Author: Josh Wolford

Like Google, Yahoo, and most other search engines, Bing offers to autocomplete queries in their search box. While Google calls this feature “autocomplete,” Bing calls it “search suggestions.”

Well, it looks like Bing is suggesting that you search for some pretty disturbing stuff.

I was pointed in the right direction thanks to a reddit post. “Why don’t you have a seat over there, Bing,” it read, referencing Dateline NBC host Chris Hansen’s famous line on the show To Catch a Predator.

Ok, I’ll bite. Here’s what Bing’s search suggestions suggest:

Say what? It appears that Bing is suggesting that I search for “sex games for kids,” and “sex games for kids in bed” and “sex games online for children.” Hm, ok then.

Digging a little deeper with the questionable queries produced similar results. For instance, here’s what Bing suggests when you search for “sex kids”:

And here’s a Bing search for “sex child…”:

Even worse, here are Bing’s suggestions for what I’m sure is one of their (and any search engine’s) most popular single-word queries, “sex”:

Damnit, Bing.

Also, changing your SafeSearch settings to strict does nothing to eliminate these results. When you think about it, it would probably look even worse for Bing if it did, because that would indicate that Bing felt that a search suggestion like “sex games for kids in bed” was an appropriate suggestion for a moderate level SafeSearch.

“Still seeing inappropriate content? SafeSearch uses advanced technology to filter adult content, but it won’t catch everything. If SafeSearch is set to Strict or Moderate and you’re seeing adult content, tell us about it so we can filter it in the future,” says Bing.

But this isn’t a SafeSearch problem, this is a search suggestions problem. You can turn search suggestions off in your settings, but by default they are on. That means that the average person that pulls up bing.com and searches for “sex g…” sees these questionable suggestions.

Now, I guess the next big question is whether or not Bing has a responsibility to filter out these search suggestions.

On one hand you could make the argument that Bing doesn’t have to manually edit which search suggestions it gives for particular queries. The suggestions are clearly based upon popular and recent searches from the Bing community – and if that’s what they’re searching for then hey – let it be.

On the other hand, Google limits its autocomplete results. Here’s what you’ll see when you search “sex games” on Google:

And here’s what you see when you search “sex kid”:

As you know, Google also censors other questionable searches. They won’t give you suggestions for sexual terms like “boobs” or “pussy,” and they won’t even display curse words like “fuck” or “shit” in autocomplete results.

They also censor any search that has to do with the illegal downloading of copyright protected content. For instance, “game of thrones torrent” won’t autocomplete.

Over on Bing, it’s a totally different story:

Bing doesn’t really filter any of the types of searches that Google does. Last year, we pointed out that Bing was suggesting painless ways to kill yourself while Google was displaying the suicide prevention hotline.So, if they’re going with a true hands-off approach to any sort of search suggestion censoring, what’s different about queries about sex games for kids?

Well, it’s the “c’mon, dude” argument I guess. As in, Bing…c’mon dude. It doesn’t help that instead of “autocomplete,” Bing’s version of the technology is called “search suggestions.” So, when you think about it, Bing is suggesting that you search for “sex kids movies” and “sex games with kids in bed.”

C’mon, dude.

UPDATE:

As you know, Facebook partners with Bing for their search results. And you can find the same questionable suggestions inside Graph Search results:

Is Facebook working with Apple and Microsoft to bring Facebook Home to additional platforms?

Maybe, maybe not, according to conflicting reports.

Bloomberg recently spoke with product director Adam Mosseri, who stated that Facebook was in talks with both Apple and Microsoft.

“We’ve shown them what we’ve built and we’re just in an ongoing conversation,” Mosseri said.

He went on to say that nothing was finalized, but that they were conducting talks.

But The Next Web calls that report into question. According to a source familiar with the talks, Facebook is not really in talk with either Apple or Microsoft. “No discussion have taken place to bring Home to those platforms,” they say.

