Facebook briefly killed everyone last week
Late last week, many Facebook users logged on to the social network only to be greeted by memorial profiles of themselves, their friends, and Mark Zuckerburg himself. In a bizarre glitch, the social network ended up considering its users to have passed on and activated the memorial profiles that their place in remembrance of a life lived, loved, liked and shared. This phenomenon happened to Mark Zuckerburg's profile as well, and the company has since rectified the problem, though not before briefly bringing the profiles of actually deceased people back to life.
The coincidental timing of the glitch with the result of the US presidential election led Twitter to have a fair bit of fun at Facebook's expense.
Snap using vending bots to sell its new Spectacles
Snapchat's parent company Snap, which recently launched a set of funky eyeglasses designed to capture quick ten-second video clips for upload to Snapchat, has started selling them in the US through bright yellow vending machines that pop up at random locations. The Spectacles, which are priced at $129, are running out of stock rapidly, and the demand is such that people are selling them at highly inflated prices online and near where the bots popped up.
While Snapchat has achieved widespread popularity in India as well, there is no word on international availability as yet.
Samsung all set to acquire Harman
In one of the most major transactions for the Korean company, Samsung is all set to acquire audio giant Harman. This is seen as a move to push into the emerging automotive tech industry, as Harman, which also owns big names like JBL and AKG and licenses brands like Bowers & Wilkins, is a big player in automotive audio.
This acquisition is bound to help Samsung's existing product lines as well, so it would not be surprising to see future Samsung phones and wearables to come branded with audio solutions designed by Harman.
Skype can now be used without an account
Despite all it's functionality, getting Skype to work can sometimes be a cumbersome task, with usernames and the troublesome Windows account integration being major factors. In a welcome move, Microsoft has just announced that Skype can now be used without an account. This is done by using the Skype web client on skype.com, where users can generate a unique link for a voice or video chat and send it to someone else, who also need not have the service. Most of the functionality of Skype is retained even in this Guest mode.
