Facebook and mobile phones Will Home work?

http://www.economist.com

A DAY after the mobile phone celebrated its 40th birthday, Facebook has produced something that it hopes will make certain of the devices even more useful. On April 4th the giant social network unveiled Home, new software that is designed to give it more prominence on mobile phones powered by Android, an operating system developed by Google.

This matters because more and more folk are now accessing social networks from mobile devices rather than from desktop computers and because mobile advertising revenues are growing fast, albeit from a low base. Without a robust mobile presence, Facebook could see some of its users siphoned off by rivals born in the mobile era. And it could miss out on a potentially massive source of new revenue.

There had been speculation that Facebook was working on a phone of its own, or at least on a mobile operating system to rival Android or Apple’s iOS. But dabbling in hardware at this stage of its development would be a huge risk for Facebook and developing a rival operating system would risk alienating Apple and Google, whose mobile platforms have helped power its advertising growth. EMarketer, a research firm, reckons Facebook is on track to win 11% of the $13.6 billion likely to be spent around the world on mobile ads this year.

Home, which is a group of Facebook apps, avoids both pitfalls. Among other things, it converts a phone’s home screen (and lock screen) to Facebook’s Newsfeed, allowing people to get updates on what their friends are doing without having to launch a dedicated app each time they want news. A phone using Home will also notify you when your friends are doing something new, as well as alerting you to new data from other apps. Another feature is a tool called "Chat Heads" that combines Facebook's message system with a phone's regular SMS message offering. This means messages pop up on the home screen along with the sender's profile picture, which is enclosed in a small circle.

The first phone built to showcase Home, which will be made by HTC with wireless service provided by AT&T, will go on sale in America on April 12th for about $100. Users of some other Android-powered devices made by Samsung and HTC will be able to download the software starting the same day and Facebook says it will roll out Home more broadly later in the year. But not, it seems, to rival operating systems yet. At the launch of Home, Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s boss, made a point of stressing how “open” Android was and how easy it was to change the look of the operating system without too much work. Apple is likely to prove a much tougher nut to crack, as it exercises much tighter control over the look and feel of its operating system. Microsoft, which has a close relationship with Facebook, may be the next Home base.

Facebook is convinced that people will want a phone designed around people rather than apps. Some no doubt will. But previous attempts to produce “Facebook phones”, including the ChaCha from HTC, which allowed people to post photos directly to Facebook with the press of a physical button, have hardly been wildly successful. And folk are likely to be less than thrilled when Facebook starts pushing ads onto the home screens of their phones, which will inevitably happen given the firm’s track record. So don’t expect Home to be a home run for the social network.

How to Increase Mobile Phone Battery Time?

In this present epoch we have become so much obsessed and dependent on our mobile phones that we detest anything that prevents us from being in tact with our mobile phone.

We are all aware that mobile phone’s battery has not improved as much as the mobile phone and these latest gadgets have improved. Juice draining is a common problem that many of us are suffering from.

Now a days many people are buying more than one battery for their mobile phones and getting car chargers too, to keep their mobile phone powered on 24/7. Many even try to make sure that they carry their charger with them along wherever they go.

Keeping Battery Power Stay for Longer:

Scientists are working on air-fueled battery that would have the capacity to store up to ten times the energy storage. Oxygen drawn from the air reacts within the porous carbon to release the electrical charge in this lithium-air battery. But we can not wait for this technology to reach our hands, so about trying to save the battery from draining so quickly!

Use Genuine Charger:

Always use a genuine mobile charger, instead of going for the low-priced Chinese made non-genuine mobile phone chargers in order to get maximum out of your mobile battery.

Take Care of your Mobile’s Battery:

Keep your mobile battery terminals clean – you can do this by cleaning it once in a month time with alcohol. keeping it away from moisture, water and high temperature.

Lower your Mobile’s Display Brightness:

Set the brightness of your mobile phone on a low level – this will also be good for your eyes. Also, shorten the display duration too, this will help you in great deal!

Use Dark Colored Themes:

Use themes with dark colors, as whitish themes eat more battery than any other activity on phone.

Turn off Bluetooth/ WiFi/ Background Applications when not in use:

Most infamous battery-draining culprits are Wi-Fi, EDGE, GPRS, Camera, Flash, Bluetooth, FM radio, video player. Then comes mobile applications, JAVA, games etc. that consume plenty of energy.

All of these can be left on unintentionally, which will drain your battery with ease.

Bluetooth, WiFi, EDGE/GPRS can receive and transmit information even when not in use and this consumes battery power. Keep it turned off when not in use.

Get up when it sounds:

Get up as soon as you hear the wake-up alarm instead of letting it consume your battery.

Do not Let it Ring for long:

When you get a call answer it as soon as possible so that it rings for lesser time. When busy keep it on silent to prevent it from ringing that long. Try not to keep long duration ringtones and sms tunes. Keep them on a beep or similar.

Keep the Talk short:

This might sound odd and totally absurd, but try talking short – especially when you know that your battery might run out. Particularly, when you are on motor-way and may not reach a recharging point for next few hours.

You can leave some of the unnecessary gossips (aur sunao stuff). Keep the conversation brief and relevant and of course avoid taking unnecessary calls.

Turn Off Vibration:

Vibration feature in the mobile phone consumes quite a lot of battery power, therefore, we should try keeping the vibration off unless the mobile phone is on ‘silent’. Vibrating mobile phones also create disturbance during an important meeting. So keep it off unless it is very necessary.

Switch it Off:

Don’t assume that I am asking you to switch off your phone off all the day or all the time, but you can keep it switched off when you are out-station and there is no coverage.

Let it Discharge completely before you charge again:

If you want to get the maximum out of your mobile phone’s battery then always let the mobile battery get fully discharge and then turn off the mobile before you charge it. Full charging gives the battery long life time.

Facebook to remove users in prison

After a prisoner updated his status from Facebook, the user’s account was closed because internet access in prison is not available which means someone else was operating his account. That is a violation of the Statement of Rights and Responsibilities of Facebook, which governs the relationship with users.



Prisoners in the state of South Carolina are not allowed to keep a mobile phone. Yet prisoners are found with mobile thrown to them over the fences. Prisoners found with mobiles face solitary confinement, loss of visitation and canteen privileges. Now anyone caught with a cell phone or using Facebook via mobile internet or any other means might soon be looking at 30 extra days behind bars and a $500 fine.

A new bill prepared by a Democrat Wendell Gilliard would make it unlawful for an inmate to be a member of any internet social-networking site. Anyone found using any social networking site will be convicted and will get a penalty for the offense. The bill has already 12 co sponsors as legislators think it is a good idea.


A newspaper provided details of the people in South Carolina prison who were active on Facebook. Such as Anthony Enriquez, who is serving life without parole for murdering a man he robbed of a pack of cigarettes, is an active member of Facebook, despite the facility of internet in the prison.
Wendell Gilliard said. "The inmates have been using social networking to put coded messages out about where money is to be found, who turned them in, wanting revenge. It s putting innocent people s lives at stake. The goal of the bill is to stop the inside from coming out.”


In March of 2010, Facebook closed the account of Tennessee death row inmate Nikolaus Johnson. "Being imprisoned and having a Facebook account isn t against our policies, but providing others with a password to access an account is a violation of our Statement of Rights and Responsibilities, which governs our relationship with users," Andrew Noyes, public policy communications manager at Facebook, said in statement then. "Since this individual does not have Internet access, someone else is maintaining the profile. Thus, the account was disabled." added Andrew Noyes.