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Facebook makes break-ups harder to take, study says

It hurts when your lover casts you aside.

Especially when you know that he or she is acting out of self-loathing, personal inadequacy, or a complete lack of appreciation for your hidden joys.

And yet, in this world where everything is recorded by a social network (and/or a government), there are parameters that makes the pain more acute.

As a University of California, Santa Cruz study has discovered, Facebook can make a break-up even worse.

It seems that even when we have been kicked to the curb with more unfairness than a Turkmeni election we find it hard to … Read more

Microsoft warns of new Trojan hijacking Facebook accounts

Microsoft has issued a warning that a new piece of malware masquerading as a Google Chrome extension and Firefox add-on is making the rounds, threatening to hijack Facebook accounts

First detected in Brazil, Trojan:JS/Febipos.A attempts to keep itself updated, just like normal, legitimate browser extensions, Microsoft noted in a security bulletin late Friday.

Once downloaded, the Trojan monitors whether the infected computer is logged into a Facebook account and attempts to download a config file that will includes a list of commands for the browser extension. The malware can then perform a variety of Facebook actions, including … Read more

Facebook Home finally hits 1M download mark

A month after its release, Facebook Home has reached 1 million downloads, according to download numbers at Google Play.

It hit the milestone just days after Facebook's director of mobile engineering told reporters that Home had been downloaded "just about" 1 million times. The app's page was updated Sunday morning to indicate that its download numbers now fall in the 1 million to 5 million range.

While the social network's software suite for Android achieved its first 500,000 downloads in its first 10 days out in the wild, Facebook Home took twice as long … Read more

Eco-minded exec Musk leaves Zuckerberg's political group

Elon Musk, CEO of electric-car company Tesla Motors, has left a fledgling political action group founded by Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg, after the group bankrolled ads that angered environmentalists and others.

Musk and former PayPal colleague David Sacks -- founder of Yammer, which helps companies set up in-house social networks -- left FWD.us on Friday, according to various reports.

The launch of FWD.us last month was accompanied by a Zuckerberg-penned opinion piece in the Washington Post that spelled out the group's goals, including: changes to U.S. immigration law, with an eye toward attracting and keeping talented … Read more

Facebook general counsel exiting company

Facebook Vice President and General Counsel Ted Ullyot is leaving the social network after nearly five years on the job.

"Ted has been a valued member of Facebook's leadership who built our legal team through an intense 5-year period in which we faced complex and high-stakes legal issues of all types. We wish him the best of luck in the future," Facebook spokesperson Tucker Bounds said in a statement to CNET.

Ullyot, a Harvard graduate, joined Facebook as the company's first general counsel in October 2008 and was one of the then young company's first &… Read more

Bing adds more Facebook to search

Continuing down the path of enhancing search results with social data, Microsoft's Bing search engine added even more Facebook features to its right-hand social sidebar.

Thursday, people who search on Bing, and who have connected their Facebook accounts, will find that they can view comments on Facebook posts in the sidebar, add their own comments to surfaced status updates, and "like" the social-network posts without leaving the search engine.

"Now you can see what your friends might know about what you're searching for and engage with them directly without leaving the search page," Bing … Read more

Facebook brings its Yelp-like business Pages to Android

Facebook said Thursday that its Android application will feature its newly redesigned layout for mobile Pages. Pages are Facebook profiles for brands, businesses, and public figures that use the social network.

The new layout, which resembles business listings on Yelp, pushes essential business information such as contact details and location to the top of the Page. It also encourages visitors to leave a mini review, check-in to the location, or "like" the Page.

Facebook first introduced the new look for mobile Pages on iOS and mobile Web a few weeks ago. The changes play nicely with Facebook's … Read more

Facebook Home downloads: When 1M is a small number

Facebook confirmed Thursday that Android users have downloaded its Facebook Home software suite just shy of a million times since the product's launch last month. While that's a whole lotta mobile users, it's a tiny number considering what's possible.

If you consider the number of Facebook users and the amount of Android devices sold, you get a massive network of potential Home users. The social network alone has more than 1 billion users on the site. That's a thousand times more than the number of Home downloads so far.

Then there's the sheer number … Read more

Why Facebook would buy Waze: To fight Google for mobile search

Rumors that Facebook is in late-stage talks to buy Waze for as much as $1 billion have many wondering if the social network's next great ambition is to tackle the maps and navigation market. Maybe -- but only because maps would be Facebook's best way to route around Google and make money from mobile search.

Founded in 2007, Waze makes a navigation application for iPhone and Android used by roughly 45 million people. The app's mapping service is powered by the people who use it. Waze ingests all types of location data as shared, either implicitly or … Read more

Facebook updates Home, says downloads reach 1M

MENLO PARK, Calif. -- Facebook is releasing a new version of Facebook Home, the social network's software suite for Android, the company announced at its headquarters here Thursday.

The new product will go live on Google Play at 1 p.m. Thursday as an update to the Facebook Android app, but users probably won't see it till about 3 p.m., Facebook said.

Facebook VP of Engineering Cory Ondrejka said the company is planning on several improvements to the product in the coming weeks, but today's update will have bug fixes. Also, for any Android devices that … Read more