Facebook to pay £6m to settle court 'likes' suit

Facebook has agreed to pay $10m (£6.36m) to charity to settle a court case.

The social network was accused of violating users' rights by not letting them control the use of their own names and photographs, Reuters reports. Facebook? Using your information to make money? Whatever next?

Five people on the social network were disgruntled about how Facebook used their 'likes' of certain advertisers in the 'sponsored stories' feature without any financial reward or giving them the option of opting out, which seems a bit off. This is according to court documents only just made public.

So their friends would see their name, profile picture, and the fact they 'liked' a certain advertiser. This would all be in their 'sponsored story' section. The five people said this violated California law.

Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg described a trusted referral as the "Holy Grail" of advertising. Chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg said a sponsored story was worth two to three times as much as a standard advert on the site. 

Considering Facebook's size, the suit could have included nearly one in every three Americans, with potentially billions of dollars of damages. US District Judge Lucy Koh was satisfied the plaintiffs had shown economic injury could occur from Facebook's use of their names, photographs and likenesses, though it wasn't made clear exactly how. I can see why they would be annoyed, and don't think their likenesses should be used this way, but I don't see how they'll suffer financially.

Koh wrote: "California has long recognised a right to protect one's name and likeness against appropriation by others for their advantage."

It's not the first time the social network has been in hot water over privacy concerns. It was previously criticised for activating facial recognition without asking permission, doling out your phone number, and telling everyone where you are until you tell it not to. Tsk.

Is this a reasonable ruling? Or should Facebook be able to do what it likes with the info you give it? Let me know in the comments.

Apple giving podcasts their own app in iOS 6

Apple showed off the new version of iTunes to developers this week at WWDC in California, but podcasts were conspicuous by their absence. So what's the deal?

Well Apple is making a dedicated app for podcasts, according to AllThingsD. The report references people familiar with Apple's plans. So when iOS 6 launches this autumn podcasts will have their own app, letting you find, download and play them on your mobile or tablet.

If you're using a desktop or laptop, however, podcasts will still be present and correct in iTunes. So it sounds like this is an iOS 6 instigation only.

It's not the first time Apple has made such a move: last year it broke the iTunes player app into separate video and music versions. When iBooks launched at the same time as the iPad in 2010, the reader came as a separate app. And it made iTunes U -- its series of lectures and courses that let you get your learn on -- a separate app too, though you can still get to your downloads via iTunes on a mobile. Though that could change soon.

It seems like Apple is trying to de-clutter iTunes somewhat. It does seem strange doing so only on iOS 6 and not on OS X though. Maybe the more limited processing power of iOS devices means iTunes as it is runs sluggishly on said gadgets. I know an older iPod Touch crawls to a halt when you install iOS 5.

Podcasts are still a hugely popular category, though they may not be mentioned as often as in 2007, when it seemed everyone and his dog had one. (You can check out our latest ruminations on the week's news here.) Anything that helps iTunes run more effectively is ok in my book. Let's face it, with all its bugs, iTunes needs a serious spring clean.

What do you reckon? Let me know in the comments.

Apple-1 sells at auction for £240,000, makes iPad seem cheap

The original Apple-1 has sold at auction for a whopping $374,500 -- that's £238,269.

The computer, made in 1976 by the late Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, lacks a keyboard, monitor, keyboard, or a case, CNN reports. It's just a motherboard really. But it still works, which is pretty amazing. So how come every iMac I've ever owned dies after about two years?

Auction house Sotheby's sold the Apple-1 yesterday in New York. It more than doubled the predicted price of $180,000 after a furious bidding war broke out between two potential buyers. Sounds fierce.

An anonymous telephone bidder was the eventual winner.

Apple founders Jobs and Wozniak built the device in 1976 and attracted the attention of Silicon Valley store chain Byte Shop, who ordered 50 of them for $500 each. Jobs and Wozniak put together the order in just 30 days. Sotheby's touted it as "the start of the personal computing revolution."

At the end of 2010, an Apple-1 encased in wood sold at Christie's for £133,250 -- then a record. Though both of these pale in comparison to the papers detailing the founding of Apple, which went for a cool million last year. They were sold by Ronald Wayne a few years previously, for "several thousand dollars", so Mr Wayne must be kicking himself. He also handed back his 10 per cent stake in Apple for two payments: $800 and $1,500. Apparently he thought Apple would fail.

More recently a prototype iPad cropped up on eBay with two docks, for landscape charging and syncing. That went for £6,500. The seller said Apple came up with the idea for two docks "late in the process", and decided against it "at the last minute".

How much would you pay for a vintage piece of Apple memorabilia? I think I've still got an old 40GB iPod knocking about somewhere if anyone's interested. Let me know in the comments.

Xbox 720 leaks, Kinect 2 and Kinect Glasses also on the way

There was no Xbox 720 at E3 -- as we predicted -- but a 56 page document has just leaked detailing the console, as well as the successor to Kinect and a nifty glasses add-on known as Project Fortaleza.

The presentation dates from August 2010, The Verge reports, but considering it predicts such innovations as SmartGlass and a Metro dashboard, I've no reason not to assume these are on the money.

First up is the console. It's referenced as the Xbox 720 in the literature, and while it could be a working title, we'll take it as the name until we hear any different. The big news is it looks like it'll come packing Blu-ray functionality for showing 1080p HD movies, and it'll be able to play films in 3D. There should also be a huge jump in power -- six times as beefy as the current Xbox, according to the document. An 'always on' state should mean lightning start-up speeds too. Though the final specs aren't disclosed, with it possibly touting eight ARM or x86 cores, each clocked at 2GHz with 4GB of DDR4 memory, and three PPC cores each clocked at 3.2GHz for backwards compatibility with Xbox 360 games.

