Peak Facebook: British users lose their Liking for Zuck’s ad empire
Facebook's popularity is slumping in the UK as users become fed up with being bombarded with advertising, a YouGov survey has revealed.
In a report examining social media use among web-savvy Brits, the market research firm found a 9 per cent drop in Facebook usage since April 2012.
Among the people who had quit Facebook, 23 per cent said they'd done so because they were "fed up with social marketing promotions", up 18 per cent from April 2012. Exactly one-fifth ditched the social network because they were nervous their personal info would be handed over to third parties. Read more...
The future of personal computing: What replaces tablets?
BlackBerry CEO Thorsten Heins' prediction this week that tablets would decline in popularity flies in the face of widespread industry forecasting for an explosion of tablet shipments through 2017. But his comments also provoked debate on what will happen over the next five to 10 years to smartphones, tablets and laptops -- even wearable computers -- and what devices users might favor.
Some analysts said Heins could be setting the scene for eliminating the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet, which launched in 2011 but hasn't gained market traction. Others said Heins is likely envisioning a world where the smartphone acts as a hub to other displays in rooms or on what users wear to provide processing power and wireless access to data in the cloud. Read more...
Objective-C’s dip in popularity tied to decline in iPad and iPhone
Objective-C, best known as the programming language used for building applications to run on Apple's popular iPad and iPhone devices, is beginning to level off in popularity, one monthly assessment of languages reports.
The Tiobe Programming Community Index for April has Objective-C slipping a spot, dropping to fourth place and displaced by C++. The index gauges language popularity based on the number of skilled engineers worldwide, courses, and third-party vendors pertinent to each language, with popular search engines such as Google and Yahoo, as well as other sites used to make the assessment. This month's index had Objective-C coming up in 9.60 percent of searches, which was down from 10.23 percent in April. The language is still up from one year ago, when it showed up in just 8.24 percent of searches. Read more...
Apple’s popularity boosts Objective-C language past C++
Thanks to the popularity of Apple's iPad and iPhone mobile devices, the Objective-C language has overtaken C++ in Tiobe's monthly assessment of programming language popularity.
Objective-C, the language used for developing applications to run on Apple's mobile devices, was ranked the third most-popular language in the July edition of the Tiobe Programming Community Index, followed by C++ in fourth place. Released this week, the index has Objective-C used by 9.335 percent of developers and C++ used by 9.118 percent. The two languages swap rankings from last month, when C++ was used by 9.358 percent of developers and Objective-C by 9.094 percent. Read more...
Facebook focus guides Google CEO’s 1st year on job
Google co-founder Larry Page has a Facebook fixation.
When he replaced his mentor Eric Schmidt as Google's CEO last April, Page insisted that the company had to be more aggressive about countering the threat posed by Facebook's ever-growing popularity.
Page responded with a social networking crusade that is still reshaping Google Inc. as he marks his one-year anniversary as chief executive on Wednesday. Read more...
Find your ‘most valuable’ Facebook friend
I promise: The result above was not a setup, but the outcome of trying a fun, free app called "MVF," which lets you find your "Most Valuable Friend" on Facebook. I know msnbc.com science editor Alan Boyle pretty well — although not well enough to, say, share science experiments with him. But that's the result that MVF gave me, produced in seconds after I allowed it to access my Facebook info.
As the TheNextWeb notes, the app "allows anyone to find out their most valuable Facebook friend based on a weighted combination of the total number of friends and subscribers." Read more...
Java tops C in language popularity assessment — but not by much
Java is barely hanging on to its ranking as the most popular programming language, edging out C in this month's Tiobe index of programming language popularity.
Released on Sunday, the February Tiobe Community Programming Index had Java being used by 17.05 percent of developers. A year ago, 18.48 percent of developers used it, while 17.48 percent of developers used Java a month ago. C was slotted right behind Java, used by 16.52 percent of developers in the latest release of the index -- up from 14.98 percent the same time last year, but down from the 16.98 percent using it in last month's index. Read more...
Motorola Droid 3: To buy or not to buy?
Motorola's Droid 3 officially entered the world today -- and given the significance and popularity of the original Moto Droid, this new successor is drumming up quite a bit of interest. Not surprisingly, the question I hear the most is simply: "Should I buy this phone?"
I haven't had a chance to check out the new Droid 3 hands-on yet -- I should soon -- but based on the specs, it seems like a powerful new option for anyone seeking a phone with a slide-out keyboard. It has a beefy dual-core processor, 512MB of RAM (not the highest amount you'll find in any phone on the market right now, but more than enough for practically any need), and a double-camera setup with 1080p video capture. The device has all the makings of a solid starting point for new Android buyers or an attractive option for original Droid owners looking to replace their now-two-year-old phones.
But -- and this is a big but (you're welcome, Sir Mix-A-Lot) -- the Droid 3 has a couple of potentially significant drawbacks. The lack of 4G may be a buzz-kill for some people, especially those who live in areas where Verizon 4G service is currently available. And the Motoblur skin may make the Droid 3 less appealing to many Android enthusiasts; interface preferences aside, as we've seen in the past, manufacturer software modifications like Blur can frequently cause delays in future Android upgrades. Read more...
Mystery of the missing Honeycomb apps
Google's much-anticipated tablet operating system, Android 3.0 Honeycomb, made its splash in late February with the launch of the Motorola Xoom. Few Honeycomb-optimized apps were available at launch, but no matter: The expectation was that they'd follow soon after. Why wouldn't they, given the ever-growing popularity of Android?
But instead of an explosion of Honeycomb apps, the fuse burned down to the powder keg...and then nothing happened. Four months later, we're still waiting: The number of Honeycomb-optimized apps remains in the low hundreds. By comparison, there are over 100,000 apps optimized for the iPad.
So, what gives? Is there something especially hard about optimizing an Android 2.x (Froyo, Gingerbread) app for Android 3.x (Honeycomb)? Are developers waiting for Ice Cream Sandwich (presumably, to be called Android 4.0), which will merge the tablet OS and phone OS into one? Is there just not enough demand? Are there problems with tablet app discovery in the Android Market? Is it just because Honeycomb is so new? Read more...