Facebook updated its iOS app today with the blue check marks next to names of verified celebrities, public figures and brands that it first rolled out on the desktop. Facebook started its verified profiles and pages for select celebrities, journalists, government officials, popular brands and businesses back in May. Like Twitter, Facebook automatically authenticates accounts with large audiences and adds a small blue checkmark next to their name in search results, timelines, and profile pages....

It’s not uncommon for people to think that Facebook is spying on their conversations when online ads appear to advertise something they discussed offline. The reality is often simply coincidence or more often based on cookies when searching online for something related. But that doesn’t mean Facebook doesn’t know how to spy on users — even if the company swears it won’t use the technology… Mashable reports on a new patent discovered by Metro that Facebook owns:...

Yes, it was back at the F8 developer conference that Facebook announced the redesign of their Messenger app, and now finally the update has reached users across the globe. The new Messenger update is available on App Stores and Google Play store as well. The update is available for both Android and iOS platforms. But still, some users might have to wait for the update to be available for them....

Ok, I admit it: I’m officially old. Old enough, in fact, to have bought the very first Macintosh in 1984: the Macintosh 128K. Computers in those days had green screens and were controlled by typing arcane commands. Bold and italics did not appear on-screen, instead you saw ^Bthis is bold^B and ^Ythis is italics^Y (CTRL-Y for italics because CTRL-I was tab, for reasons no-one understood but didn’t question). You never had to worry about what typeface to use because computers could neither display nor print them....

I’ve been an Apple Music subscriber since day one when it launched in 2015. Despite times of flirting with Spotify, the easy access with all my Apple devices, a familiar interface, and iCloud Music Library (for my custom live music), Apple Music has always been home for my family. If you’d told me in 2005 that we’d be paying $14.99 per month for my entire family to access virtually all the music in the world, I would have thought you were crazy....

One of the headlining features of watchOS 7 is the ability to easily share Apple Watch faces. It makes it easy to share them with a friend but thinking bigger, the feature also allows them to be easily shared online with anyone. Now Apple Watch customization app Facer has been updated to support watch face sharing and it’s aiming to be your hub for discovering and sharing them as well as following friends and favorite artists with an App Store-style experience....

Popular social media app Instagram is experiencing down time today in the midst of American Thanksgiving, a major national holiday that would normally mean an increase in users posting about their dinners, family experiences, and more, and Facebook is experiencing similar issues. Instagram - and the whole Facebook family of apps - are typically accessed more during major holidays as a means of connecting with friends, showing off gifts or meals, and generally updating followers on what a user’s personal experiences look like during well-known events....

Facebook has released Facebook Messenger which is an extension of Facebook’s Messages service and will allow you to send a text message to your phone’s contacts and a Facebook message to your Facebook contacts. Bonus: You get to send pictures as well. The app obviously competes with Apple’s iMessage, Blackberry messenger and all of the other silo-ed messaging apps out there but with a user base of 700 million+, it is well positioned to be a contender....

It was reported in February that Facebook is working on a Clubhouse competitor, the new fully audio-based social network that has been getting a lot of attention recently. Now, we can finally get a first look at what is internally called “Live Audio,” Facebook’s new feature that is basically a copy of Clubhouse. Developer and reverse engineer Alessandro Paluzzi has figured out how to enable the new feature in Facebook’s mobile app, which is still hidden from regular users....

Facebook has been planning to merge Instagram, Messenger, and WhatsApp for a while. More recently, Instagram and Messenger became one and now there is some news about WhatsApp and Messenger integration as well. According to WABetaInfo, the Italian leaker Alessandro Paluzzi found a recent hidden change in Facebook Messenger: a WhatsApp chat inside it. It’s not possible yet to integrate both services, but what Paluzzi did was just force a thread to be recognized as a WhatsApp conversation to show how it will look when the feature is available in the future....

