Facebook Updates Android App: 1.9 Adds Photos, Message Sharing From Home Screen

Facebook has released an update to its Android app today that should give users of the social network on Android devices a more integrated and instant experience — and takes Facebook another step closer to making its mobile app experience more like the one people have when using the social network on the web.

Specifically, the new version lets users share photos and messages direct from the home screen of their devices, and it includes several features that had been in the standalone Messenger app.

Facebook for Android 1.9, according to a blog post from Facebook software engineer Frank Qixing Du, also integrates several features that had been in Facebook’s separate Messenger app. These include the ability to see when your friends are online or on their mobile devices; the ability to add people to a group conversation; and a more intelligent contact list, sorting it by the people you interact with most.

After updating the app, camera shortcuts and messaging shortcuts will also appear in your Android app tray, as shortcuts separate from the Facebook app itself:

HCL Tech, Mahindra Satyam go innovative in hiring

Hiring methods at Indian companies have undergone dramatic changes over the last few years as the war for talent continues unabated. Employers are now willing to go beyond traditional channels in order to get things right. While hiring from networking sites is not new to India Inc, it's now achieving substantial scale. 

Take India's fourth largest IT services company, HCL Technologies, for instance. It got on board almost 60% of its senior-level executives (general managers and above) last year through professional online networking platforms, primarily LinkedIn. ING Vysya Bank, on the other hand, introduced something called 'fone-a-career' in 2011, similar to a customer services cell, to cater to prospective employees by counselling them over the phone about their careers. About 7% of its overall hiring was done through this platform last year. 

Employers say they are seeking these alternative routes to not only sift out the best talent but to also make their workforce diverse. So, it wasn't surprising when IT major Mahindra Satyamrecently launched a campaign called 'Career Divas' on social networking website Facebook and successfully hired only women. Last month, snacks & beverages major PepsiCo India introduced an application tracking system Kenexa, already being used globally, within the company to help it leverage the relevance of social media in recruitment. 

"We have a dedicated team which looks into hiring through social media. As early adopters, we are at a stage where the numbers are much higher in terms of percentage of workforce hired from these new channels compared to any of our peers," says Ravi Shankar , senior VP, HR, atHCL Technologies . Shankar says HCL started using portals such as LinkedIn way back in 2007 and, other than hiring a huge chunk of its senior executives, it also employs 20% of its junior and 40% of its mid-level staff through it. HR heads at companies say for senior positions candidates who are not actively looking out for a job change can also be tapped through such platforms and at much lesser costs whilst a consultant at an executive search firm charges a huge fee. 

While the numbers are staggering for HCL, another IT services firm, Mahindra Satyam, says it hires 10% of its workforce , largely at the 2-6 years experience level, from social media platformsand plans to increase its focus further. Having conducted the 'Career Divas' , Mahindra Satyam's chief people officer Hari T says the idea is to explore more such avenues which are not traditional in nature. 

Thousands may lose internet in July

For computer users, a few mouse clicks could mean the difference between staying online and losing internet connections this summer. 

Unknown to most of them, their problem began when international hackers ran an online advertising scam to take control of infected computers around the world. In a highly unusual response, the FBI set up a safety net months ago using government computers to prevent internet disruptions for those infected users. But that system is to be shut down. 

The FBI is encouraging users to visit a website run by its security partner, http://www.dcwg.org , that will inform them whether they're infected and explain how to fix the problem. After July 9, infected users won't be able to connect to the internet. 

Most victims don't even know their computers have been infected, although the malicious software probably has slowed their web surfing and disabled their antivirus software, making their machines more vulnerable to other problems. 

Last November, the FBI and other authorities were preparing to take down a hacker ring that had been running an internet ad scam on a massive network of infected computers. 

"We started to realize that we might have a little bit of a problem on our hands because ... if we just pulled the plug on their criminal infrastructure and threw everybody in jail, the victims of this were going to be without internet service," said Tom Grasso, an FBI supervisory special agent. "The average user would open up Internet Explorer and get 'page not found' and think the internet is broken." 

On the night of the arrests, the agency brought in Paul Vixie, chairman and founder of Internet Systems Consortium, to install two internet servers to take the place of the truckload of impounded rogue servers that infected computers were using. Federal officials planned to keep their servers online until March, giving everyone opportunity to clean their computers. But it wasn't enough time. A federal judge in New York extended the deadline until July. 

Now, said Grasso, "the full court press is on to get people to address this problem." And it's up to computer users to check their PCs.

Meet the Mann who registered 14,962 domains in 24 hours

The next time you find yourself pounding your keyboard in frustration because the domain name you want is already taken, direct your ire towards Mike Mann.

Mann is one of the longest members of the clubby world of domain speculators, and he's buying up names in force these days. And not all on the aftermarket, as some others do. But new names. Dot-com names that aren't registered -- even though 100 million-plus already are -- that he then turns around and sells for a few hundred bucks, sometimes far more.

And this week, in a span that lasted less than 24 hours across Tuesday and Wednesday, Mann snapped up 14,962 domains -- 1,822 starting Tuesday evening and the rest on Wednesday.

"I'm just really greedy," said Mann, a man no one would describe as modest. "I want to own the world."

First, the quick back story. Mann, who's 45 and lives in Delaware, joined the dot-com land grab relatively early, in the late 1990s. He had founded an ISP called Internet Interstate, but one day in 1998, much to his surprise, he got a $25,000 offer for a domain he owned, Menus.com. The following day he got a $50,000 offer.

"I was like, 'I paid $70 for this,'" said Mann, who tends to sport dark glasses and, despite the outfit in the photo, doesn't smoke cigarettes. "The next day, I went into the domain business.

Motorola Mobility CEOs salary jumps three times

Motorola Mobility Holdings Ltd Chief Executive Officer Sanjay Jha received compensation of $47.2 million last year, when he negotiated to sell the handset maker toGoogle Inc, more than triple his pay for 2010. 

The majority of the gain came from Jha's option awards, which were worth $34.2 million, up from $7.05 million in 2010, the company said today in a regulatory filing. His stock awards more than tripled to $9.4 million. 

Motorola Mobility was spun off from parent Motorola Inc, which became Motorola Solutions Inc, in January 2011 under pressure from investors led by billionaire Carl Icahn looking to shake up the company's performance. Jha helped return the handset business to growth by first slashing the range of Motorola phone varieties and then focusing on building smartphones that use Google's Android software. 

Still, he wasn't able to return Libertyville, Illinois- based Motorola Mobility to profitability before agreeing to sell the company to Google for $12.5 billion on August 15. Shares of the company declined 19 per cent between its January 2011 stock market debut and the day before the Google deal was announced, before jumping 56 per cent on the day of the deal. 

Jha's 2011 compensation is "significantly a result" of the incentives established for him before the spinoff and when he was hired in 2008, Motorola Mobility said in a statement today. "His actual equity award was at the low end of the possible range specified by the formula." 

Google is close to naming Dennis Woodside, who led its ad sales in the Americas before leaving that job to oversee the acquisition, to run Motorola Mobility, replacing Jha when the deal closes, three people familiar with the matter said in February. 

While the deal has won approval from US and European Union regulators, Chinese regulators in March extended their probe into the acquisition, the last hurdle before the transaction can be completed.