Android Hub – we’re coming at you from all angles!

Facebook Home will have ads (just not at first) is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

So Facebook Home is coming to Android phones. But just the good Android phones. The HTC One X, HTC One X+, Samsung Galaxy S III, Note II, and the new HTC One, Samsung Galaxy S4, and HTC First for now. That’s it, that’s the list. If your phone is more than a year old, no Facebook Home for you. And that’s how it has to be, really. More »