Facebook | Pixr8 News

Facebook fights for free Internet in India, global test-case

1Jan By No Comments

News

Facebook fights for free Internet in India, global test-case

Reuters: India has become a battleground over the right to unrestricted Internet access, with local tech start-ups joining the front line against Facebook Inc founder Mark Zuckerberg and his plan to roll out free Internet to the country's masses. The Indian government has ordered Facebook's Free Basics plan to be put on hold while it decides what to do. The program, launched in around three dozen developing countries, offers pared-down web services on mobile phones, along with access to Facebook's own social network and messaging services, without charge. But critics say the program, launched 10 months ago in India in collaboration with operator Reliance Communications, violates principles of net neutrality, the concept that all websites on the internet are treated equally. It wou...

Facebook’s Free Basics service suspended in Egypt

31Dec By No Comments

News

Facebook’s Free Basics service suspended in Egypt

Reuters: A Facebook-sponsored service that offers limited free Internet access was suspended in Egypt on Wednesday after a permit required from the government was not renewed, an official from the Telecommunications Ministry told Reuters. Facebook's Free Basics service, which aims to provide free access to Facebook and some partner websites in developing countries, was launched in Egypt two months ago by the mobile carrier Etisalat ETEL.AD. The official, who declined to be named, said Etisalat had only been granted a permit to offer the service for two months and that, when it expired on Wednesday, the service was suspended. The suspension was not related to security concerns, the official said. Etisalat said only that it would release a statement on Thursday. Social media w...

Zuckerberg makes renewed pitch for Free Basics service

28Dec By PriyankaNo Comments

News

Zuckerberg makes renewed pitch for Free Basics service

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg on Monday made renewed pitch for its controversial Free Basics Internet service in yet another marketing blitz saying it protects net neutrality. Facebook's proposed Free Basics plan allows customers to avail of services like education, health care and employment listings through apps specially designed for this platform on their phones without a data plan but does not allow access to many services such as YouTube, Gmail, Google or Twitter. Zuckerberg appeared on a video to personally promote Free Basics and also wrote a personal appeal in one of the leading newspapers. While Free Basics allows users to access a small number of Web services without charge, it has been criticised by some for alleged violation of the principle of net neutrality, a co...

Facebook Bans 175-Year-Old Pub Over 'Offensive' Name: Report

28Dec By PriyankaNo Comments

News

Facebook Bans 175-Year-Old Pub Over 'Offensive' Name: Report

The owners say they’ve never had a problem with its name. Until now. Facebook has suspended a U.K.-based pub’s social-media account over “racist or offensive language,” a report claims. In Nov., Lee Garrett, the manager of the 175-year-old Blackcock Inn, received a message from Facebook, saying that his account had been suspended for “racist or offensive language,” he told The Independent in an interview. Garrett has since been unable to log into the account and all of its posts have been removed, he says. The pub is located in a small village named Llanfihangel Talyllyn. According to Garrett, whose family took over the pub a dozen years ago, in the 175 years the company has been in business, there had been no complaints about its name until now. He added that the name is derived fr...

26Dec By PriyankaNo Comments

News

How Mark Zuckerberg made meetings better at Facebook

Whether you work at a startup or startup-turned-massive-corporation like Facebook, poorly run meetings can crush productivity and yield little to no results. In a recent Quora post, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg says that CEO Mark Zuckerberg "has done a really good job improving the efficiency of meetings at Facebook this year" with two simple but transformative changes: 1. Send relevant materials in advance to those who will be attending. If team managers want to discuss data that doesn't need to be confined to a conference room, then it's in their favor to not dedicate a portion of the meeting for employees to catch up at their own pace. 2. Set a goal at the start of the meeting. Meetings that stretch on for too long typically lack a purpose or agenda. Zuckerberg got managers to an...

25Dec By No Comments

BLOGS

“Facebook is misleading Indians”

Today it has ads around India saying "What net neutrality activists won't tell you". I'm a net neutrality activist and I'm happy to tell you anything you'd like to know. In fact, we're a small group, working unpaid, taking breaks from our regular jobs, and we've always been happy to tell you anything at all you wanted to know. We don't have a business axe to grind, we're not working for Facebook's rivals, and if anything, we've been part of Digital India far, far longer than Facebook has existed. We're open to questioning. Unlike Facebook, who tried to silently slime this thing through last year when it was called Internet.org, and then are spending about Rs. 100 crores on ads - a third of its India revenue? - to try and con us Indians this year again. This is after we'd worked h...

