Facebook has been slowly rolling out tests to select developers that want to integrate with the Facebook gift shop. As of today there are approximately 5 companies that have been participating in tests: American Greetings, RealGifts, JibJab, GreetBeatz, and someecards. The latter three only recently began showing up in the gift shop. However Facebook has been testing out the gift shop as a platform for developers to sell virtual gifts over the past few months.

Back in August, the company also announced the addition of a number of non-profit companies that have begun using the Facebook gift shop as a…

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Earlier in September, Microsoft revealed that the first batch of smartphones running Windows Mobile 6.5 would start shipping on 6 October. According to Benjamin Tan, senior director, GCR mobile team unit, Microsoft China, there will more than 30 smartphones running on Windows Mobile 6.5 by the end of 2009, as reported by Cnet News. The devices would come from more than 15 handset manufacturers. LG, Samsung, HP, Acer, and Toshiba have voiced their support for Microsoft’s mobile OS as well as carriers worldwide, including AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint, Verizon Wireless, Vodafone, and Telus.

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The experience of cinema is just going to get bigger with the launch of Philips Cinema 21:9. Movies are displayed in the 21:9 aspect ratio — exactly as the director intended — on its 56-inch Full-HD screen. Cinema 21:9 is the world’s first TV to deliver a true cinematic viewing experience in the comfort of the home, informs Mahesh krishnan, vice president, consumer lifestyle, Philips, to Tech Gadgets. Traditional LCD televisions compromise on the cinematic viewing experience either by changing the aspect ratio to fill the screen – losing the full scope of the original shot – or by inserting…

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t’s already known that AT&T is activating MMS for the iPhone on Friday, but the company has now narrowed the time frame to within a few hours.(Credit: Apple)As reported by AppleInsider, AT&T’s official Facebook page said the service will be activated late morning Pacific time Friday. That’s not exactly definitive, but at least no one will need to sit around all morning wondering if it’s on yet.The iPhone’s multimedia messaging service will allow the transmission of photos, contacts, audio files, and locations with the Messages app, according to Apple.In order to get the service, you will need to download a…

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Yesterday Offerpal announced the launch of a new multivariate testing platform which helps developers optimize their virtual currency to maximize revenue and keep each application’s virtual economy more stable. Managing an overall economy isn’t easy however Offerpal hopes that this new system helps developers a bit more. They also hope developers implement the system as it helps not only the developers generate more revenue but Offerpal as well.

A number of companies have been announcing more advanced analytics and application management packages for developers over the past few weeks including Brainwave who recently launched a service for sending out notifications…

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Hackers have programmed a Trojan that uses Google Groups newsgroups to distribute commands. Trojan distribution via newsgroups has existed for more than a decade, but using newsgroups as a command and control channel is a new innovation.
The Grups Trojan itself is quite simple and is only noteworthy for the command and control structure it deploys. The malware is programmed to log into a Chinese language newsgroup to receive commands, Symantec security researcher Gavin O’Gorman writes.
When successfully logged in, the Trojan requests a page from a private newsgroup, escape2sun. The page contains commands for the Trojan to carry out.…

This week was another busy one for Facebook who made a number of large announcements on Thursday. Facebook has been pretty consistent with rolling out relatively significant updates and announcements on a weekly basis over the past month. With Facebook beyond 275 million users, based on our internal numbers, Facebook continues the march toward 300 million. Hopefully Facebook continues pushing out weekly news stories so our job of chronicling the company’s activities can stay exciting!

Facebook for Android Launches
As we expected, Facebook for Android officially launched on Tuesday afternoon around the time of Facebook’s mobile press event. Initial reviews…

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A top SAP executive said Wednesday that the vendor’s Business ByDesign on-demand ERP (enterprise resource planning) suite for SMBs will take “the world by storm” one day, but declined to reveal when a long-anticipated broader release will occur. SAP initially announced the suite in late 2007, and predicted it would generate US$1 billion in revenue by 2010. But it subsequently limited the rollout to a handful of markets while working to make sure the SaaS (software as a service) application will be profitable enough at scale. In remarks at the Citigroup Global Technology Conference in New York Wednesday, SAP executive…

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