Facebook Home developer team disbanded

Facebook has disbanded its Home (Android Launcher) team, but the app still lives. 

Facebook's plan to take over the smartphone has not panned out and the social networking site has disbanded its team that was initially responsible for developing Facebook Home. The Android skin released last year displayed Facebook photos on its lock screen and provided easy access to chat messages and status updates.

The Home app released last year wasn't a success that Facebook had hoped for. Although it did a good job of transforming an Android phone into one that felt purpose-built for Facebook, not many users took it up. The skin came preinstalled on the HTC first, but did not get a good response and disappeared shortly after its launch.

Facebook Home saw half a million downloads after its launch, but the growth stalled from there. Google Play lists that the skin has been installed between 1 million and 5 million times which is quiet low for Facebook. Facebook says that it still has a team working on Home, but chances of it moving forward are less. The app remains available in the Play Store, however it hasn't been updated since January.

Facebook has been working on new apps like Slingshot and Facebook Paper. Paper is a magazine-style news reader service and was launched in February. The service is very similar to Flipboard and Google Currents and pulls out relevant content including photos, videos and links from Facebook feed.

Facebook launched a Snapchat clone called Slingshot earlier this month. The app allows users to share videos and photos with their friends, but the only way recipients will be able to see the messages will be if they share something back on Slingshot. The app has been officially launched for Android and iOS platforms.

Facebook updates iOS and Android apps with Nearby Friends invites and offline likes

Fcebook has two updates on the mobile world today. Facebook for iOS 11.0 got new additions to its Nearby Friends  feature while Android hit version 10.0 with offline posting. Both updates are available now in the Google Play Store and App Store.

For the iOS version Facebook only posted that today’s update included “improvements for reliability and speed.” But TechCrunch reportsthat after a bit of digging, it found two new updates for Nearby Friends. In the US version of the app, the social network has added search and invite friends buttons.

For Android, Facebook has added the following new features:

• Like posts, photos and Pages when you’re offline
• Remove tags you’ve created
• Remove tags of yourself that your friends have created
• Turn post notifications on and off
• Improvements to speed and reliability

Being able to remove tags that your friends have created is a wonderful way to make sure some of the more embarrassing things you did last night don’t end up in your Timeline.

➤ Facebook for iOS and Android

Facebook says bug exposed 6 million users' contact information

Facebook Inc has inadvertently
exposed 6 million users' phone
numbers and email addresses to
unauthorised viewers over the past
year, the world's largest social
networking company disclosed late
Friday.
Facebook blamed the data leaks,
which began in 2012, on a technical
glitch in its massive archive of contact
information collected from its 1.1
billion users worldwide. As a result of
the glitch, Facebook users who
downloaded contact data for their list
of friends obtained additional
information that they were not
supposed to have.
Facebook's security team was alerted
to the bug last week and fixed it within
24 hours. But Facebook did not
publicly acknowledge the bug until
Friday afternoon, when it published an
"important message" on its blog
explaining the issue.
A Facebook spokesman said the delay
was due to company procedure
stipulating that regulators and affected
users be notified before making a
public announcement.
"We currently have no evidence that
this bug has been exploited
maliciously and we have not received
complaints from users or seen
anomalous behaviour on the tool or
site to suggest wrongdoing," Facebook
said on its blog.
While the privacy breach was limited,
"it's still something we're upset and
embarrassed by, and we'll work
doubly hard to make sure nothing like
this happens again," it added.
The breach follows recent disclosures
that several consumer Internet
companies turned over troves of user
data to a large-scale electronic
surveillance program run by U.S.
intelligence.
The companies include Facebook,
Google Inc, Microsoft Corp, Apple Inc
and Yahoo Inc.
The companies, led by Facebook,
successfully negotiated with the U.S.
government last week to reveal the
approximate number of user
information requests that each
company had received, including
secret national security orders.
Copyright Thomson Reuters 2013