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The easiest way to stop an argument is to contest the meaning of words. That’s what debate coaches teach, and it’s what lawyers, philosophers and clever toddlers do every day. It’s also what Mark Zuckerberg did last week when he was asked about developing an app for iPad at the company’s “Facebook Mobile” event.

“The iPad’s not mobile,” Zuckerberg retorted. “Next question.” When the crowd murmured, he added, “It’s not mobile! It’s a computer. It’s like a different thing.”

“I think Apple would disagree with you,” said Mashable’s Ben Parr. “Well, sorry,” Zuckerberg responded.

A moment later, he walked it back: “I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to be rude towards Apple there. I mean, look, we all love Apple products here, and we want to work with them, and all that; I just want to keep the event focused on what we’re doing today. I think that the iPad is not a mobile platform in the way that a phone is, and that’s what we’re talking about today.”

I’m left wondering whether the perceived rudeness (towards Apple, not the reporter) wasn’t about Zuckerberg not answering the question, but about him refusing to call the iPad mobile and calling it a computer instead.

In the tech world, there are plenty of perfectly ordinary descriptive words that also function as insults: “netbook” (applied to a lightweight notebook), “feature phone” (applied to an entry-level smartphone), “cable company” (trust me, fiberoptic IPTV companies do not like being called that).

You can also cut someone down by denying something a label. “Open-source” is a good example, but I’ve got a more surprising one. When Barnes & Noble unveiled Nook Color, I was surprised to see how many commenters at Wired.com were absolutely certain that (as jaxruffian66 put it) “No e-ink=not a reader. End of story.” I had no idea that we’d already completely defined what an e-reader was, based on the presence or absence of one specific technology. I don’t quite know what we’ll do when Pixel Qi, Mirasol and color E Ink screens show up.

Is “mobile” like this? Is being a mobile device inherently something good, so that not being inside that clique is something bad? What exactly was wrong with the word “portable” for tablets and laptops? (Netbooks used to be called “ultraportable”; now, you’re more likely to hear them called “ultramobile.”) Is there any consensus about what does and doesn’t constitute a mobile device? Or even whether it necessarily refers to a hardware device and not a platform?

One irony of Zuckerberg’s statement is that “computer” usually is used as an approbation, not an insult. Tablets like the iPad aren’t “real” computers because (the argument goes) they don’t have keyboards — or don’t allow users to access the filesystem, or whatever line you want to draw.

The Atlantic’s Alexis Madrigal wonders whether the presence or absence of a keyboard still defines what we think of as a computer, or at least a PC. That term, too, is changing: It very rarely means a specific platform anymore, Windows instead of Mac or Linux, but instead a personal computer (including those running Mac OS X or Linux) rather than a tablet or smartphone.

Or consider “social network.” This could be entirely offline: just a set of people and their relationships to each other. Then it became synonymous with dedicated sites that provided online social networking, then activities of people using those sites. Eventually it migrated to “social networking features” of other websites, services and objects, and finally just became “social”: like “mobile,” an entire field of activity, including both hardware and software, commerce and anthropology.

Like “mobile,” “social” is good. Social is where everything is headed; it’s the future. Nobody wants to be left out of the future.

See Also:

• Facebook's Gone Rogue; It's Time for an Open Alternative …
• Facebook Seeks to Make All Phones Facebook Phones
• Google Takes On Facebook, Twitter With 'Buzz'
• 26 Percent of Wired's Mobile Traffic Comes From the iPad
• Mobile Product of the Year: Apple iPad 3G
• Apple Is No. 1 Computer Seller — If You Count iPads

Been thinking that Firefox or Chrome browser of yours just isn’t, say, social enough? Probably not, but RockMelt is hoping that’s exactly what you’ll think after you try out its web browser. The Mountain View startup, which is backed by web bigwigs such as Marc Andreeseen, has just released its new browser in a limited beta today, and it’s — as you probably may have guessed — built entirely around social networks such as Facebook and Twitter. Using Chromium at its core, the browser naturally looks and feels a lot Chrome — fret not, Incognito mode is still there — but there are some clear interface tweaks. As you can see in the screenshot above, the left edge integrates your Facebook friends so you can chat, send messages or check out status updates no matter what site you’re visiting. (Oddly, there doesn’t seem to be a way to poke from the interface! Blasphemy!) The right column is meant for Twitter and RSS feeds — both are updated in the background and use “push notifications” to let you know how many unread messages or posts you’ve got piling up. You can update your statuses from both rails as well as share the site you are reading by just hitting the large share button to the left of the search bar. It’s all fairly straightforward and actually works quite well.

However, RockMelt is pitching itself as more than just a sharing platform — it also claims to have improved the speed and ease of search. Instead of the search box taking you to a Google search page, it brings up the results in a box of its own and allows you to visit the different sites within the browser window — basically, you don’t have to keep clicking back and forth from that Google search page. It’s fairly neat, and actually does seem rather snappy. So, when can you try out RockMelt yourself? We wish we had better news, but it’s in a limited beta for both Mac and PC, so your best bet is to head over to the source link and give away your Facebook details (if you’re cool with forking over that info). Based on our first impressions, it’s definitely worth putting your name in the running.

Continue reading RockMelt social browser launches in limited beta, we go hands-on

RockMelt social browser launches in limited beta, we go hands-on originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 07 Nov 2010 23:57:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Last Friday, California police arrested a 23-year-old “man” who has been accused of hacking into the email and Facebook accounts of more than 3,000 women. Once in their various accounts he would search for, and often find, sexually-explicit photos of the women, and then send the photos to the victims’ contacts and post them on their Facebook accounts.

The suspect, George Samuel Bronk, was arraigned on Tuesday following an investigation involving Federal authorities and the California Highway Patrol’s Computer Crimes Investigation Unit.

Bronk first came to authorities’ attention after a Connecticut woman told police that someone had stolen explicit photos from her email and posted them onto her Facebook page. Police were able to trace an IP address to Bronk’s computer where they found that Bronk had gained access to almost 3,200 women’s email accounts.

It is thought that he tricked the emails into resetting their passwords based on pre-answered personal questions which he was able to guess based on info available on the women’s Facebook pages.

This guy deserves to do some time for what amounts to harassment and acting as a Peeping Tom on a cross-continental scale. But 3,200 accounts. That’s a lot. Almost, in a strange way, impressive. This guy could probably have found Osama Bin Laden or invented some kind of new Twitter had he put his hacking talents and seemingly endless amount of free time into good rather than evil.

via Switched

Facebook admitted during its mobile event today that the app for Android devices has been lagging behind other clients and has already made a push to correct that with a new version, 1.4, now available on the Android Market. Not much has changed, but the list of fixes indicates it now supports check-ins with Places, Groups and some much needed improvements to notifications. Check out the gallery for a few screens of the new functions in action or snag the QR code after the break.

Update: It looks like the iPhone app is getting an update as well. Unfortunately, some folks are having trouble downloading it. Let us know how it goes for you.

Continue reading New Facebook app for Android available, adds Places, Groups & improved notifications (update: iPhone, too)

New Facebook app for Android available, adds Places, Groups & improved notifications (update: iPhone, too) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 03 Nov 2010 15:12:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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