Talks about a Facebook phone has been in the rumor mills for quite some time now. Today, Facebook has finally ended all the speculations by announcing the long awaited Facebook phone (well, sort of) at an event on its headquarters in California.

However, the Facebook phone that was unveiled in the event wasn’t exactly the phone that everyone was expecting. Why? Because unlike what the rumors suggested, the phone that was presented to the world today wasn’t built by Facebook. The phone is made by HTC and runs a heavily customized version of Android – the “Facebook Home”.

Moreover, contrary to previous reports, Facebook Home is not just a home replacement app but rather a collection of apps that modify a huge part of the Android UI that will supposedly enable users to focus on their friends rather than on apps. Through the app, Facebook plans to bring in more content to users and put social networking at the front and at the center of the mobile phone experience. And this ideology is most evident in the two core apps that comprise Facebook Home – Coverfeed and Chat Heads.

Coverfeed is basically a glorified version of your Facebook newsfeed presented in edge-to-edge photos in the phone’s home screen. It displays images and status updates from a user’s friends. A user can swipe left and right to view other updates from his/her friends, double-tap on the home screen to like the update or view comments and likes by tapping the area located at the bottom of the home screen.

Chat Heads on the other hand is an improved version of the Facebook Messenger app that sits above the entire UI of the phone, allowing users to gain access to the phone’s messaging app anywhere in the phone. Users have the option to move 1 or a group of chat heads across the different edges of the screen and will remain visible as long as the users wants to interact with it.

Navigation on the Facebook Home has also drastically changed. The common back and navigation buttons are gone and are replaced by gesture-based commands carried out by a “bobble” which is the circular icon that contains the phone owner’s photo (or profile picture) located at the bottom of the screen. Users can swipe up from the bobble which will launch the app drawer.

The app drawer is divided into two segments. Once a user swipe’s up from the bobble, the favorites app drawer is first shown. Obviously this is where the user’s most used and favorite apps are located. The favorites app drawer also has three tabs at the top that lets users instantly upload photos to Facebook, post a status update or location. Swiping to the left of the favorites app drawer will direct the user to the main app drawer that holds all the apps currently installed on the phone.

Swiping the bobble to the left will launch the Facebook messaging app while swiping the bobble to the right will allow users to go back to the last app that they’ve opened.

Facebook Home will initially be released on April 12 on several handsets including the HTC One, HTC One X+, Samsung Galaxy SIII, Samsung Galaxy S4, Samsung Galaxy Note II and of course the HTC First (exclusive to AT&T). Facebook has also promised to bring monthly updates and improvement to the app as well as add support for additional phone models and manufacturers including Lenovo, ZTE, Huawei and Sony.

Now it would be interesting how Google would react in the future with Facebook Home especially if Mark Zuckerberg’s dream of putting the app in every smartphone would come true. This is because unlike other home replacement apps or custom ROMs, Facebook Home can have the ability to literally take over and change a phone and make Android OS lose its identity in the process.

What about you guys? What do you think? Is Facebook invading Android? And how do you think Google would react to this strategy? Share with us your thoughts by leaving a comment below. For other Filipino Lifestyle stories, do subscribe to our blog or add us up on Facebook, Twitter                , Pinterest or Google Plus.

Hello everyone, it’s another Tuesday and it’s time again to get ourselves updated with the latest news in the tech industry. And this week, the biggest news is about rumored phones; from the long awaited to the surprisingly fast to emerge.

Let’s start off with the Facebook phone. Last week the social networking giant sent out invites to press with a teaser saying that the company will have a new “Home” on Android. And today a developer build of the alleged Facebook phone was leaked on the internet. According to reports, the Facebook Phone will run on a device built by HTC (codenamed HTC Myst) and will sport a modified version of Android 4.1.2, a 4.3-inch screen, Sense version 4.5, a 5MP rear camera, a dual-core processor and at least 1GB of RAM.

The new phone will also come with a Facebook-oriented home launcher which will let users see Facebook news feeds and updates right on the home screen. There will also be a more standard clock screen, shortcuts for launching apps and search via Google. The home replacement app will also have a feature called Chat Heads that will allow users to use Facebook’s chat functionality anywhere in the device.

Rumors are also suggesting that Facebook may offer a toned-down version of the “Home” app to other OEM who run either the stock Android UI or on top of a skin such as Samsung’s TouchWiz UI.

Next on the list is the long rumored Amazon smartphone. Rumors about the development of the device were fanned again after the Ex-Microsoft Executive Charlie Kindel announced that he’ll be joining Amazon to work on a “secret” project. According to a post on his Google Plus account, he’ll be building a team in Amazon that involves a project that the company has little experience with.

