Social Networking

Laptops, tablets, smartphones ... there are plenty of options out there when it comes to managing the constant stream of information we find ourselves faced with - here's another. Feedair is a personalized news tracker that fits in the palm of your hand and uses your smartphone as a controller (iPhone and Android apps are available) to push information via WiFi to the simple scrolling LED readout on the device. Read More

Death is a subject that comes with a lot of open questions: How and when will I go? How will my loved ones cope? What will happen to my Facebook page? Okay, that last one might not be high on your "To Do" list, but it is the easiest one to take care of with the "If I Die" Facebook app, which lets you record a video or text message that is posted to your wall once you've passed on. Read More

When I was younger and cared a lot more about being “cool,” I would sometimes wear T-shirts with the names of my favorite rock bands on them. While this was partly just to show off my supposed musical enlightenment to the world, it was also in hopes that some like-minded person (preferably female and attractive) would see it and strike up a friendship with me. Well, magnetU is sort of like a high-tech band T-shirt. The wearable radio frequency device wirelessly transmits your personality profile to the world as you roam the streets, ever on the lookout for another magnetU transmitting a compatible profile from a nearby person. Should that occur, both devices will alert their owners that a potential social match is in the vicinity. Read More

We've been keeping one eye on aspirational social network Diaspora since its inception, and now that it's rolling out the invitations ahead of its forthcoming Beta, and having apparently addressed the security issues of the past, we took the Alpha for a spin. The first thing that strikes you is just how much the user interface resembles that of Google+, from its three-column layout, down to the specific content of those columns and more besides. But given the gradual rollout of the Diaspora Alpha it may not be immediately clear to new users just who is mimicking whom. Read More

The team at Floxx Media Group are attempting the unenviable task of trying to crack into the social media market. Recently named in the Real Business Future 50, the young and ambitious company from London's Silicon Roundabout have two apps in the market, its namesake application - Floxx (aka the new FitFinder) and the more recently released MapChat. Does Floxx Media Group have what it takes to crack the seeming impervious social media market held so dominantly by Facebook and the fresh competition of heavyweight Google? Here's a look at what the Group has to offer. Read More

Facial recognition software, social networking and cloud computing ... they're all technological advances that alone have thrown up questions regarding privacy. According to a recent Carnegie Mellon University study, however, the three technologies can be combined to learn peoples' identities and other personal information about them, starting with just a photograph of their face. Read More

As expected, Facebook has announced Skype-powered video calling for its users, who now number more than 750 million according to the company. The new feature was unveiled by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Skype CEO Tony Bates at a news conference at Facebook HQ on Wednesday where Facebook engineer Philip Su provided a walkthrough of the application. The social networking giant also launched a new chat sidebar and what Su says is one of the site's most requested features in multi-person chat. Read More

Anyone inspired the often hilarious adventures of Antoine de Maximy but looking for a somewhat lighter and less cumbersome video camera rig may be interested in the launch of a new version of the Looxcie always-on wearable cam. Version 2 is 20 percent lighter than the original wearable, always on video cam and has twice as much onboard storage. Companion apps now offer a choice of capture quality options and the new Looxcie 2 comes with four adjustable earbuds and two earloops. Read More

OEM/ODM specialist Dayton Industrial is set to commence volume production of a low energy Bluetooth 4.0 heart-rate chest belt using Nordic Semiconductor's new µBlue nRF8001 chip. That might not seem all that ground breaking at first glance, but it’s a significant event likely to kickstart a whole new genre of health and fitness related smartphone apps which use the wireless heart-rate (HR) belt to monitor, display and analyse heart rate data. Indeed, I can see a whole new and exciting range of training apps which use social networking to support and share one's progress. Read More