President Obama uses Facebook and Vine to preview his free college plan
President Barack Obama is previewing parts of his State of the Union address in a bid to drum up support ahead of the big speech, and his latest effort is breaking some ground — both in the policy and how he’s presenting it. The head of state took to Facebook, Twitter and Vine to unveil a proposal that would give Americans two free years of community college so long as they maintain good grades and graduate. It’s a rare move for discussing politics online. While the president regularly makes announcements on social networks, it’s not often that you get a peek at the State of the Union while you’re catching up on friends’ status updates and looping cat videos.
The proposal itself is potentially significant for tech as well. If you meet the criteria, you either get two years of academic credit (which you can transfer to a public college or university) or a training program that gives you the skills to work in a given field. The move could lead to more locally-sourced tech workers, not to mention more incentives for companies to open US factories. There’s no telling whether or not the idea would work as well as planned, and it’s bound to face stiff opposition from Congress, but it’s certainly a bold concept.
BREAKING: Watch President Obama announce his #FreeCommunityCollege proposal http://t.co/8YTKdPKa7U https://t.co/vtM3wGwEUd
– The White House (@WhiteHouse) January 8, 2015
Filed under: Internet, Facebook
Source: White House (Twitter), (Facebook), White House Blog
Laying out the challenges ahead for Oculus VR as it creates the consumer Rift
“As always, the consumer Rift is in progress and we’re making great progress,” says Oculus VR Product VP Nate Mitchell. He told me that this week, but you could really pull versions of that response from any of the half dozen interviews we’ve done with Oculus VR in the past few years. It’s the elephant in the room that Oculus brings with it from trade show to trade show: When is this thing going to be a consumer product? There’s still no answer in January 2015, as of this year’s CES. Will there be an answer in 2015? Maybe! Your guess is as good as ours, but Mitchell offered us something slightly more optimistic:
“We’re on an awesome path to consumer VR and I do think that 2015 for better, for worse is gonna be a really big year for VR. Even at CES, we’re already seeing it. 2015 is gonna be a big year for VR, whether it’s from Oculus or otherwise, and we’re excited to be a part of it.”
So, uh, what? That’s not exactly an answer. I expect that at this point when speaking with Oculus reps, from Nate Mitchell to founder Palmer Luckey to CEO Brendan Iribe to CTO John Carmack. When they’re ready to announce the consumer version of Oculus Rift, they’ll do it.
That said, this summer marks three years since Oculus formed as a company, and, as much as we dig the latest prototype (Crescent Bay), we’d much prefer a home version. So, first, some good news: There are some pieces of the latest hardware that are pretty close to final. For one, the screen on Crescent Bay is “good enough for the [first version] of the Rift,” according to Mitchell. Here’s his full statement, qualifiers and all:
“I, personally, think that that resolution is high enough to be a consumer product for the beginning of the Oculus Rift. And, one thing we’ve said often, is anytime we show a feature prototype, it’s gonna be that good if not better. For me, I do think that’s good enough for the V1 of the Rift.”
Amazingly, the screen in Crescent Bay is actually less high-res than what’s currently offered with Gear VR — the VR headset that Oculus collaborated with Samsung on, powered by the Note 4 (and its gorgeous Quad HD screen). And you can tell; I could tell, anyway, and I’m no videophile. What’s in Crescent Bay isn’t the same Note 3 screen that an older Oculus Rift dev kit used, but a “custom” screen. “Those are custom screens. They are not Note 3 screens,” Mitchell said. “But we can’t go into it more than that.” Rest assured, those customs screens are made by Samsung, regardless of what Oculus is admitting.
Beyond the screen, there are some functions that Mitchell says are critical to consumer VR. Most importantly — beyond a passthrough camera so that users don’t have to remove the headset to interact with actual reality — is custom input. Think: control. As anyone who’s used VR can attest, the next step after buying into the medium is wanting proper interaction. You want to reach out and grab the world. To feel it, to interact with it — that’s actual immersion.
In this respect, VR is nowhere.
“Input is still one of the critical missing pieces, and we don’t have that much to announce today. But what I can say is it’s something that we are super dedicated to tackling,” Mitchell says. How dedicated? Oculus VR straight up bought two companies that could help: Carbon Design (the design team behind the Xbox 360 gamepad and original Kinect) and Nimble VR (the folks bringing hands into VR).
To date, we’ve seen zero input solutions for VR that are worth anything. Traditional gamepad/mouse and keyboard input works, but does nothing to help with immersion. Luckey echoed that sentiment during our stage interview this week. You can watch that right here if you missed it live:
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Beyond input, we’ve already experienced a taste of the other piece required for good consumer VR: an operating system that enables the acquisition and viewing of content (be it games or whatever else).