Thanks to a Windows 8 base it should let you record TV shows, and it should be easy for developers to make apps to work across it, PCs and mobiles too. The price is predicted as $299 (£190), and Microsoft expects it to stay around for a 10 year lifecycle, selling more than 100 million units.

Kinect 2 should be more accurate, have stereo imaging, better voice recognition, support for four player tracking, an improved camera, and dedicated hardware processing. Dedicated controllers (or 'props') are also expected, such as a bat for a baseball game. But does that miss the point of controller-free gaming?

And Project Fortaleza are a pair of specs that will work over Wi-Fi or 4G and add augmented reality to the mix. Google Project Glass for games, anyone? The glasses won't launch until 2014 though, but they are designed for use away from the console too, which is pretty exciting.

It all sounds pretty great to be honest. You can read the whole thing here. What are you most excited about? Let me know in the comments.

Dropbox for iOS update saves your snaps, gives you 3GB free

Dropbox for the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch has added automatic video and photo uploading, storing your snaps safely online.

The version 1.5 update, which is now available to download, has a feature that causes any snaps or footage you capture using your device to be automatically uploaded to your Dropbox account.

It's a feature that was already present on the Android version of the app, and provides peace of mind for anyone too lazy to physically back up all those thousands of pictures of your cat and videos of... your cat.

As an incentive to use the service (and possibly because Dropbox knows that most people have a huge number of photos clogging up their smart phones), Dropbox will give you up to 3GB of free extra space when you upload photos automatically, doling out the free storage in 500MB chunks.

I've used the app, and the automatic upload is easy to use -- it's just a virtual switch to flick in the settings tab, at which point you'll be asked if you want to upload snaps and clips from this point on, or whether you'd like to retroactively back up everything currently languishing on your phone.

There's one feature missing though, and that's the ability to stop videos from being automatically uploaded. If you're anything like me, you've got a tonne of photos you'd like to back up, but don't want enormous, less important video files hogging your storage.

Another downside is that, like the Google+ iOS app, you'll need to have Dropbox open in the background for it to back up your snaps automatically. Close down the app, and your snaps won't upload.

Are you a Dropbox fanatic? What do you use the service for? Let me know in the comments.

Amazon cancels £200 Nintendo Wii U July pre-orders

Well it sounded too good to be true.

Amazon listed the Nintendo Wii U as costing £199 with a UK release pencilled in for 14 July. But now the retailer has scrapped the listing, and is refunding anyone who laid down their cash,MCV reports.

The release seemed wildly optimistic. Nintendo showed off the next generation console at games show E3, with an autumn release expected. I'm thinking sometime between October and December sounds realistic.

And the price? Nintendo does traditionally offer its consoles cheaper than others, though that touchscreen controller could well bump up the price. The company had to drop the price of its 3DS handheld to kickstart sales, so hopefully it'll be able to stay under the £200 mark for the Wii U. But my guess is somewhere nearer £250-280.

ShopTo has also opened pre-orders for the console, with an estimated price of £279.99 for both the white and black versions. But the price is subject to change, as the disclaimer makes clear. And there's no release date given. So it sounds like it's reading the tea leaves on this one.

Nikkei estimated the Wii U would sell for £250 in Japan. Nintendo stayed mum at E3 concerning the price.

Reception was mixed concerning the Wii U at E3. Luke Westaway for one is skeptical about how things will pan out for Nintendo's console, predicting troublesome games development and a shrinking of the casual gaming market that made the Wii such a success. Certainly Microsoft's Kinect has outdone it technologically, and mobiles seem to be catering quite nicely for those in search of a quick gaming fix. But this is Nintendo, and it always pulls out a stellar launch line-up. The mere mention of a new Mario game is enough to have fanboys salivating.

Are you excited about the Wii U? How much would you pay for one? Let me know in the comments.

Nokia promises cheaper Lumia phones to fight Android

Nokia CEO Stephen Elop has vowed to deliver cheap Windows Phone devices, in a bid to "compete with Android aggressively", the Verge reports.

Elop's stern words come in the wake of bad news for Nokia, with the Finnish company selling off its Vertu luxury smart phone brand and cutting 10,000 jobs.

Speaking on a conference call, Elop pledged that Nokia would forge Windows Phone mobiles even cheaper than the wallet-friendly Lumia 610 (which costs about £180 SIM-free), admitting that the fight over the low-end market is "an important part" of Nokia's battle against Android.

Elop said Nokia already had plans to go cheaper than the 610, and the company had figured out "ways to go even further than we anticipated".

It's a fact that when it comes to mid-range and budget blowers, Google's mobile operating system is cleaning up. Excellent value mobiles like the Huawei Ascend G300 or the T-Mobile Vivacity offer robot-powered touchscreen fun for about £100 apiece.

The low end might seem like a natural fit for Windows Phone, where shoppers may be less fussed about things like app selection and processing power, and could be swayed by a slick, colourful interface. Nokia has form in this area too, having spent years churning out affordable phones.

But problems have been known to arise when Windows Phone goes budget. The Lumia 610can't install apps like Angry Birds and Skype (which is owned by Microsoft), because it doesn't have enough memory.

Admittedly Android sometimes suffers from similar problems, but for an operating system as slick and new as Windows Phone, that kind of fragmentation is a worrying sign.

Elop's vow to create cheap phones is in contrast to another struggling manufacturer. HTC chief Peter Chou recently insisted that the company won't be making affordable mobiles, because it doesn't want to harm its brand image.

Would you buy a cheap Lumia? Or should Nokia's Windows Phone efforts be the preserve of railroad tycoons and wealthy astronauts? Let me know in the comments.