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Iranian court summons Mark Zuckerberg to answer privacy concerns
We've got a feeling that Mark Zuckerberg will, regretfully, be unable to accept this particular foreign invitation -- especially after all the recent name-calling that's been coming out of Iran. Nevertheless, a court in the south of that country has reportedly ordered the Facebook CEO to attend a hearing to answer complaints over privacy, specifically regarding Instagram and WhatsApp. There have been calls for both services to be blocked in Tehran, but they're still operational for now, perhaps partly due to a degree of protection from more moderate forces within the country. The precise details of the court summons are hard to be sure of, because news of it comes not from the court itself, but from an official within the Basij militia -- a voluntary paramilitary force that is regularly called upon to protect Iran's theocracy from dissent. And frankly, that's exactly the sort of geo-political context that might further dissuade Zuckerberg's PA from scheduling an appointment.
Iran censors move to block WhatsApp because it's run by 'zionist' Zuckerberg
There's a tug of war going on between political factions in Iran, and once again it's internet users who are likely to bear the brunt of it. According to Fox News, Iranian censors have suddenly decided to ban citizens from using WhatsApp, in direct defiance of more progressive government ministers who say they're against such a move. There's no concrete evidence that any block or filtering is in place yet, and even President Hassan Rouhani has tweeted his objection to it, but Iran's "Committee for Determining Criminal Web Content" has reportedly called for the popular messaging service to be prohibited on the basis that it's now "owned" [sic] by the "American zionist" Mark Zuckerberg (whose background is Jewish).
Report: Facebook head sought Project Morpheus demo before buying Oculus VR
Prior to spending $2 billion on a recent surprise purchase of Oculus VR, Facebook's boy king Mark Zuckerberg took Sony's Project Morpheus headset for a spin, according to PlayStation executive Guy Longworth. "I wish he bought ours," Longworth said during a presentation at the ongoing Games Marketing Summit. Longworth recalls confusion over why Zuckerberg would request a demo of the Project Morpheus headset, though following the FTC's decision to allow the Oculus VR acquisition, it all makes sense. "All the folks at Oculus have got big smiles on today," he added. Despite missing out on that massive pay day, Longworth claims Sony is still very keen on the future potential of virtual reality. "If you think about VR, not just in terms of gaming, I think wearable technology is a huge trend that's going to continue," Longworth said. "I think that being able to have experiences that are truly deep and immersive - that it somehow makes you feel you are there - is something that people want." "If you could really deliver that in the future, that would be huge," he added, while making no mention of how Sony intends to deliver on this "huge" potential. [Image: Sony]
Weekends with Engadget: the future of Oculus Rift, new HTC One review and more!
Welcome to Weekends with Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines from the past seven days -- all handpicked by the editors here at the site. For even more news, subscribe to our Flipboard magazine!
Palmer Luckey says Oculus' future 'just became crystal clear,' but Facebook's impact is still murky
If you're reading this, you're likely already aware that social networking juggernaut Facebook has just announced plans for yet another multi-billion dollar acquisition. This time it's spending $2 billion dollars (that's $17 billion less than WhatsApp for those keeping track) to buy virtual reality headset maker Oculus. Just minutes after the announcement, the startup's founder, Palmer Luckey took to Reddit to provide some perspective about the deal: "When Facebook first approached us about partnering, I was skeptical. As I learned more about the company and its vision and spoke with Mark, the partnership not only made sense, but became the clear and obvious path to delivering virtual reality to everyone. Facebook was founded with the vision of making the world a more connected place. Virtual reality is a medium that allows us to share experiences with others in ways that were never before possible."
Facebook pays two billion bucks to acquire Oculus Rift company
So why is Facebook shelling out two billion dollars to buy up the company making the Oculus Rift VR headset? "We're going to focus on helping Oculus build out their product and develop partnerships to support more game," says Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg. "But this is just the start. After games, we're going to make Oculus a platform for many other experiences. Imagine enjoying a court side seat at a game, studying in a classroom of students and teachers all over the world or consulting with a doctor face-to-face -- just by putting on goggles in your home." The Oculus team members likewise posted a picture of themselves rolling around in piles of money a dev blog explaining the partnership: "It gives us the best shot at truly changing the world. It opens doors to new opportunities and partnerships, reduces risk on the manufacturing and work capital side, allows us to publish more made-for-VR content, and lets us focus on what we do best: solving hard engineering challenges and delivering the future of VR." If you're looking for the Do Not Like button, there still isn't one.
