Google Looking To Make Mobile Web Faster

Google has created a way to make the mobile web faster. The company announced a technical preview for a system called Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP). It is designed to fight many of the factors slowing down your mobile web pages. Google has teamed up with a bunch of publishers for the system, such as The Washington Post, Vox Media (The Verge's parent company), The Guardian, and Buzzfeed.

The system is available on a public GitHub repository, having a more commonly held code and smarter caching system. If the system is working, you should have lighter, faster loading mobile pages on things like smartphones and tablets. Google's head of News, Richard Gingras said, "We're here because we love the web and we feel the web can be better than it is. We can make the web great again."

Although the system is still in technical preview, the announcement comes with a ton of major programs for offsite content hosting. In May, Facebook released Instant Articles that allowed publishers to push content directly to Facebook with the results of faster loading times and simpler advertising. Apple has done something similar with Apple News, which they announced at WWDC in June. With this new availability of ad-blocking applications in iOS 9 has allowed you to bypass a lot of tracking systems that slow down your internet completely. This is making publishers look for a way to shrink mobile pages.

With all these systems out, it's putting a lot of pressure on Google, which relies tremendously on web advertising and is being threatened by the migration to closed systems. Gingras spoke about the power of the web but never said that Google's future depends on an open internet.

Google's Accelerated Mobile Pages system is more open than the systems from Apple and Facebook. The core of the system is an open-source GitHub repository, which allows companies to adapt or change when needed. Individual libraries or systems can also adapt individually, becoming more of a toolkit than a self-contained portal.

Google and its partners will still use non-trivial power in its advertising and tracking within the system. The system still allows for third-party caching, Google's hosting network means most of AMP content will likely be hosted on the company's servers. The system is likely to restore concern on the increasing balkanization of internet platforms. Google will represent an open, web-integrated alternative for more controlled platforms within Facebook and Apple.

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Say Hello To M, Facebook's New Personal Assistant

It seems that every piece of technology needs an "assistant" these days. I mean Apple has Siri, Windows 10 has Cortana, even Google has Now. And now, it seems, that Facebook is jumping on this bandwagon. There have been rumors that Facebook was working on an assistant within the Messenger app, but details have finally surfaced that bring it all together. This means that Apple, Microsoft, and Google will have yet another company to compete with.

In a post on Facebook (of course), Facebook Messenger Lead David Marcus wrote, "Today we're beginning to test a new service called M. M is a personal digital assistant inside of Messenger that completes tasks and finds information on your behalf. It's powered by artificial intelligence that's trained and supervised by people."

Marcus went on to say, "Unlike other AI-based services in the market, M can actually complete tasks on your behalf. It can purchase items, get gifts delivered to your loved ones, book restaurants, travel arrangements, appointments, and way more. This is early in the journey to build M into an at-scale service. But it's an exciting step towards enabling people on Messenger to get things done across a variety of things, so they can get more time to focus on what's important in their lives."

Ever since Marcus joined with Facebook the Messenger product has been churning like crazy in terms of development. Regardless if it's payments or a standalone site, the product seems like it is getting a lot more attention than it ever has before.

Siri, Now, and Cortana, and M are now one big happy family! Basically what these companies are doing is they are taking the data that you've put into the service and are using it to help you out or suggest different things based off of what it knows about you. Putting M inside of Messenger is a quite a brilliant move due to the fact that people are used to tapping out messages to people as opposed to speaking out commands like other assistants sometimes require.

Facebook acquiring Wit.ai back in January provided the human side of the project, meaning the "trained and supervised by people" part that Marcus mentioned. Google and Apple have focused primarily on the science of Artificial Intelligence whereas Facebook has decided to power through the development of a personal assistant with more human hands.

This means that it won't be cheap for Facebook. Should the project scale out it will have to wait until the humans teach its AI to handle most requests automatically or it will have to spend a ton of money hiring a ton of people to assist the assistant. In addition to that, the launch of this tech will be very, very slow but as soon as it is released you can check back here for more information!

