Facebook

Facebook (FB) is an American for-profit corporation

 and online social media and social networking service based in Menlo Park, California. The Facebook website was launched on February 4, 2004, by Mark Zuckerberg, along with fellow Harvard College students and roommates, Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Moskovitz, and Chris Hughes.

The founders had initially limited the website's membership to Harvard students; however, later they expanded it to higher education institutions in the Boston area, the Ivy League schools, and Stanford University. Facebook gradually added support for students at various other universities, and eventually to high school students as well. Since 2006, anyone age 13 and older has been allowed to become a registered user of Facebook, though variations exist in the minimum age requirement, depending on applicable local laws.The Facebook name comes from the face book directories often given to United States university students.

Facebook may be accessed by a large range of desktops, laptops, tablet computers, and smartphones over the Internet and mobile networks. After registering to use the site, users can create a user profile indicating their name, occupation, schools attended and so on. Users can add other users as "friends", exchange messages, post status updates and digital photos, share digital videos and links, use various software applications ("apps"), and receive notifications when others update their profiles or make posts. Additionally, users may join common-interest user groups organized by workplace, school, hobbies or other topics, and categorize their friends into lists such as "People From Work" or "Close Friends". In groups, editors can pin posts to top. Additionally, users can complain about or block unpleasant people. Because of the large volume of data that users submit to the service, Facebook has come under scrutiny for its privacy policies. Facebook makes most of its revenue from advertisements which appear onscreen.

Facebook, Inc. held its initial public offering (IPO) in February 2012, and began selling stock to the public three months later, reaching an original peak market capitalization of $104 billion. On July 13, 2015, Facebook became the fastest company in the Standard & Poor's 500 Index to reach a market cap of $250 billion.Facebook has more than 1.86 billion monthly active users as of December 31, 2016.As of April 2016, Facebook was the most popular social networking site in the world, based on the number of active user accounts.Facebook classifies users from the ages of 13 to 18 as minors and therefore sets their profiles to share content with friends only.

Instagram

Instagram is a mobile photo-sharingFacebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and Flickr. Originally, a distinctive feature was that it confined photos to a square shape, similar to Kodak Instamatic and Polaroid SX-70 images, in contrast to the 4:3 aspect ratio typically used by mobile device cameras. In August 2015, version 7.5 was released for mobile devices, allowing users to upload media captured in any aspect ratio, but not at full size.Users can also apply various digital filters to their images. In June 2013, Instagram added support for videos, allowing prerecorded square standard definition resolution clips of up to 15 seconds to be shared; later updates introduced support for widescreen resolutions of up to 1080p and longer recording times for either pre recorded (up to one minute) or disappearing live videos (up to one hour).
 application that allows users to share pictures and videos either publicly or privately in the app, as well as through a variety of other social networking platforms, such as 

Instagram was created by Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger, and was launched in October 2010 as a free mobile app, exclusively for the iOS mobile platform via the Apple App Store, but was later released for Android devices two years later, on April 3, 2012.The service rapidly gained popularity, with over 100 million active users as of April 2012 and over 300 million as of December 2014.Support for the app is available for iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, Windows 10 devices and Android handsets, while third-party Instagram apps are available for BlackBerry 10 and Nokia-Symbian Devices.

The service was acquired by Facebook in April 2012 for approximately US$1 billion in cash and stock.In 2013, Instagram grew by 23%, while Facebook, as the parent company, only grew by 3%.

History

Instagram began development in San Francisco, when Systrom and Brazilian Krieger chose to focus their multi-featured HTML5 check-in project, Burbn, on mobile photography.

As Krieger reasoned, Burbn became too similar to Foursquare, and both realized that it has gone too far. And for that, Burbn pivoted to become more focused.The word Instagram is a portmanteau of instant camera and telegram.

On March 5, 2010, Systrom closed a $500,000 seed funding round with Baseline Ventures and Andreessen Horowitz while working on Burbn.Josh Riedel then joined the company as Community Manager.Shayne Sweeney joined in November 2010 as an engineer and Jessica Zollman was hired as a Community Evangelist in August 2011.