It’s not as though Facebook and Apple have a bad relationship or anything – you may recall that your iOS 6 has deep Facebook integration. CEO Mark Zuckerberg has said that the two have a good relationship. On the topic of Home, he previously said that…

“We’d love to offer this on iPhone, and we just can’t today, and we will work with Apple to do the best experience that we can within what they want.”

Even if Facebook were to offer Home on iOS, it may not even look like the Home that they just launched on Android. In fact, there’s no guarantee that it would even be called “Facebook Home.”

“It may or may not be Home,” Mosseri told Bloomberg. “We could also just bring some of the design values to the iOS app. That might be how it ends up. Or we could build just the lock screen. Maybe then it’s not called Home, it’s called something else.”

Facebook launched Home on Android last Friday, and it has received mixed reviews on the Google Play Store. Since launch, nearly half the 4,000+ user reviews for Facebook Home award the app 1 star.

A Tokyo District Court has ruled that Google must alter its autocomplete results to make sure they don’t suggest criminal activity when users search for a specific man’s name.

This case began in March of 2012 when a Japanese court demanded that Google delete certain search terms inside their autocomplete function – ones that related to a specific man whose identity is still being witheld. The man claimed that when his name was searched, suggestions popped up linking him to criminal activity of which he was innocent. Clicking through to the links provided led user to websites filled with further defamation.

Not only did the plaintiff allege that Google’s autocomplete results caused him pain and personal anguish, but they also contributed to him losing his job and being unable to procure another.

Now, the court has ruled that Google must alter their results in the case of this anonymous man. They also ordered that Google pay 300,000 yen ($3,100) for the man’s pain and suffering – but not the job loss as he couldn’t prove that the two were definitely linked.

Well, it’s another day, another foreign court making a ruling on Google autocomplete. We’ve seen plenty of this in the past. Back in January of 2012, Google chose to pay a fine issued by a French court over the company’s autocomplete results. A local insurance company complained that Google autocomplete associated their name with the term “esroc,” roughly translating to mean “crook” or “swindler.”

Later in the year, Google made another deal in a French case, this time involving autocomplete results that labeled certain high-profile celebrities and politicians as “Jewish.” The complaint was originally filed by French anti-racism groups.

Google has also been in trouble in Germany and Italy over their autocomplete results.

Of course, Google’s autocomplete results stem from an algorithm that is based on prior searches. Google does not manually select which terms pop up when you type in any query.

“Autocomplete is a feature of Google search that offers predicted searches to help you more quickly find what you’re looking for. These searches are produced by a number of factors including the popularity of search terms. Google does not determine these terms manually–all of the queries shown in Autocomplete have been typed previously by other Google users,” says Google.

But that hasn’t stopped courts from ordering that Google manually intervene in certain circumstances.

Since Google Search isn’t rooted in Japan, Google isn’t required to follow this ruling – just like they weren’t required to follow the previous injunction the court issued in the case (and they didn’t). The ruling, however, can be appealed.

Are you snapping ephemeral photos with the Snapchat app? If not, you may be quickly becoming the minority.

Apparently, Snapchat is processing more photos daily than Instagram. And not just more – nearly four times as many.

The figure was announced today by Snapchat founder Evan Spiegel at the D: Dive Into Mobile conference put on by All Things D.

According to Spiegel, Snapchat is moving upwards of 150 million photos across the network every day. If you compare that to another popular photo-sharing service like Instagram, you find that Snapchat is moving a significantly more amount of total photos. Instagram currently boasts 40 million photos taken per day.

Of course, Instagram and Snapchat are very different services. Instagram is about long-lasting photos, ones that can be liked, commented upon, and browsed in a social networking frame. Snapchat, on the other hand, is a lot more focused on person-to-person communication.

If you’re unfamiliar with Snapchat, the premise is quite simple – but rather ingenious. Users can send short photos or videos to other users – self-deleting photos or videos being the most important aspect. Users can designate exactly how long they want the photo or video to stay viewable, after which time it will disappear. The app even notifies the sender if the recipient tried to make the communication more than ephemeral by taking a screenshot.

