Facebook testing instant ads feature based on user status updates

Facebook has confirmed it was testing a new programme that will instantly display ads based on users’ status updates.

According to the New York Post, the social networking giant's initiative, currently being tested on one percent of its users, delivers promotions based on real-time conversations.

For instance, if someone posts, ‘Thinking of pizza for dinner’, a company such as Domino's could ship a web ad to that person in an instant, reports News.com.au.

The advertising test, which was reported in Ad Age, opens a brave new world of real-time advertising, as well as raising the usual privacy concerns when a web company mines personal data for commercial advantage.

“It's an opportunity for advertisers to get in the conversation, and to have that timing advantage is potentially huge,” said Paul Verna, a senior analyst with eMarketer.

Microsoft partners with 29 websites in India to promote Internet Explorer 9

Vying for a larger share of the browser market, Microsoft India has partnered with 29 of the most popular websites in India.

The company, which recently launched its latest browser Internet Explorer 9, has partnered with websites like the group buying website SnapDeal, e-commerce site Flipkart, online booking site BookMyShow , Photovault , ESPNCricinfo , Kotak Bank , PhotoVault, Naukri , Rediff SongBuzz, Reliance Global Call, Sameer Belvalkar's FrozenFrames.com, Sify, and Zapak Games.

Globally, Microsoft has partnered with over 250 top websites and global brands that have created new experiences to show off the capabilities of Internet Explorer 9. Microsoft India unveiled the new browser at TechEd India 2011, an annual IT conference organised by Microsoft India.

The launch of Internet Explorer 9 came at a time when the race to capture browser markets share is heating up. The browser market is becoming increasingly competitive with an increasing number of devices going online every day. According to one report, when all versions of browsers are taken together, Internet Explorer leads the pack with 45% market share.

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Phone-based social network rolled out

Bill Nguyen , the serial entrepreneur who sold his last company to Apple in 2009, is launching a new cellphone-based social network which aims to challenge Facebook's dominance in social communications beyond the personal computer.

Color is a free smartphone-based application on iPhones and Android devices which lets people in close proximity capture and share their photos, videos and text simultaneously to multiple phones in real time.

With photos and video-sharing being one of the most popular activities on Facebook , Color's founders hope the always-on mobile nature of Color will create a different kind of 'post-PC ' social network. Nguyen said social networks and apps were moving users away for PC-based web many users were initially familiar with.

"This transition to post-PC world is going to be a huge fundamental shift," said Nguyen. "We're sharing more and more information in realtime ."

Nguyen, who sold online music start-up Lala to Apple for a reported $80 million, worked with the iPhone maker for just under a year.

In September he raised $14 million in seed funding from Bain Capital Ventures and Silicon Valley Bank. One of Silicon Valley's biggest venture funds Sequoia Capital came on board just before launch with $25 million and another $2 million from Silicon Valley Bank.

Apple's iPad 2 hits overseas stores after U.S. sellout

Hundreds of customers lined up outside Apple stores in Australia and New Zealand on Friday for the international launch of the iPad 2, which has flown off the shelves in the United States leaving the company struggling to meet demand.

Analysts forecast some 1 million devices may have been sold in the first weekend of the launch in the United States, but many warn that it's not clear how supply constraints will affect availability following the Japan earthquake and tsunami.

Apple plans to roll out the new iPad on Friday to 25 markets including France, the United Kingdom, Canada, Denmark, Germany, Italy, Mexico, Netherlands, and Spain.

The iPad 2, a thinner and faster version that features two cameras for video chat, was introduced in the United States on March 11. But some would-be buyers have expressed frustration at how difficult it has been to secure one of the wildly popular tablet computers, sparking speculation Apple misjudged demand.

"If it wasn't for the iPad, I wouldn't be in Australia right now," said Alex Lee, a backpacker from Canada, who was the first in the queue outside the glass-fronted Apple store in Sydney's central business district. He said he diverted his travels from Singapore to attend the launch.

"It's like a habit. I've also lined up on Regent Street in London for the iPhone", added Lee, who had a folding chair and blanket and had spent two nights waiting.

Google delays open access to new Android software

Google Inc is delaying widespread access to the new version of its Android software, saying it has more work to do before the product is ready for certain types of devices.

Google unveiled Android 3.0, known as Honeycomb, earlier this year, billing it as the first version of its Android operating system designed from the ground up for use in tablet PCs.

Honeycomb software is already available on the Motorola Mobility Inc Xoom tablet, which went on sale in February.

The software represents Google's first dedicated effort to challenge the dominance of Apple Inc's iPad in the nascent tablet PC market.

But Google said it will not immediately make its Honeycomb software available as open source code, the company's traditional practice with Android whereby any developers are free to modify the software as they see fit. The reason for the delay, Google said, was because Honeycomb was not ready to be customized for use on smartphones.

Forget cards, now just wave mobile to pay

The cellphone has been more than a cellphone for years, but soon it could take on an entirely new role - standing in for all of the credit and debit cards crammed into wallets. Instead of swiping a plastic card at the checkout counter, consumers would merely wave their phones. There's just one hitch: While the technology is already being installed in millions of phones - and is used overseas - wide adoption of the so-called mobile wallets is being slowed by a major behind-the-scenes battle among corporate giants.

Mobile phone carriers, banks, credit card issuers, payment networks and technology companies are all vying to control these wallets. But first, they need to sort out what role each will play and how each will get paid. The stakes are enormous because small, hidden fees that are generated every time consumers swipe their cards add up to tens of billions of dollars annually in the United States alone.

"It all comes down to who gets paid and who makes money," said Drew Sievers, chief executive of mFoundry , which makes mobile payment software for merchants and banks. "You have banks competing with carriers competing with Apple and Google , and it's pretty much a goat rodeo until someone sorts it out." Payment networks like Visa and MasterCard, along with banks that actually issue credit cards to customers, want to stay at the centre of any payment system and continue to collect their fees from merchants.

They are facing competition from companies they see as interlopers. These include PayPal and Google, which want to play a part in a new payment system, as well as Apple and the mobile carriers, which want to collect fees through their control of the phones themselves. In the middle - and perhaps playing a deciding role - are the retailers . They have to install terminals that accept mobile payments. Consumer advocates, meanwhile, said they were concerned that a mobile system would bring higher fees and questioned whether consumers even want a new system.

NASA's comet-hunting spacecraft Stardust shuts down

NASA ordered its comet-hunting Stardust probe to burn its remaining fuel on Thursday, setting off a sequence that shut down the spacecraft after a 12-year career.


Stardust had finished its main mission in 2006, sending particles from a comet to Earth. It took on another job last month, photographing a crater on an asteroid.

It accomplished one last experiment on Thursday, firing its thrusters until its last hydrazine fuel was gone. The length of that burn, a little under 2 1/2 minutes, will tell engineers exactly how much fuel was left so they can see how accurate their calculations were.

That in turn will help with the design and operation of future probes. Spacecraft don't carry fuel gauges because they don't work in zero gravity.

It will take a few days to analyze the fuel data, said Jim Neuman, a mission operations manager for Lockheed Martin, which built and operated the probe at its complex south of Denver.