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The "Facebook Phone" is Hitting Stores Soon

Are you one of those people that are simply addicted to Facebook? If you are, soon you will be able to satisfy your addiction with a phone that won’t drain your pockets. The HTC Status, also known as the Facebook phone, will be available at Best Buy stores and online starting July 17 for $49.99 with a two year contract.

Pre-orders for the HTC Status are already being accepted.

The HTC Status, which is also known as the ChaCha overseas, is a small Android-based smartphone. It features a dedicated Facebook logo button at the very bottom of the keypad that allows users to instantly update their Facebook wall with status, photos and URLs.

The phone also has a 5-megapixel front-facing and rear-facing camera. This can be utilized by users for Facebook’s new Skype-enabled video chatting. You will need a Wi-Fi connection to use the video chatting, but I wouldn’t think that this should be too much of an issue for most people.

The integration of aspects of Facebook can be found throughout the entirety of the phone. When a friend calls you, you will automatically see their most recent status update, all Facebook chat and e-mail messages will be pushed together with your regular text messages and emails, and the interface itself features a Facebook chat widget that allows users to see who is online at the time.

AT&T claims that the HTC Status is the first of the HTC devices carried in the U.S. to come standard with an enhanced version of HTC Sense UI. Sasha Segan, a mobile analyst at PCMag, says the enhanced version is among one of the more “thoughtful of the manufacturer Android software extensions.”

The Status will come in four different colors: black, silver, pink and blue. Best Buy will also be offering an exclusive mauve version of the device.

Although this is the first Facebook phone to be released in the U.S., there have been plenty of such phones offered overseas. Why is this, you might ask? I honestly do not know. I do know however that this phone is sure to be a success. A very inexpensive smartphone entirely focused around Facebook…how could that not be a hit with teens and young adults? I’m sure that HTC has got a winner here!

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iPhone’s New FarmVille App from Zynga

Finally Facebook’s most popular game is coming to the iPhone. On Thursday, Zynga announced that they were launching the FarmVille app the same day that they release their next generation smartphone. This iPhone app will allow FarmVille players to now tend their farms from their phones and will even send out status updates regarding their farms.

Mark Pincus, the founder and CEO of Zynga, stated, “Mobile devices are an extension of people's daily social lives everywhere in the world and the Apple iPhone is the most innovative breakthrough in this area. We are excited to bring FarmVille to the Apple iPhone and introduce our social games to a new audience of mobile users around the world.”

FarmVille can boast over 75 million users merely a year after its release on Facebook. Zynga developed the game originally for Facebook, who signed a 5-year contract with them recently, but they also have a deal with Yahoo as well.

In case you are unsure of exactly what FarmVille is, it is a farming game in which you develop and tend to a virtual farm with the help and collaboration of your friends. Although FarmVille is the number one downloadable game according to the tally by AppData, its numbers have recently been waning. Zynga is hoping that this new app that allows users to take their virtual farms with them on their iPhone will help spark FarmVille fever once again.

Zynga picked a great time to release their new app. There’s plenty of hype about the new iPhone 4, and I’m sure that many users will be excited about the new FarmVille app. I expect that FarmVille will most definitely keep its spot as the number one game thanks to this new app on the iPhone.

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What You Need to Know About Microsoft's Kin

On Monday of this week, Microsoft introduced the Kin One and Kin Two, but a lot of people are wondering what exactly they need to know about the new phones. Well, the Kin appears to be aimed a younger generation, (CNET specifies ages 15 to 30 and describes that age group as the "the folks posting their every thought, sight, and sound to Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube" as well as "young parents looking to upload all those adorable pictures of their kids and/or puppies." That, alone, should tell you a lot about the phone. As a matter of fact, instead of having a menu, when you turn on your phone, you'll have three main screens: contacts, built-in programs, and status updates from your social networks. Contacts and status updates come from Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, and Windows Live.