In January 2011, Instagram added hashtags to help users discover both photographs and each other.^[27] Instagram encourages users to make tags both specific and relevant, rather than tagging generic words like "photo", to make photographs stand out and to attract like-minded Instagram users.In September, version 2.0 went live in the App Store (iOS) and included new and live filters, instant tilt–shift, high resolution photographs, optional borders, one-click rotation, and an updated icon.On February 2, 2011, an announcement revealed that Instagram had raised $7 million in Series A funding from a variety of investors, including Benchmark Capital, Jack Dorsey, Chris Sacca (through Capital fund), and Adam D'Angelo.The deal valued Instagram at around $25 million.

On April 3, 2012, Instagram was released for Android phones running the 2.2 Froyo version of the OS,and it was downloaded more than one million times in less than one day.^[That same week, Instagram raised $50 million from venture capitalists for a share of the company; the process valued Instagram at $500 million.Over the next three months, Instagram was rated more than one million times on Google Play and was the fifth app to ever reach one million ratings on Google Play—as of April 2013, it had been rated nearly four million times.

Facebook made an offer to purchase Instagram, along with its 13 employees, for approximately $1 billion in cash and stock in April 2012,with a plan to keep the company independently managed.Britain's Office of Fair Trading approved the deal on August 14, 2012,and on August 22, 2012, the Federal Trade Commission in the U.S. closed its investigation, allowing the deal to proceed.On September 6, 2012, the deal between Instagram and Facebook was officially closed.

On April 12, 2012, Facebook acquired Instagram for approximately $1 billion in cash and stock.The deal, which was made just prior to Facebook's scheduled IPO, cost about a quarter of Facebook's cash-on-hand, according to figures documented at the end of 2011. The deal was for a company characterized as having "lots of buzz but no business model", and the price was contrasted with the $35 million Yahoo! paid for Flickr in 2005,a website that has since become among the 50 most popular in the world.

Mark Zuckerberg noted that Facebook was "committed to building and growing Instagram independently", in contrast to its past practice. According to multiple reports, the deal netted Systrom $400 million based on his ownership stake in the business.The exact purchase price was $300 million in cash and 23 million shares of stock.

On December 17, 2012, Instagram updated its Terms of Service, granting itself the right—starting on January 16, 2013—to sell users' photos to third parties without notification or compensation.The criticism from privacy advocates, consumers, the National Geographic Society,and celebrities like Kim Kardashian prompted Instagram to issue a statement retracting the controversial terms; regardless, the issue resulted in the loss of a portion of Instagram's user-base, as former users switched to other photo-sharing services, which reported an increase in usage.

In January 2013, it was confirmed that Instagram had asked for photo identification as a form of verification due to unspecified violations.

Following Emily White's appointment to the position of chief operating officer in March 2013, she stated in September 2013 that the company should be ready to begin selling advertising by September 2014 as a way to generate business from a popular entity that had not yet created profit for its parent company.In September 2013, Instagram reaffirmed its commitment to free and open access to its smart-phone app for users.During an interview with Women's Wear Daily (WWD), White cited "the sophistication of cameras on smartphones as one reason for ushering in the transformative change", and she used her observation of the replacement of large cameras with mobile smartphones during a fashion show as an example.On October 3, 2013, Instagram announced that it would be adding advertising to its platform.

On October 22, 2013, during the Nokia World event, held at Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates (UAE), Systrom confirmed the impending release of the official Instagram app for the Windows Phone.On November 21, 2013, the official Instagram Beta for Windows Phone was released to Windows Phone 8 to allow Windows Phone users faster access to Instagram services; although, at the time of release, the app was still under development.

Instagram introduced sponsored post advertising targeting US users in November 2013,and UK users in September 2014.

On December 12, 2013, Instagram added Direct, a feature that allows users to send photos to specific people directly from the app. Instagram's primary intention with the Direct feature is to compete against messaging services, including Snapchat.

On March 11, 2014, Instagram released an updated Android app with performance improvements and a flatter interface. The update was primarily intended to reduce the app's file size and resource usage, and it was optimized for and tested on low-end smartphones sold in emerging markets, such as the Samsung Galaxy Y, which was popular in Brazil at the time.

The company's Global Head of Business and Brand Development—a new position for Instagram—was announced in mid-August 2014. Facebook's former Regional Director James Quarles was assigned the role, which manages Instagram’s revenue strategy, in addition to both the marketing and sales teams. Quarles will report directly to Systrom during a tenure in which he will develop new “monetization products”, as explained by a company representative to the media.