When it first launched, Snapchat defended itself against allegations that it was simply an app for sexting. On its face, it does appear like the perfect sort of app to send sexts without the fear of permanence. And believe me, I’m sure that there is plenty of that going on. But with 150 million photos taken daily, it’s clear that Snapchat is more a serious player and less of a niche sexting app.

Earlier this year, it became clear that Facebook saw Snapchat as a competitor when they released their “Poke” app. To say that the Poke app is heavily inspired by Snapchat is putting it the best way possible.

Oh, and speaking of Facebook, they say that they see “more than 300 million photos uploaded every day.” By that figure, Snapchat is seeing nearly half of what Facebook sees every day. Now that’s incredible.

In the wake of the terrible attacks at the Boston Marathon on Monday, Funny or Die has decided to delay the release of their Steve Jobs biopic, iSteve, for a couple of days.

The film, a rare foray into feature-length content from Funny or Die, was originally supposed to debut on Monday, April 15th. Funny or Die has decided to delay it until Wednesday, April 17th.

On their site, you can find this banner announcing the decision, along with a link to donate to the Red Cross:

So, while you wait you can check out these posters from the film, and watch this trailer.

And you can donate to the Red Cross.

An 8-year prison sentence for a convicted child pornographer has been vacated and remanded for resentencing following a procedural error that involved the judge in the case going off on a completely unnecessary rant about Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg. The case is even odder when you understand that the crimes in question had absolutely nothing to do with Facebook.

56-year-old Laura Culver was sentenced on January 30th to 96 months in jail for producing child pornography. Back in 2001 and 2002, Culver collaborated with a man named Edgardo Sensi to film an 8-year-old girl engaged in various sexual acts. Pretty disgusting stuff. So, an 8-year prison sentence is not unreasonable, right?

Well no, but in this specific case the sentence is being thrown out. An appeals court has ruled that the judge’s actions during sentencing demand that the sentence be vacated and reworked.

While explaining Culver’s sentence, U.S. District Judge Warren W. Eginton reportedly went on some sort of unrelated Facebook-bashing tangent where he ended up blaming Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg for “hurting a lot of people.”

The records are sealed, but the appeals court, in its decision, paints a pretty clear picture of what the judge was ranting about.

In justifying its decision to impose a sentence of eight years instead of six, the district court referenced “Facebook, and things like it, and society has changed.” … The court speculated that the proliferation of Facebook would facilitate an increase in child pornography cases. The court said it hoped Mark Zuckerberg (who founded Facebook) was “enjoying all his money because…he’s going to hurt a lot of people….”

But Facebook had nothing to do with Culver’s case. In fact, the internet itself didn’t even play a factor in it.

The government argues that the district court was merely concerned about the extent to which various new technologies may facilitate child pornography, rather than Facebook specifically. In that sense, Facebook was a reference to the internet, using synecdoche. But the government does not explain (because it cannot) the role of new technology in this case. Culver did not use the internet to commit her crime, and it should not have played a predominant role in her sentencing.

The appeals court makes a point to say that the ruling in no way suggests that the 8-year sentence for Culver’s crimes is “substantively unreasonable.” In fact, it’s actually well under the recommended guidelines for such a crime.

“Still, that discretion should be exercised without the influence of procedural error.”

What a truly terrible, and odd case.

[via Techdirt]

YouTube has just released version 1.3 of their iOS app, and it finally brings live streaming to the mix.

Along with live streaming users can now enjoy their “My Subscriptions” feed on the Guide, which gives them access to the latest videos from all of the channels they follow.

Back in February, YouTube updated its iOS app, adding the “Send to TV” feature which lets users seamlessly connect their app with connected televisions. Today’s update allows users to queue up videos to play on TV.