Also according to CNET, the Kin looks a little bit like the Sidekick but runs on Windows CE instead of the Java-based operating system the Sidekick used. And it's certainly nothing like an iPhone, Android or Blackberry. If you're dreaming of adding all kinds of apps to your phone, keep dreaming. Microsoft says they're hoping the phone will fit your needs without the need or any additions. With that in mind, Microsoft is calling it an entry-level smartphone.

Each phone comes with Zune built in, which allows you to transfer music and movies from your computer and stream music on demand. Pictures can be uploaded to all social media sites with the exception of Twitter. They have web-based email capabilities, Exchange for business email, and POP and IMAP services.

Both phones feature touchscreens, bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and slide-out keyboards. The Kin Two is a bit higher end than the Kin One. It has double the memory (8GB), a larger screen and keyboard, the ability to shoot HD video, a better camera, and a stereo speaker verses the mono speaker on the Kin One.

The software is not completely compatible with Mac, but it does allow you to transfer music and pictures from iTunes or iPhoto. Kin One and Kin Two are tentatively scheduled to be released in May, but an exact date has not yet been set, nor has an exact price.

For more details, check out CNET's 411 on Microsoft Kin.

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More People Using Phones for Social Networking

There's no doubt that social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter are becoming more and more popular, but the way people access these sites is changing. In January, over 10% of smartphone users accessed a social networking site with their phones; that's over 5% more than January 2009.

That means that during that month, one in three smartphone users accessed a social networking website with their mobile browsers. According to ComScore, a web metrics firm, Facebook saw a 112% increase in mobile web suers, while Twitter saw a whopping 347% increase. Because the numbers came from the users who access the websites through their mobile web browser, it did not include the almost six million users who mobile applications to access these websites.

Mark Donovan, the senior VP of mobile at ComScore, said in a statement, "Social networking remains one of the most popular and fastest-growing behaviors on both the PC-based Internet and the mobile Web. Social media is a natural sweet spot for mobile since mobile devices are at the center of how people communicate with their circle of friends, whether by phone, text, email, or, increasingly, accessing social networking sites via a mobile browser."

Despite the overwhelming increase in Twitter users, Facebook still reigns as the most popular social networking site. Facebook more than doubled MySpace with its 25 million mobile browser users in January. Twitter saw 4.7 million mobile web users. And not only is social networking on smartphones seeing an increase, more and more people are using smartphones to access the web in general. At the end of 2009, 17% of mobile phone users were using smartphones, vs 11% at the end of 2008.

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A Mood-Based App for Your iPhone

How many iPhone apps can they come up with? Well here’s a new one! As if status updates weren’t enough to inform your friend how depressed, ecstatic, infuriated, or bored you were, you can now let them know exactly what you are in the mood for.

Moodspin is a social-networking add-on that has just been endorsed by the iPhone App Store. Currently you are only able to use Moodspin through Twitter, but through it you are given the capabilities to broadcast exactly how you feel to everyone that follows you.

To make Moodspin even better, it is not just text that appears when you set your mood but a mood-related emoticon is added to your photo. This allows people to see how you feel no matter what it is that you just tweeted about.

So the big question about this app would be…is it useful at all? Honestly, not really, but it doesn’t have to be useful for you to enjoy it. It is interesting how Moodspin will track your moods. Every time that you update your mood status it will be charted on a timeline. This can show others what you have been up to throughout the day if you wish to display such information. You can easily compare and contrast your mood graph with your friends or everyone else on Moodspin.

Moodspin is relatively easy to use on your iPhone. You simply select your in mood in three taps and it instantly becomes a personalized Twitter update. It also will tack on a URL that can lead others to your Moodspin profile so they can view your moods in the past 24 hours.

Supposedly sometime this month Moodspin will update to also allow Facebook users to access their service. This way you can include your mood right along side your status.

So no this isn’t the most incredible app for your iPhone, but for those that obsess over social-networking sites this could be an app that can add some flair to your constant tweets and updates.