Furthermore, a post on Kindel’s LinkedIn page reveals that the team he’s supposed to build will be compromised of developers, program managers and product managers. Charlie Kindel’s previous work in Microsoft involved the development of servers and the Windows 7 application platform so it doesn’t take a genius to establish a connection between Kindel and Amazon’s possible plan of developing its own smartphone that may complement the Kindle Fire tablet in the future.

Last on the list is Samsung with its Galaxy S4 Mini. According to reports, the S4 mini might debut within the week. The S4 mini is reportedly scheduled to be released by late May or early June. Earlier reports say that the phone might come in several variants.

These include a single-SIM, dual-SIM, LTE and a Chinese version with TD-SCDMA. The S4 mini may also have two variants when it comes to the processor. According to reports, the dual-SIM version of the phone may have a 1.6GHz dual-core processor while the single-SIM version will reportedly have a quad-core processor.

All version of the S4 mini will have an 8MP camera at the back, 1GB of RAM, a 4.3-inch display and will run on Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean.

And that concludes this week’s edition of Tech Tuesdays on TFL. Which phone are you most excited about? Do tell us by leaving a comment below. You can also add on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Google Plus. And please don’t forget to subscribe to our blog for other tech news and other stories about Filipino lifestyle.

Facebook is planning to implement a makeover for its news feed section by Friday this week. According to reports, Facebook has already sent invites to the press regarding its big press event on March 7 in the U.S.

Part of the upcoming changes in the news feed include a much improved music feed which not only shows users what their friends are listening to, but also shows information about nearby concerts, updates from artists and upcoming albums and singles.

Images on will also play a big part in the update, specifically the inclusion of a photos feed which displays larger images and the ability to go full screen. It would also appear that Facebook’s recent acquisition of Atlas – an advertising platform previously owned by Microsoft would come into play in this update as rumors suggest that ads will also become larger and more prominent with the new news feed.

The update is schedule to roll out first on the website on March 7^th (U.S. time) with the mobile apps soon to follow.

So what do you think? Do we really need a new Facebook news feed given the last UI update we saw from the site received a lot of negative comments from users? Share us your thoughts by leaving a comment below. And please add us up on Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter and Google Plus, and subscribe to our blog for other Filipino lifestyle stories.

A few days ago, social media giant Facebook announced that they have now reached a billion active users worldwide, and they celebrated it with an ad that most of you (if you even bothered taking a look) have seen while logging in onto your accounts. This record is never before seen in any social networking site and by far can be considered as Facebook’s most notable achievements.

But before Facebook had 1 billion users all around the world, it did start somewhere small and it just grew to the social network site that we know today under favorable circumstances, effective marketing and strategizing, and good site architecture.

However, this cannot be said for all social networking sites that have come and go in the past. In this edition of Tech Tuesdays on TFL, we’ll take a look back at some of the social networking sites that we Filipinos have joined in the past, but unfortunately were overpowered by the current leaders in the social media scene.

Myspace. Founded in 2003, MySpace was the first social media to hit mainstream in the Philippines. The site which targeted the so-called generation-Y was considered as one of the most popular sites of that time, even overtaking Google in 2006 as the most visited website in the United States.

After 2008, as Facebook entered the scene, Myspace started to experience a decline or users even though it generated a considerable amount of profit during that year. At present, Myspace is still available online and you can still sign up to be a member. There are also reports that the site will be undergoing a major overhaul which aims to keep it at pace with most modern sites, adopting the UI of a lot of popular sites today like Pinterest and Stumbleupon.

Yahoo! Groups. Yahoo! Groups is one of the world’s largest online discussion boards and was primarily used by college students a few years back for sharing assignments, projects, lessons and notes from classes. The service was first introduced in 2001 and gained popularity probably until mid-2004 to 2005 just before Facebook’s boom.

The site is still operational today, but a lot of revisions have already been made including the removal of certain features such as Group chat beta and applications.

Hi5. Hi5 was another one of those social networking sites that arrived almost the same time as Facebook. The company is based in San Francisco, California and was founded in 2003 by Ramu Yalamanchi. Hi5 was one of those sites that people tried when people were still searching for the best social media site to join.

Just like most social sites, hi5 members can create online profiles and add friends. However, Hi5 was surpassed by Facebook later on after it introduced playable apps to its users.

Multiply. Multiply was a social networking service that allowed users to share media such as photos, videos and blog entries with the user’s network. The site became popular back in the early part of the past decade by giving users the flexibility to not only add media to their online profiles but at the same time provide a way to customize their personal pages with the use of CSS.