Here’s the full list of updates with version 1.3:

• Quick access to new uploads from subscriptions via “My Subscriptions” feed on the Guide
• Access to Live streams
• Queue up videos to play on TV
• One Channel branding for video creator channels
• Stability and performance improvements

Streaming video is a growing aspect of the YouTube experience, and it’s great that its now available on your iOS mobile device. It’s kind of strange that YouTube unveiled this update just a day after streaming Coachella’s first weekend on the site (iOS users couldn’t stream it), but oh well. Look to the future.

A few weeks ago, YouTube announced that they were now serving over a billion unique users a month – an incredible milestone.

You can snag the update over at the App Store right now.

Nicholas Felton, a Facebook product designer who helped to create the Timeline, has announced that he is “moving on” from the company.

Felton, who began working on the new Facebook Timeline project in April of 2011, says that he’s proud of the projects he worked on and confident in the future products.

Fittingly, you can find his entire message posted on his Timeline:

On April 19, 2011 I walked into the Palo Alto Facebook office and began contributing to the timeline project. Two years, many late nights and a few launch celebrations later I will be moving on.

The opportunity to help mold a service of such importance to so many people has been a high point in my professional career. I’m extremely proud of the projects I worked on, grateful to the teams that built them and confident in the products to come. – feeling nostalgic at Facebook HQ.

Felton originally studied graphic design at the Rhode Island School of Design and credits himself as the founder of Daytum.com. He says in a comment on that post that he will be returning to New York city, but no further info on his plans.

After announcing Timeline at their f8 conference in the Fall of 2011, Facebook began rolling it out, very slowly, in December of the same year. Like many new Facebook products, Timeline was initially met with a lot of negative feedback – both from people concerned about privacy and some who simply didn’t like the design. Over the past year or so, Facebook has made small tweaks to Timeline and users have begun to accept it. Last month, Facebook announced a major refresh of Timeline, bringing a one-column look that puts more focus on interests. That update is still slowly rolling out to all users.

[h/t Mashable]

What did you and your friends do this weekend? These guys successfully performed a 30-person backflip, on skis.

The world record attempt took place in Quebec, Canada. Check it out below (this was their second attempt):

According to the reddit poster, who says that they’re the second from the right in the video, they plan on getting Guinness involved:

“I wasn’t in charge of the whole thing, but I know that they want to try it again more officially next year. We were a bit last minute this year. But Guinness or not, I’m still pretty stoked about how well it worked!” they say.

World champion and future Olympic participant Mikael Kingsbury was a part of the jump, and tweeted about it:

We bet the world record !! 30 back flip hand in hand! Thanks to Mont St-Sauveur!

— Mikael Kingsbury (@MikaelKingsbury) April 14, 2013

[reddit, image via]

A Philadelphia man is being held on $1 million bond after stabbing his wife in the face and neck over a Facebook like.

49-year-old Thomas Troy Young admitted to stabbing his 33-year-old wife Carla Brown back in March over her Facebook actions. Reportedly, Young stabbed Brown because he was angry that she had liked someone else’s post on the site.

According to court records, Young and Brown were fighting in their bedroom on the night of March 10th. Later, after Young had left the house, Brown’s daughter found her in the locked room lying on the floor, covered in blood.

Brown had multiple stab wounds to her face, neck, back, and hand. She also suffered a punctured lung as a result of the attack.

Records indicate that Young also tried to strangle her with a plastic warm-up suit, and threatened to kill her children if she attempted to get help.

“If he was going to jail for one murder it didn’t matter to him if it was three or more,” Young reportedly said to Brown.

Young, who has had assault charges filed on him in the past, is scheduled for trial on May 22nd.

Sadly, this isn’t even close to the first time that we’ve seen domestic altercations linked to something ridiculous involving Facebook. In 2011, a Texas man was charged with battery after he allegedly punched his wife in the face for failing to like one of his Facebook statuses. Last year, a drunk guy called 911 on his wife after she refused to allow him to browse Facebook in peace. Also, you probably remember the guy who assaulted his girlfriend after seeing a photo of an unfamiliar man on her Facebook Timeline. That man turned out to be former Presidential candidate Mitt Romney.