Since the app's launch it had used the Foursquare API to provide named location tagging. In early 2014, after being purchased by Facebook, the company was switched to using Facebook Places.

On October 22, 2015, Instagram launched Boomerang,an app where you shoot a one-second burst of five photos that are turned into a silent video that plays forwards and then reverses in a loop.

During April 2016, Instagram began changing the strictly chronological timeline view to one driven by an algorithm reminiscent of Facebook's.

On May 11, 2016, Instagram updated its app design with thinner icons and a pinker, more abstract logo.

On August 2, 2016, Instagram launched Instagram Stories, a Snapchat-like feature which allows users to take photos, add effects and layers on top of said photos, and add them to said user's Instagram story. Images uploaded to a user's story expire after 24 hours.

In September, 2016, Instagram removed the Photo Maps feature from its mobile apps, claiming that the feature was not widely used on the platform.

On October 13, 2016, Instagram launched a desktop client for the first time on the Windows 10 platform, which can be downloaded via the Windows Store.

On November 21, 2016, Instagram launched live video, which allows users to broadcast live on Instagram, for up to one hour. Live videos on Instagram are not preserved, and are removed from the service once a user is done broadcasting. Instagram also launched disappearing photos and videos for the Instagram Direct feature on the same day, and images and videos sent using this method disappear after a certain amount of time.

Vodafone

Vodafone Group plc is a British multinational telecommunications company, with headquarters in London.Among mobile operator groups globally, Vodafone ranked fifth by revenue and second (behind China Mobile) in the number of connections (435.9 million) as of 2014.

Vodafone owns and operates networks in 26 countries and has partner networks in over 50 additional countries.Its Vodafone Global Enterprise division provides telecommunications and IT services to corporate clients in 150 countries.

Vodafone has a primary listing on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index. It had a market capitalisation of approximately £89.1 billion as of 6 July 2012, the third-largest of any company listed on the London Stock Exchange.It has a secondary listing on NASDAQ

YouTube

YouTube is an American video-sharing website headquartered in San Bruno, California. The service was created by three former PayPal employees—Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim—in February 2005. In November 2006, it was bought by Google for US$1.65 billion.YouTube now operates as one of Google's subsidiaries.

The site allows users to upload, view, rate, share, add to favorites, report and comment on videos, and it makes use of WebM, H.264/MPEG-4 AVC, and Adobe Flash Video technology to display a wide variety of user-generated and corporate media videos. Available content includes video clips, TV show clips, music videos, short and documentary films, audio recordings, movie trailers and other content such as video blogging, short original videos, and educational videos.

Most of the content on YouTube has been uploaded by individuals, but media corporations including CBS, the BBC, Vevo, and Hulu offer some of their material via YouTube as part of the YouTube partnership program.Unregistered users can only watch videos on the site, while registered users are permitted to upload an unlimited number of videos and add comments to videos. Videos deemed potentially offensive are available only to registered users affirming themselves to be at least 18 years old. In December 2016, the website was ranked as the second most popular site by Alexa Internet, a web traffic analysis company.

YouTube earns advertising revenue from Google AdSense, a program which targets ads according to site content and audience. The vast majority of its videos are free to view, but there are exceptions, including subscription-based premium channels, film rentals, as well as YouTube Red, a subscription service offering ad-free access to the website and access to exclusive content made in partnership with existing users.

HTC

HTC Corporation, stylised as hтc, is a Taiwanese consumer electronics company headquartered in Xindian District, New Taipei City, Taiwan. Founded in 1997, HTC began as an original design manufacturer and original equipment manufacturer, designing and manufacturing devices such as mobile phones and tablets.

After initially making smartphones based mostly on Windows Mobile, HTC became a co-founding member of the Open Handset Alliance, a group of handset manufacturers and mobile network operators dedicated to the development of the Android mobile operating system.The HTC Dream, marketed by T-Mobile in many countries as the T-Mobile G1, was the first phone on the market to run Android. HTC later shifted to marketing its own devices, including the HTC One series. In 2011, HTC ranked as the 98th top brand on Interbrand's Best Global Brands report.A September 2013 media report stated that HTC's share of the global smartphone market is less than 3 percent. While rising back to 7.2 percent in April 2015 due to its strong sales of recent devices, its stock price had fallen by 90 percent since 2011, and the company experienced consecutive net losses.