Moreover, a lot of the users of this site use Multiply as an e-commerce site where they can buy and sell products with other members of the community. Just a few months ago, the site announced that they are going to focus on e-commerce and in turn will be dropping the social networking aspect of the website completely.

Apple’s Ping. Ping was the social networking and recommender system service developed by Apple in 2010. The service came bundled with 10^th major release of iTunes and allowed users to follow artists and see short timely postings by both friends and artisits.

The social network launched with 1 million members in 23 countries but was immediately considered as a flop due to the lack of interesting features that it offered to users. Apple officially closed the service on September 30, 2012 and replaced it in iTunes with Facebook and Twitter integration.

Friendster. Before the arrival of Facebook, Friendster was the reigning social media king in the Philippines. It was also the first social networking site to reach 1 million members. In terms of usability and features, just like any other social networking site of that time, Friendster offered users the ability to create their own profile page where they can upload photos, videos, slideshows and blog entries.

But one of the most prominent feature of the site was the testimonial. Testimonials or “testi” was a way for users to somehow promote or leave messages or description to people in their network. During its heyday, Friendster users would often ask their friends to exchange testimonials.

However, the testimonials were later dwarfed by a feature on Facebook that went viral to a lot of people – Apps! Apps like Farmville, Pet Society and Restaurant City brought phenomenal success to Facebook which pushed people to migrate from Friendster (and other SNS) to Facebook.

So there you have it guys. Did we miss any other social networking site you have joined in the past? Tell us by leaving a comment below. Tune in again next week for another edition of Tech Tuesdays on TFL. You can also find us on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Google Plus. For more Filipino lifestyle stories, you can also subscribe to our blog using this link. 

It’s Tuesday once again and it’s time for another weekly roundup of news about gadgets and technology. In this week’s edition of Tech Tuesdays, we’ll be talking about updates on two very influential social networking sites, alleged patent infringements from two popular brands and news about two smartphones.

If you’re ready, let’s begin.

Social Networks

Twitter’s fender bender a few weeks ago was the storm before the rainbow as the company announced a slew of improvements to its user interface. These new features include Smart search, related search and narrowed search.

Smart search acts very similar to Google’s instant search that autocompletes a query even before the user has finished typing. Related search on the other hand is also now available in the social network. According to company engineer Frost Li, people can now use search queries that match multiple terms and Twitter will provide relevant suggestions where the majority of those terms can be found in conversations happening on Twitter. Lastly, the site now also allows narrowing search results which will now be seen next to the regular search filter options.

On other social networking site news, Facebook has been reported to roll out a new mobile advertising strategy which makes use of a software that tracks the apps that are installed on consumer’s phones. According to a report from the Wall Street Journal, Facebook engineers have created a software that can track apps that a user has downloaded. By using this information, the company seeks to improve its mobile revenue by serving consumers with targeted ads based on their app purchases and downloads.

However, unlike existing advertising strategies employed in the past by Facebook, users will receive ads regardless if they liked the brand or not. If Facebook is indeed developing this software, it can possibly  get the social networking giant in a very precarious position as the implications of the development of such an app-tracking software can be very controversial since it may put consumers at risk in terms of privacy and security.

Infringements

Apple has been waging a patent war against almost all the big brands in its sphere of operation. Just recently, Apple paid Shenzen Proview Technology, a Chinese company, $60 million for the name iPad. And if that’s not enough, another Chinese company is claiming that the Cupertino Company is infringing one of its trademarks and is asking Apple approximately $80,000 in damages.

Jiangsu Xuebao is a Chinese household chemicals manufacturer that holds a registered copyright for the Chinese translation of Snow Leopard which is also the name given to Mac OS X version 10.6. Aside from the financial compensation that the Chinese company may receive if they win the case, they are also asking for a formal apology from Apple. The Xuebao’s case against Apple will be heard today – July 10, 2012, in Shanghai.

Nokia on the other hand has accused ASUS of using one of its patents on the recently announced Google Nexus 7 tablet without a license. According to Nokia, ASUS used the patent for IEEE 802.11 Wi-Fi standard to include the said feature on the Nexus 7. The Finnish company also said that the licenses for the patents were given to around 40 mobile device manufacturers and Google or ASUS were not on the list.

However, unlike Apple, Nokia is not pushing any legal actions towards ASUS or Google. Instead, Nokia took the less expensive route and just offered the two companies to sign up for a license.

Smartphones

Android has once again proven itself as the top platform choice for manufacturers. The latest brand to jump into the bandwagon is Amazon. A report from Bloomberg talks about Amazon partnering with China-based factory Foxconn to build the new device.

