feeds

The new Facebook Camera app for iPhone offers many of the features people love about Instagram, and adds new ones that Facebook users will definitely appreciate.

Right as soon as you launch the app, you can see the camera icon in the upper left for taking a picture (which I'll get to in a moment), but you can also see thumbnails of your latest shots. Below that is your Facebook feed, with great big images posted by your friends and options to Like the photo, or comment on the post in the lower left. The new layout is excellent … Read more

Gone is the dashboard of icons that once greeted you upon opening Google+ for Android. Now, you can zip around the app with a drop-down navigation ribbon on the left of the screen. This gives you easier access to your Stream, Profile, Messenger, Hangout, Photos, and Circles. As a whole, the app is easy to use and just as intuitive as its desktop counterpart.

Stream Stream is really the lifeblood of Google+. Your primary view will probably be All Circles, but you can also swipe left or right to view other feeds like What's Hot (trending posts on the … Read more

Google+ for iPhone is a clean and intuitive mobile app that has all of the powers of its desktop counterpart, save for the games and a few other minor features. The latest update to the app (as reported by Josh Lowensohn) adds a newly redesigned visual interface for Stream and other notable enhancements.

The Google+ app opens up to the redesigned Stream interface, but a button at the top left takes you to a dashboard of icons leading to the different sections of the service: Stream, Messenger, Photos, Profile, and Circles. Despite the new look, the interface works much like … Read more

Whether you're a fan of social video apps or not, there's something to be said for short, quick videos you make on the fly and then share with your friends. These apps are a lot like Twitter in that you can post your own short videos, follow other video creators, and view a feed of your favorites to see their latest updates.

This week's iOS apps have been out for some time, but over the past couple of weeks, social video app fans are choosing sides, downloading their favorites, and even posting to social networks to talk … Read more

Your cousin just announced the birth of his child, and you're the very first to leave a congratulatory comment. The excitement for your beloved family member is quickly replaced with a steady flow of beeps and dings, alerting you to each and every comment left on the same post.

Luckily, there's a way for you to leave your comment and then politely excuse yourself from the conversation, without anyone even knowing.

Update: Facebook has since rolled out a new notification box, complete with a shortcut to unfollow posts. The method explained below still works, but you can save … Read more

Firefox's Live Bookmarks feature does a fine job of keeping track of RSS feeds. Feed Sidebar is a free add-on that opens feeds in a sidebar equipped with a handy toolbar that makes it easy to search and sort feeds, mark them as read, and limit their age. It doesn't replace Live Bookmarks in Firefox; it augments the standard tool. But if you follow a lot of feeds, you'll like what it adds.

After a quick and trouble-free external download, we restarted Firefox. We clicked the RSS button on the toolbar, and clicked Feed Sidebar's left-hand … Read more

As I noted back in January, the only smart way to buy Apple gear is to buy it refurbished.

You're guaranteed to save money while getting gear that's literally as good as new.

Just one problem: how can you keep tabs on Apple's latest refurb deals? Suppose, for example, you're in the market for a refurbished fourth-gen iPod Touch, the one with the built-in cameras and Retina display. (As it happens, that's exactly what my kids are after.)

For a long while, there weren't any for sale. I know because I checked the store … Read more

Facebook has a long and tortured relationship with breasts.

Now women around the world have decided to tell the site to grow up. They are staging protests in order to get Facebook to change its policies against breast-feeding pictures.

It was in 2008 that Facebook first seems to have gone around removing breast-feeding pictures from the site.

At the time, Facebook claimed it couldn't allow pictures of breasts on a site where teenagers roam. Its stance has become more nuanced over the years. These days, its rules state that breast-feeding pictures are OK, as long as they don't … Read more

Facebook has finally added a way to hide the Ticker it introduced last year.

When Facebook introduced the Ticker to the News Feed last year, like many of new features it rolls out (cough, Timeline, cough), Facebook offered no way to disable it. I found Firefox and Chrome add-ons to hide the Ticker at the time, but now Facebook has added a control to the Ticker that lets you toggle between hiding and showing it, making it much more convenient to get rid of this newsfeed inside your News Feed.

Take a look at the Ticker in the right-hand column … Read more