Facebook buys Oculus VR
Facebook has acquired Oculus VR, the company building the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset, for $2 billion. Oculus will keep its headquarters in Irvine, California. "We are excited to work with Mark and the Facebook team to deliver the very best virtual reality platform in the world," Oculus co-founder and CEO Brendan Iribe said in a press release. "We believe virtual reality will be heavily defined by social experiences that connect people in magical, new ways. It is a transformative and disruptive technology, that enables the world to experience the impossible, and it's only just the beginning." Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg said that he views the Oculus Rift as a new communication platform. He wrote the following (in a Facebook post, of course): "The Rift is highly anticipated by the gaming community, and there's a lot of interest from developers in building for this platform. We're going to focus on helping Oculus build out their product and develop partnerships to support more games. Oculus will continue operating independently within Facebook to achieve this. But this is just the start. After games, we're going to make Oculus a platform for many other experiences. Imagine enjoying a court side seat at a game, studying in a classroom of students and teachers all over the world or consulting with a doctor face-to-face – just by putting on goggles in your home."
Facebook is buying Oculus VR for $2 billion, plans to 'unlock new worlds for all of us'
Mark Zuckerberg is following up his Whatsapp buy with another big acquisition: virtual reality company Oculus VR for $2 billion in stock and cash (curiously, news of the talks may have leaked on Reddit a month ago). In a post on Facebook, Zuckerberg talks at length about how Facebook plans to make Oculus a platform for "completely new kinds of experiences," and gaming is only the first one. Examples he suggests include sitting courtside at a big game, studying in a classroom with other students virtually or getting a face to face doctor consultation from anywhere. The idea that virtual reality may be the next big thing gained more credibility last week when Sony showed off a prototype VR headset for developers, Project Morpheus. That also means Oculus is suddenly staring down a massive competitor -- with others likely on the way -- and now it has the resources of the social network to rely on.
Mark Zuckerberg loves Apple and his iPhone, but isn't optimistic Facebook Home is iOS bound
Facebook this past Thursday took the wraps off of its highly anticipated Facebook Phone. Calling it a phone, however, is a bit of a misnomer because it's more of a Facebook layer -- dubbed Facebook Home -- that sits atop of Android and effectively drapes the user experience with all things Facebook. For instance, when a user installs Facebook Home (which will be available from the Google Play store), the user's homescreen and lockscreen become home to his/her Facebook newsfeed. Put simply, it's Facebook 24/7. In addition to being available as a download from Google, Facebook announced that it will come pre-installed on various devices as well, including the HTC First. Facebook also partnered up with handset manufacturers like Samsung and Sony to release Facebook Home enabled smartphones in the future. All that said, can we expect to see Facebook Home show up in the iOS App Store anytime soon? Well, given that Apple exerts stringent control over the look and feel of its iPhone user experience, smart money is that the answer to that question is a resounding no. Naturally, Zuckerberg was asked about the prospects of Facebook Home coming to iOS during Thursday's media event. He was rather diplomatic with his response. "We have a great relationship with Apple," Zuckerberg answered. "We have integration into iOS, we've worked with them before. With Apple, everything you want to do goes through them. With Android, it doesn't have to." In a subsequent interview with Wired's Steven Levy, Zuckerberg was asked if he could envision Facebook Home coming to iOS in two years time. While Zuckerberg admits that Facebook has a "pretty good partnership with Apple", he is also keenly aware that Apple is adamant about controlling the entire user experience. That notwithstanding, Zuckerberg answered that he would "love for that answer to be yes" before proceeding to explain that Android's open platform gives them the flexibility they need to create unique user experiences like Facebook Home. "Of course, a lot of people also love iPhones," Zuckerberg added. "I love mine, and I would like to be able to deliver Facebook Home there as well." Bloomberg TV also posted an interview with Jon Erlichman who recalled asking Zuckerberg about how an enhanced Facebook experience sits with rivals and partners like Apple. "We love Apple," Zuckerberg told Erlichman. It's interesting to note that Apple and Facebook, while seemingly on good terms now, have butted heads in the past. You might remember that Steve Jobs a few years ago explained why Apple was never able to secure a deal to integrate Facebook with Ping, Apple's failed attempt at a social network for music. Jobs said that