Amazon has also been reported to have started acquiring patents related to wireless technology, possibly to protect itself from being legally attacked for copyright infringement. Furthermore, unconfirmed reports surfaced that the retail giant is developing its own mapping service with the acquisition of UpNext for an undisclosed amount.

The new device will be most beneficial to Amazon as this will strengthen the company’s Kindle line of 

products. The new phone will allow Amazon to reach more consumers for all their virtual goods and can even boost sales of Kindle Fire tablets and e-readers as users will then be able to seamlessly transfer content from phone to tablet and vice versa.

From good news to (sort of) bad news, Meego developers have left Nokia’s camp which is definitely not good for the only Meego device in Nokia’s arsenal – the N9. It is still unclear why the Meego team has left Nokia but the good news is that a startup company in the name of Jolla, will be taking over the Finnish company’s efforts in developing the platform.

And that’s all for this week’s episode of Tech Tuesdays on TFL. For comments and suggestions, the comment box below is always open for everyone’s voices. For more news and updates in the world of technology, tune in again next week! 

In part 1 of this week’s Tech Tuesdays we talked about everything there is to know about Google’s developer conference. The Nexus Q, the Nexus 7 Tablet, Project glasses and Android Jelly Bean all made news last week. But there are other headlines last week that’s as important as Google I/O.

Here’s another round up of last week’s gotta know things about gadgets and technology.

The Organic LED collaboration

Sony and Panasonic collaboration rumors turned out to be true as the two companies announced that they will be working together to manufacture OLED panels to develop a new generation of OLED technology which will enable the mass production of large, high-res OLED TVs and monitors.

If all goes according to plan, the two companies will share their resources and tap into each other’s expertise to fast track R&D efforts for OLED panels. The production of the first set of this new generation of OLED TVs is scheduled to start in 2013 and will be sold separately by each brand using different chipsets.

Lawsuits and Legalities

Facebook quietly pulls out their “Find Friends Nearby” feature and claims that it was just a test for a new feature they wanted to add in their mobile app. Friends Nearby, which was first called as “Friendshake” according to Facebook developers aims to use your device’s GPS to locate known friends that are near you which in Facebook’s mind will help people in setting up impromptu hangout sessions.

However, another company called Friendthem, who makes a similar app that uses the same GPS technology in finding friends, threatened Facebook with a lawsuit for possible patent infringement a day after the feature rolled out. According to Friendthem CEO, Charles Sankowich, the company is still planning to pursue legal actions against the social networking giant even though the feature was already removed in Facebook’s mobile app.

On other legal related news, Google’s thunder at Google I/O was abruptly stolen as US District Court Judge Lucy Koh, granted Apple the preliminary injunction in an ongoing patent battle with Samsung. This effectively blocks the sale of the Jelly Bean powered Samsung Galaxy Nexus in the United States. As a consolation prize for Google, the injunction is only temporary and was only made possible after Apple posted a $96 million bond to cover for possible damages Samsung might have incurred from loss of sales in case the ruling favors the Nexus.

Nevertheless, it just proves how Apple sees Google’s Nexus brand as a big threat to their iOS devices and their dead serious in winning this legal patent battle.

Profit Loss and Possible Collapse

Canadian smartphone and tablet manufacturer, Research in Motion (RIM), suffered once again a big loss last Thursday as their Quarter 2 reports showed a jaw-dropping 48% loss in sales compared to the previous quarter which also translates to a 28 cent loss per share.

And if that’s not enough, RIM CEO Thorston Heins, also announced that the release of their BlackBerry 10 smartphone line will be delayed until next year. And on top of that, financial analyst are also predicting that in order for RIM to get back on the game, an estimated 5,000 employees might need to be sacked in order to save enough money to keep the company afloat if their sales won’t change for the better.

Localization and Local News

On local news, Apple has made the iTunes available to several Asian countries including the Philippines. This localization has given iTunes users as well as iOS device users the power to download multimedia content such as songs and videos from iTunes itself. It also provides the iMatch feature that was once only available to iOS and iTunes users abroad.

HTC on the other hand officially welcomed three new models to its Android smartphone line. The product launch was held at The Block in SM North EDSA in Quezon City and featured the HTC One S which completes the current HTC One family alongside the One X and One V.

The Desire family also added new members to its roster with the HTC Desire C and the Desire V. All three models will come with Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich as well as HTC’s own Sense UI v4. The One S will have an SRP of Php25,000+, while the Desire C and Desire V will start at Php10,000 and Php16,000 respectively.

And that concludes this week’s episode of Tech Tuesdays! Tune in again next week for the hottest and latest news in the tech world. See you next week. Sayonara!