That taste came in the form of Oculus Home — the OS built into Gear VR that Mitchell says is, “designed to be portable.” He doesn’t mean “portable” like the mobile-powered Gear VR, but “port-able” as in “can be easily moved from one platform to another.” As in, “Can be easily moved from Gear VR to Oculus Rift and anywhere else.”
As for the rest, there’s not much else left in the way. So, is this the year that Oculus VR finally unveils a consumer version of its headset? “VR is basically here, the hardware, whether it’s the comfort and presence on PC or the portability and flexibility and quality of the mobile experience,” says Mitchell. So, uh, maybe? Let’s hope.
Samsung just added a 360-degree video store to its VR headset
Since launch in early December, the virtual reality headset released by Samsung and Oculus VR has received a steady drip of new content. Each Tuesday, a handful of new apps launches for Gear VR — new games (Temple Run!), new experiences (a Paul McCartney performance!). Thus far, nothing’s been spectacular enough to remark about; the overall selection of content, gaming or otherwise, is still on the light side. This week changes that, with the release of “Milk VR.”
The free app from Samsung contains a healthy dose of new 360-degree video content, in both streaming and downloadable format. The actual selection of videos is available on a Samsung website of the same name, right here. It’s not exactly a flood of videos, but it’s a hell of a lot more than the small sample packed in at launch.
What’s most interesting about the app is how it works: you slide your finger forward or backward on Gear VR’s touchpad, always keeping your finger attached to the headset. The video choices swirl around you on a cycle, and you can look up to select specific categories (“Fresh”, “Trending”, “Planet VR”, etc.). I’d love to point you to a demo, but there’s still no way to capture footage inside of Gear VR (not that we’ve figured out, anyway). That said, if you’ve got a Gear VR headset and the required Note 4 smartphone, downloading the (free, small) Milk VR app is a no-brainer. You’ll be jumping out of a plane in no time!
Filed under: Cellphones, Gaming, Peripherals, Wearables, Software, Mobile, Samsung, Facebook
Facebook Groups launches in the Play Store, keeping members together forever
One of the more underrated features that Facebook has is Groups. It is a way to share content directly with the people that matter most (and are members of the same group). The social network has launched an application for Groups that is currently available in the Play Store. The Facebook Groups app greets users with their most frequently used groups. Of course, they can create their own with select people. Then control which have the ability to send notifications. Just like any social app, Facebook Groups has a Discover tab. It displays groups that may be appealing to a user.
If you would rather have everything in one place, continue using the primary Facebook app. There are no plans to pull Groups support from it.
Hit the break for the gallery and download links.
Source: Facebook
Come comment on this article: Facebook Groups launches in the Play Store, keeping members together forever
Facebook wants to handle your workplace chats
Your office may try to keep you off Facebook right now, but you may have a genuinely work-related reason to hop on that social network in the near future. Sources for the Financial Times understand that the internet giant is developing “Facebook at Work,” a professional take on its familiar formula. It’ll reportedly look like the regular page, but will focus on chatting with coworkers, connecting with business partners and collaborating on documents. On the surface, it sounds like a cross between Facebook, LinkedIn and Google Drive.
The company isn’t commenting on the apparent leak, but you might not have to wait long to try it out. Facebook employees have reportedly been using the work-focused site for a while, and a handful of outside companies are now giving it a try. There’s no telling whether or not the service will displace the likes of LinkedIn, assuming the leak is accurate to begin with. Nonetheless, it’s easy to see the appeal of a work-safe Facebook that omits all the iffy photos and status updates that you’d rather not share with your colleagues.
[Image credit: AP Photo/Jeff Chiu]
Filed under: Internet, Facebook
Source: Financial Times
Facebook will filter out excessively promotional Page posts in 2015
Facebook is thankfully taking more steps to show fewer spammy posts on your News Feed — and we’re not talking about traditional web ads. We’re talking about overly promotional status updates posted by Page accounts, like the ones you can see after the break. The social network promised to bury “like-bait” posts (of the “1 Like = 1 Prayer” type) underneath more relevant content earlier this year, and now it’s doing the same thing to Page statuses that fall under any of these criteria:
- Posts that solely push people to buy a product or install an app
- Posts that push people to enter promotions and sweepstakes with no real context
- Posts that reuse the exact same content from ads
Facebook’s devs have decided push through with this change, after a survey asking users how the News Feed can be improved revealed that people (as you’d expect) want to see more of their friends’ status updates. Non-spammy businesses and individual Pages don’t have anything to worry about, though — they will not be affected when the refreshed News Feed algorithm takes effect in January 2015.
