f8: Helping Developers Build, Grow, and Monetize

Facebook: 

Today we're hosting f8, our developer conference, to connect with the community and share where we're headed.

First, we're proud to announce a new, two-year stability guarantee for our core products and API versioning to simplify development. Our platform now supports almost half a trillion API requests per day, many coming from our own mobile apps. This means that all the work we do to support mobile apps with almost a billion people is available to every app on our platform.

Many of our developer products have an impact on people's experiences with Facebook, so we're making changes that put people first. We announced the new Facebook Login, which gives people more control over the data they share with apps by letting them opt out of individual permissions. We're also offering Anonymous Login, a new way for people to try apps without sharing any personal information from Facebook. Our goal is to give people quality experiences and remove the barriers that keep them from enjoying your apps.

Facebook and Parse give developers a bridge between platforms. Building cross-platform has been key to Facebook's success, and we want to help other companies succeed on iOS, Android, the web, and many other platforms. Below we've summarized all the new products that we're making available to the community today. You can also visit our changelog and upgrade guide for more details.

BUILD

Making it faster, easier, and cheaper to develop cross-platform apps

• Improved stability and Graph API 2.0: We're introducing a two-year stability guarantee applies to Login, Sharing, and other core products and a new version of the Graph API to help you build, grow, and monetize your apps. To protect people's information, we will begin to issue app-scoped user IDs instead of original user IDs for people who first log in to your app using the new Graph API.
• Facebook Login: The new Facebook Login puts control squarely in the hands of people by letting them choose what they share with apps. We've also made changes to friend permissionsand are introducing Login Review to help apps provide great Login experiences.
• Anonymous Login: An easy way for people to try apps without sharing any personal information from Facebook.
• App Links: An open-source, cross-platform solution for mobile deep linking. Over 20 top mobile apps have partnered with us to make all kinds of great content available for linking.
• New Parse Pricing: We've made Parse pricing cheaper, simpler, and more predictable.
• Parse Local Datastore: Parse now makes it easier than ever to build apps that work without connectivity.
• Parse Growth Analytics: Parse Analytics now has powerful dashboards for understanding your app's growth and user retention metrics.
• New Facebook SDKs: To support today's announcements, we're releasing updated SDKs foriOS, Android, and JavaScript and a new PHP SDK.

GROW

Helping you reach all the right people and keep them engaged

• Like Button for iOS: We're bringing the Like button to apps to let people like content in your app with one tap. An Android version is coming soon.
• Message Dialog for iOS and Android: People can now share your content in a more personal way using Facebook Messenger.
• Send To Mobile with Facebook Login: When people visit your website and log in with Facebook, they can get a notification sent to their phone to download your mobile app. This provides a convenient way for people to access your mobile app and convert your desktop traffic to mobile.
• Share Dialog for the web: We've redesigned the Share Dialog for the web and added support for Open Graph along with location and friend tagging.
• Mobile App Ads enhancements: We're making it easier to reach the people you want by supporting Android's advertising IDs for Custom Audiences. We're also letting you create audiences for a segment of people taking actions in your app and making it simpler to exclude people who already have an app installed. We have also added calls to action to Mobile App Install Ads to better drive the actions you want people to take.
• App Insights: We've updated App Insights to make it more actionable and reliable. The new App Insights makes it easy for you to slice & dice your data and compare your metrics with the rest of the ecosystem. As part of the this update, you an now segment your App Events users by OS, device type, language and country. Learn more in our App Events documentation for iOS and Android.
• App Center: We have redesigned App Center to help people find more games they'll love. The new version is faster and showcases screenshots and videos, so make sure your App Center assets are up-to-date and you've uploaded a video.
• Requests: We're adding better support for turn-based games so people know when it's their turn to play. We're also upgrading Requests to order friends by those who are the most likely to respond and play games.

MONETIZE

Earn more from your apps

• Audience Network: We're giving developers a new way to effectively monetize mobile apps. Audience Network offers developers rich audience targeting and ad formats that have proven to work on mobile.

We're also announcing FbStart, a program designed to help entrepreneurs turn their mobile apps into successful businesses. We're offering startups a package of useful resources, including Parse, mobile app ad credits, invitations to special events, and tools and services from other companies.

