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Facebook's U.S. growth eases on the brakes

Those days of users spending countless hours on Facebook, poking, posting photos, and updating their statuses seem to be ending. And if not ending, they're definitely slowing.

According to The Wall Street Journal, the social network's growth rate in the U.S. has pretty much stopped in its tracks. However, this must be taken in the context of Facebook's stupendous growth since its inception eight years ago -- up front the numbers don't look that bad, but studied more closely it could look troublesome for the social network.

Unique visitors to the site were up 5 … Read more

Foursquare gets a face-lift for a better all-around experience (First Take)

By now, "checking in" at coffee shops, bars, restaurants, and sporting events is a common practice across many apps, but it was Foursquare that really made this social activity popular.

Before the announcement, I had a phone interview with Alex Rainert, head of product at Foursquare. Rainert says Foursquare has listened to user feedback and has torn apart the current app for both iOS and Android and rebuilt it anew to make browsing locations around you an easier and richer experience.

With the latest version of Foursquare, the interface has been completely reworked to a much cleaner design … Read more

No hero phone? No matter.

What's a reviews editor to do when a week passes without a single major hardware announcement? With no frenzied launch events to stalk and no 24-hour-turnaround product reviews to write, your average tech journalist just pours a glass of bourbon, kicks back, and plays Max Payne 3 until his eyes bleed. But not us. We dug deeper. We found a really freaking cool laptop desk. Truly, we did -- it's downright chilly.

We're fans of this one, peeps The NZXT Cryo E40 is a laptop desk for the type of gamer (or author, or coder) who might … Read more

Why an 'e-mail vacation' might be good for your health

Workers cut off from office e-mail for five days exhibited more natural, variable heart rates and toggled between screens less frequently than those with e-mail access, according to new research out of the University of California, Irvine, and the Army's Natick Soldier Systems Center near Boston.

The "A pace not dictated by electrons" study of 13 civilian employees at the Army center is undoubtedly small, and the results, presented this week at a meeting of the Association for Computing Machinery in Austin, Texas, are only preliminary. Still, researchers say the findings were surprisingly consistent in favor of … Read more

Belly lift device could help obese patients breathe easier

Being obese can bring on a wide range of health complications, some less obvious than others.

So when a physician in Houston asked bioengineering students at Rice University to help relieve his obese patients' burden of breathing during surgery, the idea "sounded a little weird," said senior Norman Truong, according to a press release. But his team, calling themselves R-Aides, took on the challenge.

The resulting device literally lifts the burden obese patients carry on their abdomens during surgery by using a simple suspension device that consists of suction cups attached to a horizontal beam and tied in … Read more

S&P slashes Nokia's credit rating to junk

Just when things couldn't get much worse for Nokia -- the mobile phone maker's credit rating is taking it on the chin.

Standard & Poor's today cut the rating for the Finnish mobile phone maker to junk, anticpating lower sales ahead.

Following a similar move by Fitch Ratings earlier this week, S&P cut Nokia's rating to BB+ from BBB-. BB+ is considered the highest speculative grade, "speculative" being another word for junk.

S&P said that the weaker rating reflects a lower estimate for sales from Nokia's Devices and Services … Read more

Google's approval ratings best Apple, Facebook, Twitter

If you're looking for the technology industry's most popular company, look no further than Mountain View, Calif.

ABC News and the Washington Post recently joined forces with Langer Research Associates to poll more than 1,000 Americans between March 28 and April 1 on their attitudes toward some of the tech world's most successful companies. The researchers found that a whopping 82 percent of respondents have a "favorable" opinion of Google, making it the most popular tech company. Just 9 percent of respondents expressed an "unfavorable" opinion toward the search giant, while 10 … Read more

That didn't take long: Tim Cook rated top CEO

Apple CEO Tim Cook hasn't even been in his job for a year, but already he's the working world's highest-rated chief executive, according to a new report.

Careers site Glassdoor announced today that Cook received a 97 percent approval rating from employees over the past 12 months that ended March 15, beating out Ernst & Young CEO Jim Turley and Qualcomm CEO Paul Jacobs, who each scored a 95 percent approval rating. American Express CEO Ken Chenault and Google CEO Larry Page rounded out the top five with 94 percent approval ratings.

Surprisingly, Cook was able to beat out his predecessor and Apple co-founder Steve Jobs … Read more

Yelp for restaurant listings

Yelp is the premier online city guide that helps you find restaurants and other businesses in your area. It not only provides vital information like hours, addresses, and phone numbers, it also offers a treasure trove of user-submitted reviews, ratings, and photos.

Since Yelp taps into your mobile device's GPS powers, it can easily help you find businesses nearby. Alternatively, you can indicate a city of your choice to search elsewhere. You can conduct your search based on keyword, or browse through listings by category. And the Yelp app offers a few filters to further narrow your search, including … Read more