android

Facebook Phone, we hardly knew ye. After being on the market in the United States for just 31 days, AT&T is pulling the plug on the first smartphone to feature Facebook's Android UI overlay of apps known as Facebook Home. Among the litany of problems Home had, there was:

• The Cover Feed. When you log into the phone's homescreen, you're already signed into Facebook, and you already have notifications popping up on the main page. Congratulations! You get to see all the useless crap your sort-of acquaintances post whether you like it or not! Huzzah!

• Those crappy ads you see on the right side of your news feed. Did we mention those would also be plastered onto the homescreen? So instead of seeing all your favorite apps, you'd see a big fat ad for ChristianMingle. Sweet!

• No privacy controls. You'd think a company with a privacy track record as piss-poor as Facebook's would make assuaging fears of privacy invasion a top priority with their phone release. Nope. Not a word from Zuckerberg & Co. on app permissions, possible geolocation, data logging, browsing habits, etc. For all intents and purposes, you could be carrying around a court-mandated ankle bracelet in your pocket, and you wouldn't even know it.

Better luck next time, Zuck... y'know, if there even is a next time...

Standard software for the Samsung Apple 4 by Nokia.

Take a look at the bottom right-hand corner of that phone, the reflection tells the story of a guy who's going to get a severe talking to.

Cleveland-based web developer Will Smidlein thought he would poke around with Vine's code seeing as it was just released on the Android platform.

To test his meddling, Smidlein posted the full-length version of "Never Gonna Give You Up" to Vine, which technically only allows user video posts to be 6 seconds or shorter. It wasn't long before Twitter, creators of Vine, had one of their engineers contact Smidlein directly and asked him to please remove his video, as it was causing some "technical difficulties." Smidlein promptly deleted the video and was rather apologetic about the whole situation:

Don't feel too bad, Will. The engineers probably shouldn't have pushed such easily breakable code in the first place.

Something strange is happening in Pakistan.

Team Android has discovered a bizarre Easter egg in Google Maps that shows the Android logo peeing on the Apple logo.

To check it out yourself, just go to these coordinates, and you will be sent to Rawalpindi, Pakistan.

Another piece of Google Maps graffiti was later found in the Takht Pari Forest, which you can see below.

It is believed to be the result of someone abusing Google’s Map Maker tool, and the company issued a statement to The Daily Mail.

“We’ve terminated the Android involved in this incident, and he’ll be disappearing from Google Maps shortly,” said a Google rep.

And Pascal Hartig, a Twitter engineer, also pointed out that it was a random user.

So yes, it would appear that Google Maps review process could use a little work.

Head on over to Pakistan and soak it up now before it’s gone.