The Apps are Too Damn Big
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What I’m Reading
Shareworthy articles and content syndicated from other sites. These aren’t things I’ve written or necessarily endorse, for the record.
Here’s how to skip that annoying Social Reader feature on Facebook if you’re using Chrome
You’ve probably seen the apps used by The Washington Post and Yahoo! on Facebook that require you to install something before you can read an article shared by one of your friends from their sites. Not only is it annoying, it just means that these publications want access to your personal information so it can learn about your reading habits.
I’d rather not let any publication store a list of articles that I’ve read, and I don’t want to install an app that publishes something as I’m reading it. That alone is a privacy invasion, so in seeking a way to bypass this annoying functionality, I found an add-on for Chrome that lets you skip the app installation phase altogether.
While the Facebook Unsocial Reader for Chrome isn’t the sexiest app in the world, it gets the job done if you’re annoyed by Social Reader apps like I am.
What the app does is copy the title of the article that was shared, skips the app installation screen, and takes you directly to a Google “I’m Feeling Lucky” search using the headline. The first search result is usually dead-on for the article that you wanted to read in the first place.
The app was developed by George Mike and I have to agree with his assessment below:
So there you go, if you want to skip over having to install an app to read an article, this is how to do it when you’re using the Chrome browser.
➤ Facebook Unsocial Reader
Here's What Facebook Sends the Cops In Response To a Subpoena
An anonymous reader writes “Facebook already shares its Law Enforcement Guidelines publicly, but we’ve never actually seen the data Menlo Park sends over to the cops when it gets a formal subpoena for your profile information. Now we know. This appears to be the first time we get to see what a Facebook account report looks like. The document was released by the The Boston Phoenix as part of a lengthy feature titled ‘Hunting the Craigslist Killer,’ which describes how an online investigation helped officials track down Philip Markoff. The man committed suicide, which meant the police didn’t care if the Facebook document was published elsewhere, after robbing two women and murdering a third.”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
New Samsung trademarks hint at flexible AMOLED displays arriving in products soon
New Samsung trademarks for terms like WAMOLED and YOUM suggest it will begin producing flexible OLED displays this quarter, meaning consumers will begin seeing them in device by the end of the year.
Apple patent could lead to face-based user switching in iOS and beyond
Apple continues to consider ways to enable easy user switching and control for iOS devices using facial recognition, which may eventually lead to facial unlock features in the iPhone or iPad. A recently published patent application details an automatic user-switching system which can lock, unlock, and reconfigure a device for unique users based on face detection using a front-facing camera.
Beyond the use of a facial recognition to enable the system, however, we think the concept of multi-user iOS devices has been a long time coming. Furthermore, the same system could be easily adapted to desktop systems, making it easier to share an iMac or even a MacBook among family members or coworkers.
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