reviews

Facebook unveiled a new tool this week it touts as helping find people, photos, places, and interests that are most relevant to Facebook users.

Graph Search is the social network's newest way for users to make sense of its massive base of 1 billion users, 240 billion photos, and 1 trillion connections. The tool is meant to provide people the answers to their questions about people, photos, places, and interests. CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Graph Search is launching to a small number of people and is available only on the desktop and in English for the time being.

People … Read more

Yelp plans to shine a bright light on kitchen conditions with the addition of restaurant hygiene scores.

The scores, imported from city data, are showcased on business pages under the "Health Score" heading and are being rolled out in San Francisco and New York. Review-seekers can click the score to read through an establishment's inspection history and get detailed information on its various violations.

"While ratings and reviews are incredibly powerful ways to guide spending decisions, we're always looking for new ways to supplement the information to provide a better experience for consumers," Yelp … Read more

Forget about 3D TV -- this year's Consumer Electronics Show was all about 4K.

Sony got the ball rolling with the unveiling of new 55-inch and 65-inch 4K TVs, as well as the world's first 4K video distribution service, which offers native 4K movies from Sony Pictures and other 4K content creators. Additionally, the company also said it would be selling "4K mastered" Blu-ray discs this summer; they'll be standard 1080p resolution (not 4K), but supposedly look better than traditional Blu-rays.

The electronics giant unveiled a prototype 4K OLED TV at 56 inches, although little … Read more

After a lengthy investigation into Google's business practices by the Federal Trade Commission, the Web giant has agreed to make minor changes to resolve complaints by competitors and advertisers. It avoided any fines.

The commission found that Google's search results were not biased in favor of its own results in a way that was anti-competitive. However, the FTC did rule that Google must stop blocking the use of standard essential patents by competitors. The patents, which it acquired when it purchased Motorola, are used to comply with technical standards.

Google also agreed to remove restrictions on the use … Read more

Spotify has rounded up its 2012, and revealed that Gotye, Rihanna, and David Guetta had huge years on its service.

According to Spotify, the most popular track this year was Gotye's "Somebody That I Used to Know" both in the U.S. and worldwide. Fun's "We Are Young" and Carly Rae Jepsen's "Call Me Maybe" rounded out the top three most popular songs in the U.S. this year.

Spotify then turned its attention to artists, and discovered that Rihanna was the most popular female artist this year. David Guetta took … Read more

Android and iOS devices were apparently popular gifts this Christmas -- more popular than ever before.

Device activations soared from their daily December average of 4 million to 17.4 million on Christmas Day, a 332 percent increase, according to analytics firm Flurry. That's more than double the 6.8 million devices activated on Christmas last year, the previous single-day record holder. And in a first, more tablets were activated on Christmas this year than phones. Apple tablets dominated the category, but the Kindle Fire HD 7-inch made its strongest showing ever.

iPhone and iPad app downloads jumped 87 percent … Read more

In late 2011, Crave welcomed Low Latency, CNET's first-ever weekly tech comic. Every Thursday morning(ish), the pair behind the comic's shenanigans, artist Blake Stevenson and CNET editor Jeff Bakalar, give their amusing take on a prominent tech happening. Here, a look back at 10 of the year's big stories through Low Latency's unique lens. Click on each panel for a larger version, and to see every one of Low Latency's panels so far, click here. … Read more

It didn't take Facebook long to backtrack over controversial policy changes it intended to make regarding its photo-sharing app Instagram.

A public backlash was ignited by Instagram stating that had it the perpetual right to sell users' photographs without payment or notification. Under the new policy, Facebook claimed the right to license all public Instagram photos to companies or any other organization, including for advertising purposes, which would effectively transform the Web site into the world's largest stock photo agency.

"Instagram is now the new iStockPhoto, except they won't have to pay you anything to use … Read more

YouTube has revealed which news stories riveted the video-watching masses during 2012.

As part of its year in review, YouTube noted that Superstorm Sandy was a popular, if sobering, topic on the site this year, with 39,000 hurricane-related videos showing up on the video site in just one week. A video of an exploding substation caused by the storm topped 4 million views in just 24 hours.

Moving to the U.S. presidential election, YouTube revealed that videos tagged "Obama" or "Romney" were viewed 2.7 billion times and that the candidates' debates nabbed 27 … Read more