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If a judge approves Facebook's settlement of a class-action lawsuit regarding "sponsored stories," the social network will give users more control over the advertising tool, which features users' profile photos and other information in ads for businesses and products the users have "Liked."

Reuters reported today that the settlement agreement includes giving users the ability to determine what, if any, user information can be featured in ads, and adding new language to Facebook's guidelines informing users of sponsored ads, according to court documents filed Wednesday. TechCrunch reported that user opt-outs will apparently apply on … Read more

The terms of a legal settlement regarding Facebook's "sponsored stories" feature emerged this weekend, according to a report: the social-networking juggernaut agreed to pay $10 million to charity to lay the matter to rest.

Reuters reported the news today, drawing from court documents it said were just made public.

The suit -- in which five Facebook users claimed the site violated California law and their right to privacy by publicizing their "likes" in advertisements without asking them, compensating them, or allowing them to opt out -- was settled toward the end of May.

U.S. … Read more

Take a look at this eccentric array of action figure lamps by U.K. firm Evil Robot Designs. They feature painted pint-size superstars from geeky films, video games, and comic books.

Each of the six lamps in the collection has an ear-catching name like Alien Nation and Forbidden Planet. It would take paragraphs to list all the characters integrated into the 2-foot fixtures, but some notables (not mentioned in the photo captions) include Mysterio; Green Goblin; evil xenomorphs from the "Alien" movie series; He-Man; Bunnygirl "Suzumiya Haruhi"; and many more. … Read more

Samsung Electronic today dismissed the notion that it's working on a Facebook-like service.

To make sure there wasn't any confusion, the company posted the denial on its official global blog, calling the speculation and rumor "groundless."

The Korea Times was the first to stir up the rumor, reporting that the technology giant would make its first foray into social networking next year. The report was subsequently picked up by other media outlets.

Running a social network, which relies on advertising, would make little sense for a consumer electronics company accustomed to selling hardware. Despite Samsung's … Read more

Facebook has settled a lawsuit over its "sponsored stories" feature, in which plaintiffs claimed the social network violated users' right to privacy by publicizing their "likes" in advertisements without asking them or compensating them.

Details of the settlement weren't released, Reuters reported. The judge in the case last year rejected a Facebook request to dismiss the lawsuit and had scheduled a hearing on class-action certification for Thursday.

Facebook's sponsored-stories ads essentially display a user's name, picture, and a tagline asserting that the person "likes" a particular advertiser. These particular ads initially … Read more

Awhile back I showed you how to unfollow a comment thread or post on Facebook. The process wasn't all that straightforward and required you know where to click, and what to look for once you did.

Recently, Facebook gave its notification box a revamped look, as well as a new feature. You can now unfollow a post directly from the notification box.

As you can see above, in the top-right corner of each notification you'll see a small X. When the X is clicked on, you'll be asked to confirm that you do want to unfollow that … Read more

As every parent knows, kids say the funniest things.

Like my daughter, who used to call hamburgers "hangabers." And loves to say, "You're very sweeticle, dad."

Take it from someone who knows: it's all too easy to forget these little bon mots. That's why I'm delighted by Posterity: The Family Quote Book for iOS, a simple but clever app that lets you capture all the funny things your kids say.

Posterity creates individual "books" for each kid, then lets you fill them with quotes. For each quote you can assign … Read more

Flipboard tonight unveiled a new version of its popular iPad app, an update led by the inclusion of Cover Stories, a feature that gives users a one-stop feed for the articles the service considers most relevant based on their social connections and what they've already read.

The new feature was introduced originally with Flipboard's iPhone app, and until now it hasn't been available for the iPad. But this new release makes Cover Stories a key component of the company's plan to make its app the best place for users to go to catch up on the … Read more

AP News is a free, mediocre news-reading app for the iPad with a scrapbook-style interface and a surprisingly inefficient use of the iPad's screen space.

Articles appear as headlines with small photo thumbnails on scraps of paper, scattered spaciously across a linen background. You swipe to flip through stories in a given category (such as politics, sports, or health), or you can swipe across a column in the middle of the screen to switch between categories.

The screen is topped by local weather (in oversize Comic Sans, inexplicably), a large AP logo, and two large panels for viewing photos … Read more