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Relief, disbelief, and some leftover bitterness surround Microsoft pulling a 180 on its Xbox One "always-on" policy.

Gamers have taken to forums, comment threads, and social media to express how they feel about the tech giant flip-flopping on the series of rules and restrictions that would have required Xbox One gamers to connect their consoles to the Internet once a day to prevent game piracy.

Microsoft announced Wednesday that it was backtracking on this much-derided policy, causing a flood of user reaction.

On Xbox's Facebook and Twitter accounts, tens of thousands of users have commented on the … Read more

Facebook is now letting its 1.11 billion members react to their friends' status updates with photo comments.

The social network said Wednesday that it has started the global release of the new feature, which lets people add photos to comment threads using a new Attach a Photo button. To start, uploads of photo comments will be restricted to the Facebook Web site and mobile site, but simply viewing photo comments will be possible from Facebook's mobile applications, the company said.

Photo comments are a product of one of Facebook's famous hackathons. Facebook engineer Bob Baldwin, one of … Read more

It was a slow week in rumorland, but a couple stories managed to make their way onto the scene.

HTC's long-rumored HTC One Mini is back, now with leaked pictures and specs. The miniature version of HTC's flagship would be thinner, shorter, but still sporting that unibody aluminum design. And now it'll fit into your pocket!

Samsung could also be hopping aboard the mini train, possibly announcing a Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini at an event in London on Thursday. This version of the Galaxy will have a 4.3-inch screen, and will fit nicely into smaller hands.

Also on Thursday, Facebook is hosting a supersecret event, where it might unveil its answer to Twitter's Vine: Instagram videos. What do you think? Is Facebook just being a copycat, or is it really onto something here? Leave a comment below and let me know your thoughts.

… Read more

Facebook is currently suffering an apparent disruption that is preventing many of its users from accessing the social network.

Downforeveryoneorjustme.com was giving visitors intermittent "down" answers this evening when they checked on Facebook's status.

While the mobile version of Facebook was available to smartphone and tablet users, people trying to visit the Web version Tuesday evening were greeted by the message that the page did not exist.

The outage appears to have begun around 6 p.m. PT, but it's unknown how many people might be affected.

Facebook users turned to Twitter to complain about … Read more

The creator of hit puzzle game Candy Crush Saga is preparing to go public, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday.

Anonymous sources told the Journal that King, through its holding company Midasplayer International Holding Co., has talked to several banks including J.P. Morgan Chase, Credit Suisse Group AG, and Bank of America to carry out its initial public offering, or IPO, in the U.S. This means King wants to sell shares of its company to public investors.

While CEO Riccardo Zacconi has mentioned an IPO as a possibility before, this report signals that … Read more

Facebook added a collection of emoticons to the latest version of its application for iOS devices.

In version 6.2, released Tuesday, Facebook users on iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch can add emoji-style icons to their status updates for show-and-tell social networking.

The status icons were added to Facebook's Web site earlier this year. The iOS edition replicates the desktop release, which means people can click the smiley face in the status update box to bring up a menu that sorts expressive graphics into categories including feeling, watching, reading, and eating. The mood and activity images are accompanied by … Read more

During Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg's whirlwind Asia tour, he stopped by the offices of Samsung this week for a quick meeting with the company's president, Shin Jong Kyun.

After the meeting, Shin stopped to talk to reporters and said that the two discussed potential partnerships, according to Bloomberg. The partnerships would reportedly center on advancing mobile-advertising sales.

Facebook has been long pushing to boost advertising on mobile. In April, the social network debuted Facebook Home, which is a family of mobile apps and a social-networking-focused skin that runs over Android in smartphones like HTC's One and Samsung'… Read more

Facebook is postponing the release of video advertisements that automatically play in News Feed, according to Ad Age.

The social network wants to release the specialized units alongside new social-networking features and is now targeting an unofficial mid-October launch date, Ad Age reported, citing a source familiar with the product.

Fifteen-second video ads that auto-play in the Facebook feed have been rumored since late last year and were supposedly on track for a June or July release. In April, Ad Age reported that the social network was shopping around the units for a price tag upwards of $1 million for … Read more