In 2016, HTC expanded into virtual reality hardware with the release of HTC Vive.

Smartphone

A smartphone is a mobile phone (also known as cell phones or cell mobiles) with an advanced mobile operating system that combines features of a personal computer operating system with other features useful for mobile or handheld use.Smartphones, which are usually pocket-sized, typically combine the features of a mobile phone, such as the abilities to place and receive voice calls and create and receive text messages, with those of other popular digital mobile devices like personal digital assistants (PDAs), such as an event calendar, media player, video games, GPS navigation, digital camera and digital video camera. Smartphones can access the Internet and can run a variety of third-party software components ("apps" from Google Play, Apple App Store, etc). They typically have a color display with a graphical user interface that covers more than 76% of the front surface. The display is almost always a touchscreen and sometimes additionally a touch-enabled keyboard like the Priv/Passport BlackBerrys, which enables the user to use a virtual keyboard to type words and numbers and press onscreen icons to activate "app" features.

In 1999, the Japanese firm NTT DoCoMo released the first smartphones to achieve mass adoption within a country.Smartphones became widespread in the late 2000s. Most of those produced from 2012 onward have high-speed mobile broadband 4G LTE, motion sensors, and mobile payment features. In the third quarter of 2012, one billion smartphones were in use worldwide. Global smartphone sales surpassed the sales figures for regular cell phones in early 2013.

10 Upcoming Technology That May Change The World

We have seen great leaps in digital technology in past the past five years.Smartphones, cloud computing, multi-touch tablets, these are all innovations that revolutionized the way we live and work. However, believe it or not, we are just getting started. Technology will get even better. In the future, we could live like how people in science fiction movies did.Today’s post is about 10 upcoming, real-life products that is set to revolutionize the world as we know it. Get ready to control the desktop and slice Ninja fruits with your eyes. Get ready to print your own creative physical product. Get ready to dive into the virtual world, and interact with them. Come unfold the future with us.

1. Google Glass

Augmented Reality has already gotten into our life in the forms of simulated experiment and education app, but Google is taking it several steps higher with Google Glass. Theoretically, with Google Glass, you are able to view social media feeds, text, Google Maps, as well as navigate with GPS and take photos. You will also get the latest updates while you are on the ground.

2. Form 1

Just as the term suggests, 3D printing is the technology that could forge your digital design into a solid real-life product. It’s nothing new for the advanced mechanical industry, but a personal 3D printer is definitely a revolutionary idea.

Everybody can create their own physical product based on their custom design, and no approval needed from any giant manufacturer! Even the James Bond’s Aston Martin which was crashed in the movie was a 3D printed product!

Form 1 is one such personal 3D printer which can be yours at just $2799. It may sound like a high price but to have the luxury of getting producing your own prototypes, that’s a reaonable price.

Imagine a future where every individual professional has the capability to mass produce their own creative physical products without limitation. This is the future where personal productivity and creativity are maximized.

3. Oculus Rift

Virtual Reality gaming is here in the form of Oculus Rift. This history-defining 3D headset lets you mentally feel that you are actually inside a video game. In the Rift’s virtual world, you could turn your head around with ultra-low latency to view the world in high resolution display.

There are premium products in the market that can do the same, but Rift wants you to enjoy the experience at only $300, and the package even comes as a development kit. This is the beginning of the revolution for next-generation gaming.

The timing is perfect as the world is currently bombarded with the virtual reality topic that could also be attributed to Sword Art Online, the anime series featuring the characters playing games in an entirely virtual world. While we’re getting there, it could take a few more years to reach that level of realism. Oculus Rift is our first step.

4. Leap Motion

Multi-touch desktop is a (miserably) failed product due to the fact that hands could get very tired with prolonged use, but Leap Motion wants to challenge this dark area again with a more advanced idea. It lets you control the desktop with fingers, but without touching the screen.

It’s not your typical motion sensor, as Leap Motion allows you to scroll the web page, zoom in the map and photos, sign documentss and even play a first person shooter game with only hand and finger movements. The smooth reaction is the most crucial key point here. More importantly, you can own this future with just $70, a price of a premium PS3 game title!