talks with Facebook went nowhere because Facebook wanted "onerous terms that we could not agree to." Nonetheless, Steve Jobs admired Mark Zuckerberg's determination to create a long-standing company and not sell out for a quick payday when such opportunities presented themselves. What's more, Jobs biographer Walter Isaacson once recalled that when he asked Jobs who he admired most in Silicon Valley, Zuckerberg was the person Jobs mentioned. Jobs appreciated Zuckerberg's "intuitive feel" regarding Facebook's direction, his willingness to "cannibalize old things" and, according to Isaacson, "felt an odd kinship with Mark." Zuckerberg expressed a similar sentiment during a November 2011 interview with Charlie Rose. I mean, Apple is a company that is so focused on just building products that -- for their customers and their users. And -- and that's like -- it's such a deep part of their mission is build these beautiful products for their users. And I think we connected a lot on this level of, okay, Facebook has this mission that's really more than just trying to build a company, right, that has a market cap or a value. It's like we're trying to do this thing in the world. And I don't know, a lot of it I just think we connected on that level. And on a somewhat related note, Zuckerberg about a year ago uploaded a photo of his desk to Facebook. Suffice it to say, Facebook's office space seems rather Mac heavy while Zuck appears to be a fan of Apple's MacBook Air. Lastly, if I may jump back to Facebook Home for a second, Zuckerberg indicated that Facebook Home will eventually display advertisements. I wonder how users, not to mention Google, will feel about that.
Zuckerberg: Microsoft more willing to work with us, still open to a Google partnership
Facebook's "one more thing" at today's Graph Search press conference? A search partnership with Bing. Naturally, Google was the elephant in the room after such an announcement, particularly in light of the fact that Lars Rasmussen has strong ties to the company by way of his connection to Maps and Wave. Asked why he opted not to take his business to Mountain View, Zuck told the crowd, The main thing is that when people share something on Facebook, we want to give them the ability to broadcast things, but also retract them later, and have them be removed immediately. Microsoft was more willing to do things specific to Facebook. We've reached out to Google to get its side of the story. We'll let you know what we hear.
The Daily Roundup for 01.14.2013
You might say the day is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workday, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Daily Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past 24 hours -- all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.
Native Facebook app for Android is in the final phases of internal testing
Remember when Mark Zuckerberg said that Facebook's HTML5 Android app was a mistake? Well, one of our tipsters, embedded deep inside the Social Network, has let us know that the native version for Google's mobile OS has entered final testing. As such, it won't be long before the software is ready for consumption by the public at large, give or take an angry Winklevii or two. [Thanks, Anonymous]
Zuckerberg: more than 1 billion people using Facebook actively each month
Active accounts have become one of the hottest currencies online, especially for social networks. Previous boasts by Facebook have been quickly shot down, but this latest number is pretty hard to ignore. According to Zuckerberg himself the site now has 1 billion active monthly users. That's right, one in seven people on the planet logs on to the social network at least once a full moon cycle. The announcement comes via the site's official news blog, which if the numbers are true, could mean most of you have read this already. Zuckerberg broke the news originally in a Q&A with Bloomberg Businessweek, also claiming that the site now has 600 million mobile users.
Zuckerberg: betting on HTML 5 for Facebook mobile app was a 'mistake,' native Android version on the way
Remember the days before Facebook's iOS app ditched HTML 5 and sped things up with some native code? It turns out that there's some regret in Menlo Park about relying on the web markup language. Betting on HTML 5 for the app is "one of the biggest mistakes if not the biggest strategic mistakes we've ever made," Mark Zuckerberg said in an interview at TechCrunch Disrupt today. The firm's CEO also mentioned that new features will be making their way to the app and a snappier Android version is coming down the pike "when it's done."
Facebook App Center goes full circle, rolls out to all users worldwide
While Mark's network had already flipped the App Center switch in a number of parts around the globe, there was still a large chunk of its abundant user base missing out on the recently unveiled application hub. That's all about to change starting today, however, as a Facebook rep has announced on Twitter the social app shop is now available to every single one of its signees worldwide. In other words, this means now you'll have yet another thing to keep track of during your daily internet browsing routine.
