Hasta La Gadget!

Facebook has no doubt been focusing more and more on mobile platforms. Granted, it took them a while to come around to the idea of a native iPad app, but the social network has apps on all the major mobile platforms now, and the company is constantly adding and updating mobile features. Where’s all this effort coming from, though? An intensive training program that started last year.

Speaking with Engadget, Facebook’s director of mobile engineering, Mike Shaver, explained how Facebook made the transition to focusing more on the mobile platform. The social network ended up starting an intensive training program in July of last year to inform and train employees on coding native apps for Android and iOS.

The training program consists of five straight days of training for eight hours per day — a typical work week — and anyone who completes the 40-hour training program can move onto actually start writing code for mobile apps. So far, 450 Facebook employees have completed the training, most of which are engineers, but designers, product managers, and other employees can take the training course as well.

Essentially, the training program is to get Facebook employees to develop a “mobile first” mentality, and it’s also the company’s plan to build “mobile empathy” among its employees. Facebook wants a majority of its employees with mobile app developing skills and experience, so while that may seem like a good thing to put on your resume, Facebook thinks its old hat.

[via Engadget]

Facebook’s focus on mobile comes from intensive training program is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

What’s this we have here? It looks to be an invitation from Facebook telling us to “come see a new look for News Feed.” The event will take place next week on March 7 at 10 am PT. As for what the social network has in mind for the day’s events, we’re pretty adamant that they’ll be introducing yet another new redesign of the front-page News Feed.

The last time Facebook held an event actually wasn’t too long ago. About a month and a half ago, Facebook showed off their new Graph Search feature that’s currently rolling out to users as we speak. Now, the company is back for more, and it looks like they’re going to be giving their front page a little bit of a face lift.

However, as for what to expect with a News Feed redesign, we’re not really sure. It could be something that integrates better with Graph Search, but Facebook hasn’t been focusing too much on its News Feed, so it’ll be interesting to see what they come up with. The company has mostly been focusing its efforts on Timeline profile pages recently.

Of course, just yesterday Facebook announces that it would be acquiring Microsoft’s Atlas ad server in order to give marketers and advertisers better tools for managing and tracking their ads on Facebook. We doubt that next week’s event will have anything to do with Atlas, but we wouldn’t be surprised if Zuckerberg brought it up on stage. Stay tuned!

Facebook event scheduled for March 7, News Feed redesign imminent is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Retro arcade machines, an on-site print shop tongue-in-cheek known as “the propaganda wing”, and the general feel of a dorm room: it can only be Facebook‘s HQ. The BBC took a video tour around the Silicon Valley headquarters of the social networking company, coming across the usual start-up must-haves of free bikes, meals, and even laundry facilities, wrapped up in a design attitude that attempts to channel Mark Zuckerberg’s more humble origins despite the hundred-billion dollar floatation.

Just as Steve Jobs set up Apple in his garage, Zuckerberg started Facebook back in his dorm room. The idea of the current Facebook HQ being an exploitative “campus” has been kept, despite needing to accomodate far more people. “As we scaled as a company, we felt it was pretty important that we had that direct connection with people around us” Facebook says.

That extends to the artwork, much of which is produced by Facebook’s own staff. “We definitely try and have a more minimal and industrial approach” a spokesperson said of the decoration, which ranges from full-wall murals, graffiti, to punchy quote posters.

Those posters are produced on-site, at Facebook’s own print shop. Not just a bank of heavy-duty printers, but screenprinting tools to turn slogans generated or curated by employees into decoration. “By committing our ideas to paper,” one member of the workshop team says, “it elevates them.”

Distinctive headquarters are making headlines for several companies lately, with Apple’s new space-donut campus expected to open in 2016. Meanwhile, there was a glimpse inside the Googleplex this month, courtesy of a trailer for The Internship, part of which was filmed on location at the Google HQ.

Inside Facebook: Propaganda printing-presses and free food is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Falcon Pro, arguably one of the best Twitter clients available for the Android operating system, has just reached its 100,000 token limit set by Twitter. The limit was set by Twitter back in August of last year, and it limits 3rd party apps, who utilize Twitter’s main features, to only 100,000 users. Falcon Pro has hit this limit only 3 months after it launched its app, catching them by surprise.

As of right now, Falcon Pro has created a petition. The creators hope that the petition will get enough signatures to convince Twitter to extend Falcon Pro’s amount of tokens. As of 8 hours ago, the petition has accumulated over 600+ signatures. Whether this helps or not is completely up to Twitter. Falcon Pro is also working on the issue of pirates. According to its stats, only 40,000 people have actually purchased its app, meaning there are 60,000 who either aren’t using the client anymore, or have pirated the app.

Guys, bad new, the Token limit has been reached sooner than expected. Getting reports that new users can’t login… Thanks @twitter.

— Falcon for Android (@falcon_android) February 23, 2013

Falcon Pro is also asking users who don’t use its client anymore to revoke access to the app via their Twitter settings. This way there can be additional tokens freed up for other users. Falcon Pro has included a disclaimer in its app description warning users of the 100k limit. Hopefully it will stop users from giving the app a 1-star rating. However, it still has to deal with the refunds for people who bought the app, but can’t access it.

Falcon Pro is currently finding other ways to get an extension on its tokens, and it’s trying to avoid any methods that may breach Twitter’s terms of service. While it’s important to get more users access to its app, Falcon Pro doesn’t want to jeopardize anything for its current users. So as of right now, all its users can do is sign its petition and hope that Twitter’s lenient.

[via Falcon Pro]

Falcon Pro reaches Twitter’s 100k token limit is written by Brian Sin & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Microsoft has fully launched Outlook.com, its rebranded Hotmail email service, taking the cloud system out of beta and throwing open the doors to users across the globe. Already amassing more than 60m active users, Outlook.com hooks email into Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, and puts social network updates where you might – if you’re a Gmail user – expect to see adverts.

In fact, Microsoft claims, people have seen on average 60-percent fewer adverts when using the service, because of the social networking getting piped into Outlook.com. Meanwhile, nearly half of all users have used SkyDrive, Microsoft’s cloud-storage service, with more than half a billion photos and Office documents shared.

Microsoft will also be pushing existing Hotmail users to Outlook.com. The company says that, now the newer service is out of beta, it will “soon upgrade every user”; everybody is expected to be switched over by the summer. Users will keep their existing “@hotmail.com” address, as well as all of their existing content, settings, rules, and the like, but have the new Outlook.com interface and tools.

If you’d rather jump the gun and get Outlook.com today, you can log in with your Hotmail details at the new site; that will switch you over early. More on the service in our original hands-on.

Outlook.com exits preview: Hotmail users to “upgrade” by Summer 2013 is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.