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Facebook's iPhone update makes apps a possibility

Josh Lowensohn | Aug 31, 2009

Facebook's new look sports specific Facebook app icons that can be rearranged.(Credit: CNET)
(Credit: Screenshot by Jessica Dolcourt/CNET)

We still get a pitch about a new Facebook app now and again, but truth is, that ship sailed long ago. Most Facebook apps just don't have the wow factor they once did when the platform was new. With the company's latest iPhone app update, however, the wow could be coming back on a smaller scale.

In case you missed Thursday's news, Apple finally got around to approving the third version of Facebook's iPhone app. It's a big step up from previous iterations, bringing in a number of features for which users had been clamoring.

One of the most interesting changes is how the app has been designed to feel very familiar to the iPhone user interface. For instance, no matter what you're doing on the app, you can touch anywhere on the top of the screen to go back "home". You can also save shortcuts to a friend's profile or to one of the social network's public-facing pages.

These saved items go up on 3 x 3 grid that can be rearranged and expanded, depending on how many pages and contacts users decide to add. This makes it much simpler to hop back and forth between certain parts of the site--that is, as long as you've planned ahead.

To go with those items are standard Facebook features, including a handful of its own first-party applications, such as events, photos, mail, and the all-important live text chat.
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New features galore in Facebook 3.0 for iPhone

Jessica Dolcourt | Aug 28, 2009

Facebook 3.0 introduces new navigation, notifications, events, and more.
(Credit: Screenshot by Jessica Dolcourt/CNET)

The third major edition of Facebook for iPhone has just crept into the iTunes App Store. It's a huge update, with numerous advanced features that make Facebook more interactive than before and which bring the app as close to the desktop experience as it's ever been.

Facebook for iPhone opens on your news feed as usual, but the upper left corner now sports a tiny grid icon that serves as the main organizing feature for this new build. Click it to see a screen equipped with a search bar on top, a notification alert area on the bottom, and a grid of nine activities you can perform in the middle. These include the news feed, your profile details, your message inbox, Facebook chat, friend requests, events, photo albums, and notes.

Those who use Facebook on the iPhone frequently will notice that quite a few of these actions are brand new, like viewing events and submitting an RSVP from your phone. You'll also be able to view friends' birthdays and upload photos to any album. Anyone sporting an iPhone 3GS gets the added bonus of uploading video.
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Internet routing going greener soon

Marguerite Reardon | Aug 20, 2009

Researchers have come up with a new way to route Internet traffic that could save big Internet companies like Google millions on their electricity bills, according to an article published by MIT's Technology Review.

Researchers from MIT, Carnegie Mellon University, and the networking company Akamai recently published results from a study that suggest big Internet companies could save up to 40 percent on their electricity bills by using an algorithm to send Internet traffic to data centers where electricity is less expensive.

Data centers consume a lot of energy, which costs operators like Google and Amazon millions of dollars to run each year. And now as more digital information is "virtualized" and accessed in the cloud, centralized data centers are getting even bigger and are consuming even more energy.

In fact, data center energy usage is expected to quadruple during the next decade in the absence of efforts to improve efficiency, according to the article, which referenced a report from McKinsey & Company and the Uptime Institute published in July 2008. The article also estimated that today, some large Internet companies spend more than US$30 million a year on energy costs.

But now there could be a way for these companies to lower their energy costs. Using an algorithm developed and tested by researchers at MIT, Carnegie Mellon, and Akamai, these companies can track electricity prices that fluctuate by location and time of day. It then calculates the best option depending on the price of electricity and the distance that data must travel to get to a particular location, to provide the most cost-effective route for data based on energy costs.
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RIM launches Web-version of the BlackBerry App World

Jessica Dolcourt | Aug 19, 2009

Finally, a polished Web gateway to the BlackBerry App World.
(Credit: Screenshot by Jessica Dolcourt/CNET)

No matter how much you enjoy perusing BlackBerry apps with your device in-hand, it's a likely bet you'd rather browse on the big screen when you're sitting in front of your computer. RIM, following Apple's iTunes App Store model, has created an online "Web store" for its applications.

Launched on Tuesday, the online version of RIM's BlackBerry App World mirrors the software catalog found in the mobile app, plus a few extras.
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Yahoo Mail still tops the email market

Tom Krazit | Aug 18, 2009

Yahoo is still king of the email market as of June 2009, but Gmail has the most momentum. (Credit: ComScore Media Metrix)

Google's Gmail is the fastest-growing email service on the planet, but it has a way to go to catch Yahoo's still-growing market share.

ComScore's latest figures for the email market show Yahoo added almost 20 million users last year, growing its share of the market by 22 percent from 87.2 million users to 106.2 million users in June. Only Gmail grew faster--a 46-percent clip--but just 36.9 million people are currently using Gmail. Microsoft's Hotmail is the second-most widely used email with 47.1 million users, up 3 percent from last year.
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