Facebook posts first earnings as a public company: $1.18 billion in revenue, 955 million users
Facebook revealed its Q1 earnings in an SEC filing leading up to its big IPO earlier this year, but it's now officially out with its first earnings report as a public company. For Q2 of 2012, it brought in $1.18 billion in revenue, up 32 percent year-over-year and slightly better than what analysts were expecting, while GAAP net income sat at a loss of $157 million (down from a profit of $240 million a year ago). Looking at things on a non-GAAP basis, though, net income is actually up from $285 million to $295 million. What's more, the company also confirmed that it has 955 million monthly active users (or what it calls MAUs) as of the end of June, up 29 percent year-over-year. As you can see in the chart after the break, those users are distributed fairly evenly across the world, including 186 million in the US and Canada, 246 million in Europe, 255 million in Asia, and 268 million elsewhere. Daily active users totaled 552 million for the same time period, up 32 percent year-over-year, while mobile users now stand at 543 million, up 67 percent from last year. Not surprisingly, a huge chunk -- 84 percent -- of the company's revenue comes from advertising, which brought in $992 million for the quarter, an increase of 28 percent from last year. That apparently wasn't enough to please investors, though, who have sent the company's stock to a new low of less than $25 (down over ten percent) in after hours trading. Update: Expectedly, the ever-recurring topic of a Facebook phone came up during the Q&A portion of the company's earnings call, and CEO Mark Zuckerberg didn't avoid the issue entirely. While not completely dismissing recent rumors of an HTC-built, Facebook-branded phone, Zuckerberg did say that building a whole phone "really wouldn't make much sense for us to do," which should put at least a bit of a damper on some of the hype.
Facebook's App Center pokes its way into the UK, now available to you and your friends
It's been nearly a month since we saw Facebook officially introduce us to its newly minted App Center, and now Zuck & Co. are taking the application-loaded service to internet grounds over in the UK. Facebook's App Center in the Kingdom (or, as UKers call it, App Centre) won't be much different in comparison to its American counterpart, thus you'll still be able to grab all those big-name apps like the network's own Instagram, Draw Something, Spotify and Pinterest -- of course, there's over 600 others to choose from. In addition to these, though, there are some Euro-specific additions to the application mix, including Deezer's music streaming goods. Eager to find out what all the App Centre fuss is about? Then head over to the source below, where you'll be able to poke around it yourself.
Facebook brings bigger images and text to its news feed, because size does matter
Not long after hooking up its mobile site and apps with a minor facelift, Facebook's reportedly planning to bring a similar redesign to its full-sized website. According to our friends over at TechCrunch, the changes will be nearly identical to those we saw on the mobile front, meaning you'll be able see bigger photos (up to twice as large) and text pop up on your cherished news feed. The light, but plentiful revamp is expected to hit users over the next few days, so don't feel like the odd one out if you've yet to spot any tweaks. Now, if only you had that SimCity Social to help pass the time while you patiently wait...
Facebook's iPhone Messenger to get video chat, enlarged variant for iPad?
Been itching for Facebook's iPhone-dedicated Messenger app to make its way over to the iPad? ? Maybe for the iPhone variant to finally reap the benefits of Skype video chat integration as well? Well, according to 9to5Mac, Camp Zuckerberg is testing both in-house, with the latter planned to hit iPhones this summer. According to the site, one of its trustworthy tipsters was able to grant it access to beta versions of the new apps, and it has the pictures to prove it. Unsurprisingly, the Messenger app for iPad is described as simply a sized-up port of the iPhone version, but surely the bump would be appreciated by many if it ever gets officially released. Perhaps more interesting, though, is having Skype video chat baked into the iPhone version -- tapping an arrow next to a contact initiates your video session, and 9to5Mac reports that it's "smooth most of the time." Of course, it's always worth taking such leaks with a grain of salt, but hit up the source link below if you'd like to find more information and screenshots of the apps in question.
Facebook revealing the personal data it collects, won't spare your drunk-poking blushes
Facebook's massively expanding its Download Your Information service into an all-encompassing archive of the data Mr. Zuckerberg collects about your daily dose of people-stalking. DYL was introduced in 2010 and allowed you to pull down all the photos, posts, messages, friend lists and chat conversations in the archives -- but now will also offer stored IP addresses, previous names you've used, friend requests you've made, with further categories due in the future. It'll have to sate the concerns of privacy organizations worldwide, since it's rumored to collect 84 different categories of information about you (85 if you count all those Instagram photos it just bought). It'll be gradually rolled out to all 845 million users in the coming weeks and is available from your general account settings.
