This article is from the source 'bbc' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.

You can find the current article at its original source at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-22025729

The article has changed 5 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.

Version 3 Version 4
Facebook releases 'home' software for Android phones Facebook's release of 'home' spurs privacy worries
(about 14 hours later)
Facebook is releasing software that puts feeds from the social network on the home screen of Android phones. Facebook's "home" software for Android phones could "destroy" privacy, warn industry watchers and analysts.
The software will act like a "wrapper" for the Android operating system and become the main way to use a phone. Unveiled on 4 April, home is a "wrapper" for Android and puts Facebook feeds on a phone's main screen.
Notifications, images and messages will appear on the main screen of the phone instead of being accessible via a downloadable app. But the detailed data that could be mined from home users could intrude on private life, commentators warned.
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg said the change would put people, not apps, at the heart of the mobile experience. Many took issue with the claim that home put people, not apps, at the heart of the mobile experience, saying it would help Facebook sell ads.
Handset homeHandset home
In a presentation given at Facebook's campus, Mr Zuckerberg said phone apps were a legacy of the computer world in which people clicked on an icon to start a program. Home was shown off in a presentation given at Facebook's campus by the social network's founder Mark Zuckerberg. He said it was an attempt to do away with app-centred systems that were a legacy of the computer world in which people clicked on an icon to start a program.
While this worked well with desktops and laptops, it made less sense with phones, he said. Once installed on a phone, home takes over the lock screen and main display turning it into a live feed of information, notifications and images Facebook users are sharing.
"Now there's a new use case that's more and more important," he said. "We have our phones with us all the time and we want to know more what's happening to our friends." The "always on" nature of home bothered industry watcher Om Malik from tech news website GigaOm who said it could be a route to gathering data about users that would otherwise be hard to find.
Facebook's Home software will hide apps and instead pipe all the content and chat carried on via the social network to the home screen. "This application erodes any idea of privacy," he wrote. "If you install this, then it is very likely that Facebook is going to be able to track your every move, and every little action."
The software "wrapper" will also change the way that people swap messages or content by letting them respond by tapping on pop-up images, known as chat heads, rather than opening up apps and navigating through menus. Users of home could see their privacy "destroyed", he warned.
The software will be available via Google's Play Store as a download and will work only with phones running Android 4.0 or higher. Facebook home will be available from 12 April on six phones - three from HTC and three from Samsung. Only four of these handsets are available now. The others are set to launch alongside Facebook home. Harry McCracken at Time pointed out that many other apps can grab data like home but said it would be "comforting" to get confirmation from Facebook that it had no plans to datamine the lives of its users.
No information was given about whether home would be re-developed to work with Apple or Microsoft phones. Their worries were echoed by Natasha Lomas at TechCrunch who said "The Facebookification of the mobile web is a threat to openness, to choice, to privacy - but only if you care about those things".
Facebook said users could try the software rather than have to commit to use it all the time. Initially, the code will only be available for phones but a version for tablets is under development. Ms Lomas wrote that home would create many winners and losers and said it was a way for Facebook gradually to take over more and more functions on phones. Home will have monthly updates and Ms Lomas expected many of those to use Facebook as the core controls for a handset.
Cory Ondrejka, Facebook's head of engineering, said the company started its push to make everything it did centre on mobiles in early 2012. Figures from Facebook suggest that users spend about 25% of their time on their handsets looking at their feeds and chatting with friends. She also wondered if home would be a success or prove unpopular with users.
Facebook's fourth quarter earnings revealed that about 23% of the money it made from advertising came from adverts shown to mobile users. "Facebook thinks it's more important to people than it actually is," Charles Golvin, an analyst at Forrester Research, told Reuters.
Prior to the news conference, many people speculated that Facebook would announce a branded handset. Mr Zuckerberg said the firm shied away from doing this because even the best selling phones would only reach a small percentage of its user base. "For the vast majority of people, Facebook just isn't the be-all and end-all of their mobile experience," he said. "It's just one part."
"This can start to be a change in the relationship that we have with how we use these computing devices," he said. "I see a more apathetic response among Facebook users than Facebook might be expecting," he added.
Jan Dawson, senior telecoms analyst at Ovum, said: "To Facebook, this is about becoming more deeply embedded in the operating system on mobile devices, and creating a broader platform. Jan Dawson, senior telecoms analyst at Ovum, said home was the "next best thing" to creating a Facebook operating system for mobiles.
"Since Facebook doesn't make an operating system for mobile devices, this is the next best thing," he said.
Mr Dawson added that the change would let Facebook track more of a user's behaviour on devices and to serve up ads.Mr Dawson added that the change would let Facebook track more of a user's behaviour on devices and to serve up ads.
"That presents the biggest obstacle to success for this experiment: Facebook's objectives and users' are once again in conflict," he said. "Users don't want more advertising or tracking, and Facebook wants to do more of both.""That presents the biggest obstacle to success for this experiment: Facebook's objectives and users' are once again in conflict," he said. "Users don't want more advertising or tracking, and Facebook wants to do more of both."
The software will be available via Google's Play Store as a download and will work only with phones running Android 4.0 or higher - this accounts for about 50% of all Android phones. Home will be available on 12 April in the US and soon after in other territories.
No information was given about whether home would be redeveloped to work with Apple or Microsoft phones.