[Philly Burbs via Daily Dot]

YouTube is celebrating the 57th anniversary of the VCR with a fun new clickable inside the YouTube player.

It’s called “tape mode,” and it turns the video you’re watching into an old, crappy-looking VHS video.

You’ll notice a little VHS icon on the bottom of the player, right next to the settings and cc icons. This tape mode is only appearing on select videos, so you may have to search around to find one. Or, you could watch this latest Facebook Home ad in tape mode.

“Not too long ago, the video tape was the media of choice for living rooms around the world. In celebration of the 57th birthday of the first commercial video cassette recorder, check out a fun VHS mode for the YouTube player to relive the magic feel of vintage video tapes. On select videos, you’ll find a VHS button in the bottom right of the player–just click to turn back the clock and enjoy the static and fuzzy motion of the VHS era,” says YouTube.

And any time you pause or skip ahead in the video, you’ll see this familiar sight:

Cute, YouTube. Hopefully, tape mode not only expands to more videos, but also sticks around for a while. It’s a nice hit of nostalgia on a Monday afternoon. Now, excuse me while I go find my sweet Land Before Time VHS collection.

Facebook, who is always fighting an uphill battle to when it comes to privacy and users’ trust, has just announced a joint initiative with the National Association of Attorneys General that they say will “provide teens and their parents with tools and tips to manage their privacy and visibility both on Facebook and more broadly on the Internet.”

The consumer safety education initiative will see Facebook and the NAAG partner for a series of instructional videos and other privacy tips.

For instance, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg will be featured in 19 different state-specific PSAs. She will stand alongside 19 state Attorneys General in the videos, which will be released on Tuesday.

“At Facebook, we work hard to make sure people understand how to control their information and stay safe online. We’re always looking for new partners in that endeavor – that’s why we’re thrilled to collaborate with the National Association of Attorneys General,” said Sandberg.

The privacy education initiative will also consists of a “What you Can Do to Control Your Information” video that will look to provide basic tips on Facebook privacy, bully prevention, and internet safety in general. Facebook will also provide a new privacy tip sheet. At of this info will be posted on Facebook’s Safety page, as well as the official websites and pages of all the Attorneys General.

“Teenagers and adults should know there are tools to help protect their online privacy when they go on Facebook and other digital platforms,” Gansler said. “We hope this campaign will encourage consumers to closely manage their privacy and these tools and tips will help provide a safer online experience. Of course, attorneys general will continue to actively protect consumers’ online privacy as well,” said NAAG President and Maryland AG Douglas Gansler.

Well the reviews are in for Facebook’s OS-lite “app family” Android takeover, Home, and it’s not looking great – to say the least.

Since hitting the Google Play store on Friday, nearly 4,000 users reviews have been logged (3.955). And out of those nearly 4,000 reviews, nearly half of them have given the app group a 1-star rating.

Just over 47%, actually. There are nearly three times as many 1-star ratings as 5-star ratings.

Let’s take a look at some of the 1-star reviews, shall we?

Not an intuitive app. Made my phone so frustratingly complicated to use that I uninstalled after just four or five hours. Unless major changes are made including an easy way to get to my home screen I will not reinstall.

Cool way to use facebook, but with no support for my other widgets, it limits my phone. If I wanted a single company to take over my homescreen appearance, I could use an iphone.

This home app is garbage! Sucks your battery down. Doesn’t let other widgets run. And, to much stuff from people’s profile in your face 24/7.

What the hell is facebook home doing? It’s a homescreen that invades your phone. There s no way at all to access your widgets…can’t see weather, time, nothing…what a big dud!

So, it looks like the major complaints are that it’s invasive, doesn’t play well with others, and drains battery. To be fair, there are plenty of good and even great reviews for Facebook Home – but the negative outweighs the positive in a big way.

As of right now, the average rating is a lackluster 2.4 out of 5.