Screenwriter Aaron Sorkin revealed in a New York Times op-ed Thursday that Facebook executives specifically requested that the social media giant not be called Facebook in his 2010 screenplay, The Social Network. Sorkin’s article was written as a direct response to Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s unwavering defense of Facebook’s free speech policy. Sorkin’s Academy Award-winning screenplay for the film detailed Zuckerberg’s burgeoning rise as a household name and Facebook founder as well as the resulting chaos that erupted from the Winklevoss brothers’ lawsuit after they alleged Zuckerberg had stolen their idea....

Theon Greyjoy received a hero’s death in Game of Thrones season 8, but actor Alfie Allen was once led to believe his character’s end came much sooner. Based on George R.R. Martin’s popular novels, the fantasy epic debuted on HBO back in 2011. Though opening with moderate acclaim and buzz from audiences, the show became an outright cultural phenomenon over the course of its proceeding seasons. The show ended with it’s eighth and final season earlier this year....

And just like that, the Feds are involved. The FBI says it is investigating a data breach at AT&T that exposed the e-mail addresses of more than 114,000 owners of the Apple iPad, including government officials. The agency said Thursday it is looking into “the potential cyber threat” from the breach. It isn’t certain what “cyber threat” a bunch of email addresses could pose, but with high ranking government officials, including the White house staff and military involved, the FBI is probably on a “better safe than sorry” gameplan....

Back in 2010 the FCC launched an iPhone app that allowed users to test their data connection speeds. The FCC used this app to collect anonymous speed data from mobile devices. After a brief period of collecting this data, the FCC pulled the app from the App Store. Today the app was relaunched with a new design for iOS 7 on the iPhone and iPad. The data is being used to create a map of data speeds across the country....

Facebook takes the plunge into the in-house game development feature as they introduced their own version of multiplayer augmented reality video chat games, showing they are not back from snapchat in any sense. Today, Facebook has officially launched their first two AR video chat games that the user can play while chatting. The first is “Don’t Smile”, a staring contest that will detect when you grin and will contort your face using an AR and turn into an exaggerated Joker smirk and award your opponent marks....

When Apple Watch and Watch OS 1.0 shipped in April, the definite omission of an Apple Reminders app on the platform was particularly surprising to me. The Apple Watch User Guide even highlights the app’s absence: Creating and responding to reminders is fine, but my girlfriend and I use a shared iCloud Reminders list for our grocery list, and being able to glance at the watch as you walk through the supermarket without pulling out the iPhone is an ideal use case for Apple Watch....

Final Fantasy VII Remake is due to be released in a few months and there are a lot of players who will want to replay the original game one last time before the remake is launched, especially as it’s going to be one of several Final Fantasy games that are coming to Game Pass in 2020. Final Fantasy VII was a product of the strategy guide era, where secrets in video games were made purposely obtuse to encourage people to buy official strategy guides, which kept the best items out of the hands of all but the most diligent players....

Mockup of Facebook sharing in iPhone Photos app (thanks, Spencer Caldwell) A few days ago, TechCrunch reported that Facebook will be integrated into iOS 6 in some fashion. This is not a major surprise given Apple CEO Tim Cook’s hint at the AllThingsD D10 Conference of iOS Facebook integration. We heard many weeks ago that Apple and Facebook engineers were working in collaboration on implementing some sort of integration of Facebook into iOS 6....

More than 30 of former Facebook staff from the social network’s early days have publicly protested the social network’s lack of action against tweets by President Trump which were either misleading or glorified violence … The NY Times first saw an open letter written to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. They accuse Facebook of double-standards. The former employees said in an open letter that Mr. Zuckerberg’s position was a “betrayal” of Facebook’s ideals and urged him to reconsider it....

The Fantasy Island movie from Blumhouse was originally going to be rated R. To an older generation, the title Fantasy Island instantly conjures the 1970s/80s TV show starring Ricardo Montalban and Hervé Villechaize, about a tropical paradise where every week a new set of guests would arrive via plane and see their wildest fantasies come true. Though the show certainly had a mysterious element to it, no one would ever characterize Fantasy Island as scary....