Thank you for building with us, and we hope to see you at f8 next year. Save the date: March 25, 2015.

[Source]

Facebook comes to Mercedes cars

SAN FRANCISCO: At restaurants, at movies and at the office, checking Facebook has become a regular habit for many of the internet social network's more than 800 million users.
Now that habit has reached a new frontier: the automobile.
Mercedes-Benz USA is bringing Facebook to its cars, with a special version of the service that is built-in to a new in-vehicle telematics system that will be unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week.

Accessing Facebook on the road is not the exactly the same as using the social network on a personal computer or a smartphone. The version of Facebook offered in Daimler AG's Mercedes is stripped down to a limited set of features, specially designed for drivers and centered around the locations of friends and businesses.
But according to Facebook Vice President of Partnerships and Platform Marketing Dan Rose, the Mercedes version of Facebook reflects the social networking service's expansion to a growing list of settings where screens and internet connections are available.
"Now that cars have screens that are intelligent, you would expect that more and more car manufacturers will want to make those screens capable of allowing people to connect with their friends and take advantage of the social context that comes along with that," Rose said in an interview.
"One of the core things that people do on their screens in the car is GPS navigation and the ability to see which of your friends are nearby is something we think will be really interesting for people."
He noted Facebook is also increasingly being integrated into televisions, with various TV manufacturers expected to showcase built-in Facebook integration at CES. DirectTV will show off a new social TV app with Facebook capabilities at CES, allowing people to share what they are watching and to add commentary.
But unlike television sets, offering Facebook in motor vehicles involves critical safety considerations, particularly at a time when lawmakers and safety advocates are increasingly focused on distracted driving.
Robert Policano, Mercedes' Product Manager for Telematics Services said the service is no more distracting than a standard in-car navigation system or radio. Any Facebook activity that requires a user to enter text is disabled while the car is in motion, he said.
The Facebook application displays a variety of standard, pre-written postings that a driver can publish on Facebook with quick taps or turns of a knob.
If a particular destination is already entered into the car's navigation system, the driver can automatically publish a Facebook posting stating they are en route to that destination, along with an estimated time of arrival, based on the current traffic patterns.
Drivers can also quickly access a list of friends that are nearby, or restaurants in the vicinity that their friends have "liked" on Facebook.
The Mercedes Facebook offering is the result of a collaboration between the two companies that started about six months ago, according to Policano. A Mercedes engineering team based in Palo Alto actually built the Facebook application, with input from Facebook on various aspects.
Facebook is one of several specially designed apps, including Google Inc and Yelp, that Mercedes drivers can flip between by turning a knob.
The apps are part of Mercedes new mbrace2 telematics system, which features a high-resolution color screen near the dashboard and a high-speed wireless Internet connection.
The mbrace2 system will be available with the launch of the 2013 SL-Class Mercedes in the Spring. The company plans to make it a standard feature on all Mercedes 2013 models that will roll out throughout the year.
One popular Facebook feature that Mercedes drivers will not get, however, is the ability to play social games such as Zynga Inc's Farmville. Mercedes' version of Facebook does not support third-party apps.

45,000 Facebook logins stolen by worm

NEW DELHI: Users of world's biggest social networking site Facebook face a big risk. According to security firm Seculert, a worm called Ramnit has recently started targeting Facebook accounts with considerable success, and has already stolen over 45,000 Facebook login credentials worldwide.

"Recently, our research lab identified a completely new 'financial' Ramnit variant aimed at stealing Facebook login credentials. Since the Ramnit Facebook C&C (Command & Control servers) URL is visible and accessible, it was fairly straightforward to detect that over 45,000 Facebook login credentials have been stolen worldwide, mostly from users in the United Kingdom and France," says Seculert in a blog post.

The security firm suspects that the attackers behind Ramnit are using the stolen credentials to log-in to victims' Facebook accounts and to transmit malicious links to their friends. In addition, cybercriminals are also believed to take advantage of the fact that users tend to use the same password in various web-based services (Facebook, Gmail, Corporate SSL VPN, Outlook Web Access, etc.) to gain remote access to corporate networks.