The way the Google Play operates, reviews are only accepted by people wo have actually downloaded the app in question. So we can assume that the majority of the nearly 1,900 1-star reviews are from people who are legitimately unimpressed with the app. By comparison, the basic Facebook app has a 3.6 average rating, Facebook Messenger sports a 4.4 average rating, and Facebook Pages Manager has a 3.8 average rating. So far, Facebook Home is the bad apple of the group.

Facebook Home, the company’s new OS-lite “app family” that takes over your Android device and turns the homescreen into a Facebook news feed, launched this past Friday. Now you can download the app collection from Google Play, free, on a select number of Android devices.

When Facebook first announced Home, they launched a quirky little ad featuring some plane antics. Now, Facebook has unveiled the second Facebook Home ad in this style, made by the people at Wieden+Kennedy. This ad is called “Dinner”:

Facebook also put out this semi-ad called “Launch Day.” It stars Zuckerberg, whose pep talk is flooded with events from on engineer’s news feed. Both of these ads stick with the Facebook Home brings your Facebook life everywhere theme. Check it out:

Today, Google is honoring Leonhard Euler, the Swiss mathematician known for his prolific works in many mathematical fields, including calculus and many areas of physics.

Euler is known for introducing most modern mathematical terminology and notation.

Euler was born on April 15th, 1707 in Basel, Switzerland to a pastor and a pastor’s daughter. In his early life, Euler studied under famed mathematician Johann Bernoulli and entered the University of Basel at the age of 13. He received his Master of Philosophy just three years later after a dissertation on Descartes and Newton.

He spent most of his adult life in St. Petersburg, Russia and in Berlin, Prussia. In St. Petersburg, Euler served a position in the Imperial Russian Academy of Sciences’ mathematics department. He stayed in St. Petersburg from 1727 to 1741, when he left for Berlin to take up a post offered by Frederick the Great of Prussia. There is where Euler published his most important work: The Introductio in analysin infinitorum (1748), which was about mathematical functions, and the Institutiones calculi differentialis (1755) on differential calculus.

Euler is considered the most important mathematician of his era and one of the most important mathematicians of all time. He worked in nearly every field of mathematics, including algebra, geometry, calculus,and number theory. He also worked in some areas of physics.

Euler is the only man to have two mathematical numbers named after him. “Euler’s Number” in calculus (e), and the Euler-Mascheroni Constant (γ).

Euler was also known for his work in fluid dynamics, mechanics, and astronomy, one of the most prolific mathematicians of all time, Euler’s collected works fill dozens of volumes.

As you may know, Funny or Die is debuting their own Steve Jobs biopic next week. It’s called iSteve, and will hit the interwebs on April 15th. Funny or Die producer Allison Hord sat down with Bloomberg TV to discuss the project.

In that interview, we learn that the 72-minute-long film was written in 3 days and shot in 5. Talk about production speed that Steve Jobs could be proud of.

In the interview, Hord talks about the genesis of the project – basically the staff was joking about how many Steve Jobs biopics Hollywood was churning out and someone suggested that Funny or Die just make their own feature, as a joke.

“At a certain point, you can only laugh at your own jokes so much before, as a company, you sort of have to call your own bluff and do it,” says Hord.

Hord says that Funny or Die just wanted to do the first Steve Jobs movie, and in that they have succeeded.

Check out the interview for some more info on the film, including the fact that Justin Long (who plays Jobs) learned the 81-page script in just a few days.

And here’s the trailer:

This new ad from Kmart is guaranteed to give you the giggles. Sure, it’s the 8-year-old kid who just farted in church giggles, but it’s ok to give in to your immaturity once in a while, right?

Kmart is advertising that you can ship things right from the store. That means you can ship your pants. While standing in Kmart. So many people have shipped their pants standing in Kmart, that they all join in to make it known.

YES! I SHIP MY PANTS JUST NOW!

I think you can see where this is going.

Not only did Kmart create one of the best ads of 2013 so far, but they also were able to create a ton of social media buzz with the Twitter hashtag #shipmypants

Well played, Kmart.

