Facebook Home Cover Feed

Facebook has recently released a new app for Android called ‘Facebook Home.’   Facebook describes it as “The family of apps that puts your friends at the heart of your phone.” But what exactly is this app though, and what makes it different from the existing Facebook mobile app and messaging  app? Facebook Home is a launcher app, meaning that it replaces the default user interface on phones. This means that instead of the usual home screen on Android’s that you’re used to, Facebook Home, well, creates a home screen that is centered around Facebook. Whenever the home button is pressed or the phone comes out of sleep, the Cover feed becomes active, showing you a stream of full screen photos and updates that your friends are sharing.

Navigation

This isn’t all that Facebook Home has though. It also has created its own messenger and apps launcher that is just a swipe away from the home screen. Pressing on your round profile picture at the bottom of the Cover feed brings up your navigation panel. Dragging your picture up opens the app launcher, while dragging to the left opens Facebook Messenger and dragging right opens the last app you were using.

App Launcher

The apps launcher is designed to allow quick access to the apps you use the most and is completely customizable. You can also access a complete list of your other apps from this page as well. The Facebook Messenger in Home looks strikingly similar to the old Facebook Messenger app. However, in Home it combines both your Facebook messages and your text messages into one stream.

Facebook Home Chat Heads

Zuckerberg shared that “after noting we spend more than 20% of our mobile time on social apps, we asked ourselves- if we’re already spending this much time on our phones, how can we make it easier? What if they were designed around people first, and you could also just happen to interact with apps?” One answer to this comes in the form of Chat Heads, a unique feature that allows you to have conversations with your friends without losing what you were doing by switching apps. When a friend messages you a Chat Head pops up allowing you to chat and get right back to what you were doing without missing a beat or changing apps.

All of these features combine to provide the user a very Facebook-centric experience on their phone that is more about people than apps.  Facebook Home is now available for download on certain devices (the new HTC One X, Samsung Galaxy SIII and Samsung Galaxy Note II) in the Google Play store. And every month Facebook is hoping to add more features and make it accessible on more devices, including tablets.

On this day in history 40 years ago, the first call from a cell phone was made. Martin Cooper, the Division Manager of the Motorola Cellular Program, made the call on a busy street corner in New York, on the 6th Avenue by the New York Hilton. Who was the lucky person to receive this history making call? None other than Joel Engel from Bell Systems, one of his chief competitors in the cellular technology race.  Unfortunately, his phone call was not recorded like Samuel Morse’s first telegraph or Alexander Graham Bell’s first phone call, “Watson, come here. I want to see you.”  Although the words Cooper reportedly said were, “I’m ringing you just to see if my call sounds good at your end.”

The device used to make this historic call was the Motorola DynaTAC 8000x.  The phone had 30 circuit boards and weighed a massive 2.5 lbs and was 9″ tall!   And even with a big battery the phone only had 20-30 minutes of talk time and took a whopping 10 hours to recharge. The price also seemed to match the huge size of the phone. When it was released to consumers 10 years later it cost almost $4,000!

Cell phones sure have come a long way since then! And we can’t wait to see what changes will come in the next months, years, and decades, regarding mobile technology. And as your mobile electronics experts, we’ll be sure to keep you informed and up to date on all of the latest and greatest gadgets!

1. Hearing Test – Prank Box

Test your friends or family members hearing with this app…and then wait for it…wait for it…

If you want a sneak peek, here’s a video

Download here

2. Dude! Your car!

Trick your friends and family into thinking their car has been damaged or totaled. All you have to do is snap a pic of their car and use the app to add damage to the car and voila! You now have a prank that will be sure to get their attention!

See it in action

Download here

3. Broken Screen

There’s nothing worse than breaking your phone’s screen…except maybe breaking your friend’s phone screen.  Download this app, fake wanting to show your friend something on your screen, and then fumble the hand off. It’s as easy as 1,2,3.

Download here

4. Ghost App

Scare and prank your friends at the same time with this fun app! Snap Ghost in the Apple store lets you add tons of frightful effects to the photos on your phone. Simply take a picture, insert a scary ghost, and watch your friends face!

Download here

Check out the install below!

From Samsung.com

In an event last night Samsung released the fourth generation of their most popular phone, the Samsung Galaxy. The new Samsung Galaxy SIV boasts many upgrades, compared to its predecessor, including a bigger screen, a feature rich camera, and new technology that has never been seen before.

The first difference you’ll see between the GS3 and GS4 is the size. The GS4 boasts a 5″ screen with a 1920 x 1080 display, 441 pixels per inch, and Gorilla Glass 3. Even with the increase in screen size, the GS4 is weighs in lighter than the GS3 at just 130 grams.

The camera is one of the biggest upgrades. Samsung has added built in features and apps that make your phone more like an actual camera.  The rear facing camera is now a whopping 13 megapixels with multiple shooting modes, including portrait mode and night mode, among others. Additionally, there are fun new features like “dual shot” that let you take a photo with the front and rear facing cameras simultaneously so you can be in that photo you’re taking of your family.

Samsung has also integrated their eye tracking and gesture recognition software into the GS4.  “Smart pause,” “Smart scroll,” “Air view,” and “Air gesture” all allow you to use and control your phone without ever touching it.  “Smart pause” automatically stops a video you’re watching if you look away from the screen, while ”smart scroll” is able to tell if you’re reading something on the screen and will automatically scroll down if you tip the phone.  Similarly, “Air view” lets you preview certain things just by holding your finger over the phone, and ”Air gesture” lets you switch between tabs or change a song just by moving your hand over the phone.

There are also a ton of cool apps that come built in.  The GS4 has an IR sensor, which lets you use your phone as a remote for your TV, while the S Health app turns your phone into a pedometer and can keep a log of what you ate and how many calories you burned and consumed on a daily basis.

As far as tech specs go, the GS4 will run on Android “Jelly Bean” and has a 1.9 GHz quad-core processor or 1.6 GHz Octa-Core processor (depends on the market).

Samsung has not announced a specific release date, but the phone is slated to be available sometime in the next couple of months on all of the major carriers. As your wireless experts, we will be sure to keep you updated with any information regarding the release date and availability at Car Toys!