India is temporarily banning Facebook’s plan to provide free internet to the developing world

23Dec By AdityaNo Comments

News

India is temporarily banning Facebook’s plan to provide free internet to the developing world

Facebook's plan to provide free internet to the developing world just hit another hurdle: The Indian regulator is ordering a temporary ban on the service, called Free Basics, reports The Times of India. Free Basics - part of Internet.org - is a service offered by the social network in some emerging markets that lets users access some websites for free. source- gettyimages The aim is to help bring people online for the first time, but has come under sustained criticism for allegedly violating the principles of net neutrality. Net neutrality dictates that all data should be treated equally, and companies cannot pay for faster access or preferential treatment, so as not to stifle innovation and create hurdles for startups unable to pay. But because Free Basics zero-rates - that is...

Google is working on a ‘smart’ messaging service to take on Facebook

23Dec By No Comments

News

Google is working on a ‘smart’ messaging service to take on Facebook

Google is working on a new "smart" messaging service Google is working on a new "smart" messaging service that will be able automatically answer users' questions, sources with knowledge of the plans tell The Wall Street Journal's Alistair Barr. Although the report is sparse on concrete details, the app sounds like a combination of Google's current Hangouts service - which lets users message their friends -and Facebook M, the virtual "personal assistant" which, in its beta phase, can complete tasks for users like ordering flowers or booking flights. Facebook aims to build M so that the service will use artificial intelligence to complete various tasks, although its early incarnation relies on humans, who oversee the AI. Google is also looking to weave AI into the mix. The app wo...

Now Facebook Video Can Load Through HTML5 by Default

19Dec By AdityaNo Comments

News

Now Facebook Video Can Load Through HTML5 by Default

Facebook Inc. announced today that all of its videos will load through HTML5 by default. Like Facebook Many other tech giants are working to kill off Adobe Flash due to the format’s vast bugs and security flaws. “We are continuing to work together with Adobe to deliver a reliable and secure Flash experience for games on our platform,” Facebook front-end engineer Daniel Baulig wrote in a blog post, “but have shipped the change for video to all browsers by default.” “We decided to initially launch the HTML5 player to only a small set of browsers, and continuously roll out to more browsers, versions, and operating systems as we improved it and fixed small bugs,” Baulig said. Not only did launching the HTML5 video player make development easier, but it also improved the video experience...

Not following Judge’s Order, Whatsapp has been Blocked in Brazil

17Dec By AnkitaNo Comments

Story

Not following Judge’s Order, Whatsapp has been Blocked in Brazil

A Brazillian Judge Sandra Regina Nostre Marques ordered the suspension of the Facebook Inc.’s Whatsapp service for 48 hours after WhatsApp declined twice to turn over data requested by the courts as part of a criminal case, the Sao Paulo Justice Court said in a statement. WhatsApp is the most-used app in Brazil. The recent survey showed 93 percent of the 2,000 people said they use the messenger. The second most used app is Facebook, with 79 percent. According to Local TV News, the criminal case involves a drug trafficker linked to one of Sao Paulo's most dangerous criminal gangs, the PCC, or First Command of the Capital. The trafficker allegedly used WhatsApp services while committing crimes. Sao Paulo (Brazil) Court Order - The 1st Criminal Court of São Bernardo Court ordered the tel...

Babajob.com Joins Facebook’s SME India Council

15Dec By AnkitaNo Comments

News

Babajob.com Joins Facebook’s SME India Council

In a significant development today, babajob.com, India's largest online job marketplace for the informal sector, was identified as a member of the SME India Council set up by Facebook in Asia-Pacific today. Facebook, which has over two million Indian small and medium businesses (SMBs) on its platform, has set up a SME Council to help small ventures from various industries share feedback and discuss ideas around leveraging technology to grow their enterprise. This is the second SME Council set up by Facebook globally, the first one being in the US. Globally, over 45 million small businesses actively use Facebook pages to connect to their consumers. In a post, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg mentioned that "Babajob.com, a job site in India, which uses Internet.org's Free Basic Services app, ...

12Dec By AdityaNo Comments

News

‘Facebook at Work’ Is Finally Launching

Facebook at Work, Facebook Inc's professional version of its social network, is expected to launch in the coming months, after spending a year in tests, a company executive said. The new service, geared towards workplace collaboration, is nearly identical to its ubiquitous social network, with a scrolling news "feed", "likes" and a chat service. "I would say 95 percent of what we developed for Facebook is also adopted for Facebook at Work," Julien Codorniou, director of global platform partnerships at Facebook, told Reuters. However, Facebook at Work users will maintain special profiles that are distinct from their existing Facebook profiles. The company is also developing exclusive products for Facebook at Work, including security tools, Codorniou said. Facebook started beta...