If this device could completely work with Oculus Rift to simulate a real-time gaming experience, gaming is going to get a major make-over.

5. Eye Tribe

Eye tracking has been actively discussed by technology enthusiasts throughout these years, but it’s really challenging to implement. But Eye Tribe actually did this. They successfully created the technology to allow you to control your tablet, play flight simulator, and even slice fruits in Fruit Ninja only with your eye movements.

It’s basically taking the common eye-tracking technology and combining it with a front-facing camera plus some serious computer-vision algorithm, and voila, fruit slicing done with the eyes! A live demo was done in LeWeb this year and we may actually be able to see it in in action in mobile devices in 2013.

Currently the company is still seeking partnership to bring this sci-fi tech into the consumer market but you and I know that this product is simply too awesome to fail.

6. SmartThings

The current problem that most devices have is that they function as a standalone being, and it require effort for tech competitors to actually partner with each other and build products that can truly connect with each other. SmartThings is here to make your every device, digital or non-digital, connect together and benefit you.

With SmartThings you can get your smoke alarms, humidity, pressure and vibration sensors to detect changes in your house and alert you through your smartphone! Imagine the possibilities with this.

You could track who’s been inside your house, turn on the lights while you’re entering a room, shut windows and doors when you leave the house, all with the help of something that only costs $500! Feel like a tech lord in your castle with this marvel.

7. Firefox OS

iOS and Android are great, but they each have their own rules and policies that certainly inhibit the creative efforts of developers. Mozilla has since decided to build a new mobile operating system from scratch, one that will focus on true openness, freedom and user choice. It’s Firefox OS.

Firefox OS is built on Gonk, Gecko and Gaia software layers – for the rest of us, it means it is built on open source, and it carries web technologies such as HTML5and CSS3.

Developers can create and debut web apps without the blockade of requirements set by app stores, and users could even customize the OS based on their needs. Currently the OS has made its debut on Android-compatible phones, and the impression so far, is great.

You can use the OS to do essential tasks you do on iOS or Android: calling friends, browsing web, taking photos, playing games, they are all possible on Firefox OS, set to rock the smartphone market.

8. Project Fiona

Meet the first generation of the gaming tablet. Razer’s Project Fiona is a serious gaming tablet built for hardcore gaming. Once it’s out, it will be the frontier for the future tablets, as tech companies might want to build their own tablets, dedicated towards gaming, but for now Fiona is the only possible one that will debut in 2013.

This beast features next generation Intel® Core i7 processor geared to render all your favorite PC games, all at the palm of your hands. Crowned as the bestgaming accessories manufacturer, Razer clearly knows how to build user experience straight into the tablet, and that means 3-axis gyro, magnetometer, accelerometer and full-screen user interface supporting multi-touch. My body and soul are ready.

9. Parallella

Parallella is going to change the way that computers are made, and Adapteva offers you chance to join in on this revolution. Simply put, it’s a supercomputer for everyone. Basically, an energy-efficient computer built for processing complex software simultaneously and effectively. Real-time object tracking, holographic heads-up display, speech recognition will become even stronger and smarter with Parallella.

The project has been successfully funded so far, with an estimated delivery date of February 2013. For a mini supercomputer, the price seems really promising since it’s magically $99! It’s not recommended for the non-programmer and non-Linux user, but the kit is loaded with development software to create your personal projects.

I never thought the future of computing could be kick-started with just $99, which is made possible using crowdfunding platforms.

10. Google Driverless Car

I could still remember the day I watch the iRobot as a teen, and being skeptical about my brother’s statement that one day, the driverless car will become reality. And it’s now a reality, made possible by… a search engine company, Google.

While the data source is still a secret recipe, the Google driverless car is powered by artificial intelligence that utilizes the input from the video cameras inside the car, a sensor on the vehicle’s top, and some radar and position sensors attached to different positions of the car. Sounds like a lot of effort to mimic the human intelligence in a car, but so far the system has successfully driven 1609 kilometres without human commands!

“You can count on one hand the number of years it will take before ordinary people can experience this.” Google co-founder, Sergey Brin said. However, innovation is an achievement, consumerization is the headache, as Google currently face the challenge to forge the system into an affordable gem that every worker with an average salary could benefit from.