[Image credit: Shutterstock]
Source: Facebook
[GUIDE] How to get rid of the Facebook built-in browser
If you’re anything like me (and by that I mean you use Facebook), you will have noticed that the Facebook Android app now utilizes a Facebook built-in browser that opens all links while you’re surfing your newsfeed. While that might seem like a good innovation if you want to read that article right there and then, but the way I use Facebook, it’s ruined my mojo.
A big reason for this is the fact I use Link Bubble (if you haven’t heard about Link Bubble before, you should really look into it). In essence, the app opens links I click on in Facebook and opens them in a bubble that sits on the side of the screen, opening the webpage in the background while I continue to surf Facebook unimpeded. As you can probably see, this new built-in browser forces me to stop, wait while the webpage loads, and read it before I move on. Sure this might seem mundane for some of you, but those of you who like to skim through things and read interest webpages and tidbits later will understand where I’m coming from. As such, I thought I’d just mention the method by which I disabled this function, just in case anybody out there is suffering like I am.
First of all you will need to get to your settings – where exactly the settings button is will depend on what device you have, but if you have a physical/capacitive menu button, chances are that the settings option will pop up when you press that.
Once in the settings menu, you’ll notice a setting labelled “Always open links with external browser” (see screenshot above) which will be unticked by default. Tick this and Facebook will go back to its old behaviour, opening links in whatever external app you typically open links in.
Sure, it’s not the most riveting topic (or a particularly good guide), but it made a world of difference to me, and hopefully someone out there will be relieved to find this solution as well.
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The post [GUIDE] How to get rid of the Facebook built-in browser appeared first on AndroidSPIN.
Facebook thought about featuring games in Messenger
Love it or hate it, you have to use Facebook Messenger if you’re to chat privately with your friends on the social network. As we know it, the application features a minimalist design and very straight-to-the-point functionality. That’s all great, of course — but, for better or worse, it could have been so much different. TechCrunch reports that Facebook quietly flirted with the idea of featuring games in the Messenger app, going as far as quietly testing this out and, eventually, deciding against it. Instead, Facebook’s EMEA Director of Platform Partnerships, Julien Codorniou, says the company opted for other ways to cash-in on the site’s gaming ecosystem, like letting developers take full advantage of its mobile advertising platform. More specifically, through app install ads.
Was it a good decision? We’ll never know. But what do you think?
Filed under: Gaming, Internet, Software, Mobile, Facebook
Source: TechCrunch
At long last, you can fix all your Instagram caption flubs
We’ve seen too many clever quips on Instagram marred by a typo or a malformed emoticon – if you’ve fouled up a caption or eight in your time, you’d better download Instagram’s latest update. At long last, those of you whose fingers move fasters than your eyes can go back an edit your captions so as to look as smart as you always thought you were. The rest of the update consists of minor tweaks to how you discover new Instaphotographers to follow: you’ll be able to dig around in a new People tab for new sources of content (as opposed to just sifting through a stream of overly filtered photos), while the app’s search box now returns suggestions for users and hashtags as you’re pecking them out. The update has already started to hit the Facebook subsidiary’s iOS and Android apps today, which means that Windows Phone owners can probably expect to fix their flubs some time after the sun swells up into a red giant and engulfs the inner half of the solar system.
Filed under: Mobile
Source: Instagram Blog
Facebook plans to dominate Russia’s social networks through apps
While Facebook is effectively the default social network in many countries, that’s not true in Russia — it frequently plays second fiddle to local service VKontakte and old-school LiveJournal blogs. The company thinks it knows how to crack this nut, however: apps. The internet giant tells Business Insider that it’s persuading Russian developers to write games and other web-based titles that might lure people away. It’s hoping that the potential of reaching a wider audience will be hard to resist. You may please Muscovites by producing for VKontakte, but you could capture a global audience through a smash hit on Facebook.
Whether or not the strategy works is up in the air. Russia is fond of homegrown technology, and that’s reinforced by a government that makes life difficult for foreign companies. However, Facebook is optimistic. It notes that Eastern Europe is home to very successful, internationally-minded developers like Wargaming; it wouldn’t be a big stretch to imagine the next Candy Crush Saga emerging from a St. Petersburg startup. If nothing else, it’s clear that the Mark Zuckerberg and crew won’t settle for anything less than first place.
[Image credit: AP Photo/Sergey Ponomarev]
Filed under: Internet, Facebook
Source: Business Insider
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