Very proud to say I sleep with the man who came up with the idea for this Kmart ad #IMarriedAnAdGuy #shipmypants m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=I03U…

— Jen Fernicola Ronay (@FernRonay) April 11, 2013

Michigan lawmakers are looking to raise their state’s minimum wage as debate heats up across the country over how the current rate and any changes to it would affect workers.

The proposed bill looks to set the new minimum wage to $10 an hour, a change that would be gradually enacted over the next three years.

The bill comes from Democratic representatives, specifically Reps. John Switalksi of Warren and Rashida Tlaib of Detroit. According to them, raising the minimum wage would would give Michigan workers “a chance at a better life.”

According to the AP, past measures to raise the minimum wage in the state have seen opposition from Republicans, who currently control the legislature.

The state of Michigan’s minimum wage is currently $7.40 an hour for all employers of 2 or more employees. Michigan workers are given overtime for hours exceeding 40 in one week.

The federal minimum wage sits at $7.25 an hour. 22 states have minmum wage laws the same as the federal wage, and 19 states have minimum wages higher than $7.25. 4 states currently have minimum wages that are less than the federal rate and 5 states currently have no minimum wage laws on the books.

Recently, Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren said that the minimum wage would currently sit at $22 minimumwif it had kept up with worker productivity. President Obama has proposed raising the federal minimum wage to $9 an hour.

Facebook Home, Facebook’s attempt to make your Android homescreen all about Facebook, is now live in the Google Play Store.

As of right now, you can only download Facebook Home if you have one of these four Android devices: HTC One X, HTC One X+, the Samsung Galaxy S III or the Samsung Galaxy Note II. In the future, the HTC One and the Samsung Galaxy S4 will also allow for Facebook Home.

And then, of course, there’s the HTC First – the first phone to launch with Facebook Home ready to go. Don’t want to call it a “Facebook Phone” – then don’t. But it’s definitely the first Facebook centric phone on the market. It also hits the shelves today.

“Facebook Home is the mobile experience that puts your friends at the heart of your phone. From the moment you turn it on, you see a steady stream of friends’ posts and photos on your home screen. Upfront notifications and quick access to your essentials mean you’ll never miss a moment. And when you download Facebook Messenger, you can keep chatting with friends when you’re using other apps,” says Facebook.

And about those chat heads that let you “keep chatting with friends when you’re using other apps.” If you have an Android phone, want to download Facebook Home, but alas, your Android phone isn’t supported – all is not lost. Today, ahead of the Facebook Home launch, Facebook added chat heads as a part of the Facebook Messenger app for Android. Now you can make use of/be incredibly annoyed by chat heads no matter which Android device you own, depending on how you look at it.

It turns out, reports that Twitter was launching their new music discovery service Twitter Music this weekend were true, and also not true.

Twitter Music is available – but only for a handful of top influencers. We noted earlier that Ryan Seacrest was already tweeting about it – and now it’s clear why. Twitter is only letting a small number of celebs and other big Twitter personalities “test” the new app for now. And of course “test” means “tweet about and generate buzz for,” as Mr. Seacrest’s involvement would indicate.

Peter Kafka at All Things D reports that us common folk aren’t going to be able to get a look at Twitter Music until sometime next week. Bummer.

What we know about Twitter Music so far is that it’s a music discovery app that suggests music based on a number of signals – including who you follow. Users of Twitter Music will be able to stream songs via Soundcloud and iTunes – but no full-streaming service partners like Spotify are expected at launch. Also included in the package is a global trend tracker, which allows Twitter Music users to know what’s popular and playing in real time.

For now, we just have a music.twitter.com site that teases the service, and has a Twitter sign-in button. But it doesn’t function yet.

playing with @twitter‘s new music app (yes it’s real!)…there’s a serious dance party happening at idol right now

— Ryan Seacrest (@RyanSeacrest) April 11, 2013

Expect more of this^ over the next few days.