Microsoft Malware Protection Center (MMPC) described Ramnit, first discovered in April 2010, as "a multi-component malware family which infects Windows executable as well as HTML files", "stealing sensitive information such as stored FTP credentials and browser cookies."

In a report in July 2011, a Symantec report estimated that Ramnit worm variants accounted for 17.3 percent of all new malicious software infections.

Google Plus Rocks

Google's Facebook competitor Google Plus grew to 10 million users in just two weeks, the company announced Thursday.
That's only a bit more than 1 percent of Facebook's 750 million global users, but it still represents staggering growth for Google's infant social network, which isn't yet open to the public. The site remains in a "limited" trial phase.
"Growth on Google has been great," Google CEO Larry Page said on a conference call with analysts. 

"Over 10 million have joined. That's a great achievement for the team. There has been a ton of activity."

Page said more than 1 billion items are being shared on the network every day. The " 1" button, which populates search results with friends' recommendations, has been clicked 2.3 billion times a day.
Google represents a part of the new CEO's grand vision for the 13-year old company. Despite Google's position as the worldwide leader in search, Page has opted to treat the company as a startup, increasing hiring and starting several new initiatives. 

"Today, I see more opportunities for Google than ever before; we're just at the beginning of what we want to do," Page said. "We're only at 1 percent of what's possible. Google's just getting started."

Accordingly, Google continued its hiring spree in the second quarter, upping its headcount by nearly 9 percent, or 2,500 employees -- including 450 from the acquisition of flight data company ITA .
The company also has spent freely, putting more than $900 million into its infrastructure during the quarter, including expanding its massive data centers. The company says it expects to continue to make "significant" capital expenditures going forward.
Google says all that spending will keep the company ahead of its rivals.

The past quarter has been a busy one. In addition to Google , the company started selling its Chromebook line of laptops aimed at current Microsoft corporate clients and launched its Music application to compete with Apple's iTunes and Amazon's Cloud Drive.
The company also unveiled Google Wallet, which will allow customers to pay for items using their smartphones, and it launched Google Offers, a Groupon competitor.
But Google also shut down several products that weren't working, such as Google Health and PowerMeter.
"Our focus is more wood behind fewer arrows," said Page. "I'm very happy with our progress."
Still, the free spending has made some stock analysts cautious. Page lashed back at that criticism, noting that when Google started its search engine, no one believed the company could monetize that besides the occasional banner ad.

"Fast forward to today, it seems like we're playing the same movie all over again," he said.

The world's online search leader said its net income in the second quarter rose to $2.5 billion, up 36 percent from a year earlier.
Results included one-time charges totaling $1.06 per share. Without the charges, Google said it earned $8.74 per share. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters, who typically exclude one-time items from their estimates, had forecast earnings of $7.85 per share.
Profit rose as both the number of clicks on Google's ads and the amount that advertising partners pay per click increased substantially: Paid clicks surged 18 percent and cost per click grew 12 percent compared to last year.

Sales for the Mountain View, Calif., company rose 32 percent to $9 billion. Excluding advertising sales that Google shares with partners, a figure also known as traffic acquisition costs, the company reported revenue of $6.9 billion, which topped analysts' forecasts of $6.6 billion.
Shares of Google jumped 12 percent after hours.
Still, not all the news has been positive for Google, which has recently landed in antitrust crosshairs.

The Federal Trade Commission began investigating the company for evidence of abusive practices, and a federal judge rejected Google's planned settlement deal in its attempt to create a universal online book library.
The Department of Justice also heavily scrutinized the company's recent purchase of flight data software company ITA, and Google set aside $500 million for a potential settlement with the DOJ regarding the company's advertising practices. The DOJ is currently studying Google's proposed $400 million purchase of digital advertising toolmaker Admeld.
Late last month, French search company 1plusV said it would seek $423 million in damages from the American search giant over alleged anti-competitive practices.

How to Unhide a Facebook Friend

Follow these steps to unhide a Facebook Friend that you have hidden:

Step 1.  In Facebook, click the News Feed link, which is usually on the top-left corner of the window:

Step 2.  Scroll the window down to the bottom of the webpage.  Click the Edit Options link:

Step 3.  The “Hidden from News Feed” window will appear.  Click the Add to News Feed button to the right of the Facebook Friend you want to unhide: