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A thoroughly scientific study by sociological journal Cosmopolitan says 20 percent of women prefer Facebook over penis-in-vagina activity. This number sounds low to me. In our era, Facebook’s made almost everything enjoyable and worthwhile about sex obsolete. Let’s get poking. More »

Google+ has had its detractors lately—one or two (or three or four) might even be found right here. They have some good points, but they’re wrong. Google+ is awesome. Here are just a few reasons why. More »

SAN DIEGO, Calif. — Location-based startup Foursquare today unveiled a new app feature that allows users to discover nearby places of interest based on their likes and dislikes.

Dubbed “Radar,” the feature sends push notifications to your iOS 5-based iPhone when you’re in the neighborhood of a place you’ve been meaning to visit. Radar is based on your existing Foursquare “lists” of favorite places, so instead of suggesting restaurants or stores you’ve never heard of, the app will notify you that you’re close to some place you actually want to visit. Foursquare tied Radar to Apple’s launch of iOS 5 on Wednesday, which finally brought strong push notification technology options to Apple’s mobile platform.

Sound familiar? It is. After Facebook’s 2010 launch of its “Places” feature  – which offers many features similar to Foursquare’s service, including check-ins — it seemed as if Dennis Crowley’s small 80-man startup was all but dead in the water. Similarly, Facebook’s “Deals” program offers a location-based deal notification service much like Foursquare’s daily-deals program, created in partnership with LivingSocial.

“We weathered that storm,” said Holger Luedorf, Foursquare VP of mobile and international, in an interview, noting that Facebook recently shuttered its deals program while Foursquare’s remains strong. “Honestly, we’ve recently announced over 1 billion check-ins, with a user base of over 10 million people. That’s already huge, but we’re focused on growing even more and not spending time worrying about our competitors,” Luedorf said.

Currently, Radar is available only to iOS 5 users, but Luedorf says an Android version is currently in the works. The upgraded app is currently available via Foursquare’s web site.

Initially, T-Mobile’s Bobsled brand simply offered a way to VoIP call your Facebook friends for free but with that angle sufficiently covered, it has moved on to wider access. Starting today it supports dialing out to mobile and landline numbers in the US, Canada or Puerto Rico right from your desktop browser. Also new are free apps for Android and iOS devices, however those are still limited to calling your Facebook friends (and enemies.) Still not quite sure what all this newfangled internet telephone business is? Check out the video demo above and press release embedded after the break.

Continue reading Bobsled by T-Mobile’s free VoIP magic now available via browser, Android or iOS

Bobsled by T-Mobile’s free VoIP magic now available via browser, Android or iOS originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 11 Oct 2011 01:23:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Facebook's iPad app is available today. Image: TechCrunch

It seemed like it would never arrive, but at long last, Facebook has released its iPad app.

One of the key features of the iPad-specific app is its integration with other iOS apps: The Facebook app will send you straight to other apps when you navigate to them from a friend’s news post or status update. For example, if a friend posted a link from The Daily, clicking the link would take you to The Daily app itself. The app also supports high-res photos that you can flip through like a photo album, as well as the ability to see where friends are located via with the Nearby mapping feature.

Facebook’s iPad app was rumored to debut last week at Apple’s iPhone event, but was a no-show. Earlier this summer, the app was discovered hidden inside the iPhone app. By tweaking a setting when running it on your iPad, you could access the iPad version — until the hack was disabled.

We’ll soon have a hands-on with the new app to let you know how it works, but in the meantime, you can get the app yourself from the App Store.