Although lately mainly focus is without a doubt on "smart" mobile phones, Facebook says that there are 100 million monthly users who access their service through the "regular" mobile phones, you know, those without the touchscreen.

When Don Mattrick left Microsoft for Zynga many were under the impression that Zynga must have made a pretty nice offer to lure him away from Microsoft. We are pretty sure that this is probably true, but there might be another reason that Mattrick left Microsoft as their Interactive Entertainment Business President. Back in 2010 Don Mattrick tried to get Microsoft to buy Zynga to help bolster what he saw as a big lack in social media games.

Over the last couple of weeks the new has been flooded with articles about the US Government’s surveillance program called PRISM. It is possibly one of the largest invasions of privacy that has been leaked to the general public. What makes this program all the more concerning is that the NSA appears to have cooperation from each of the companies involved. This apparent breach of consumer trust has caused quite a stir and almost all of the companies that were shown in the leaked power point about PRISM have released statements claiming they only cooperate within the limits of the law. This raises an interesting question though; if a broad request is approved by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court wouldn’t a company be within the law to grant access?

In yesterday's update, which the owners of smartphones with iOS and Android in version 4.1 and newer can download for free from the market with applications for their devices, Instagram has received a video recording function.

After the massive leak about the NSA’s PRISM project many people are understandably upset and members of congress have been pulled into closed door meetings to be briefed on the details of what the program is doing. At the same time the companies named in the leaked slides are rushing to perform damage control and protect their businesses from losing customers. So far most of these have come as flat-out denials of any complicity or knowledge of project PRISM. Sadly, even if they were involved most National Security Letters or data requests also come with a gag order preventing them from giving any details or even acknowledging the event. This makes the claims from Microsoft, Google and others seem a tad hollow in the face of what is going on.

What do Apple, Microsoft (Including Skype), Google (YouTube), Facebook, Yahoo, and PalTalk have in common? Well they all participate knowingly in one rather invasive program run by the NSA under the guise of National Security. The program called PRISM was started in 2007 in the last moths of the George W. Bush’s administration the program creates a cooperative system with the listed companies to allow the NSA to query systems for information. Ostensibly the program is intended to protect the US from foreign threats including terrorism, but it has such a wide license that it has already been shown to have captured data about US citizens. To make matters worse certain members of Congress knew about the project back in 2007 and even granted the DOJ the power to force companies to comply in 2008.

There are sharks in the waters of the social networking seas. Of course this is not news to anyone that can read or that has paid any attention to malware trends over the last few years. The sharks have hunters in the form of security companies. However as we all know security companies can miss things and are never ahead of the bad guys. This is the case as a piece of malware once thought safely covered has now resurfaced this is the Zeus Trojan and it is back swimming in the waters of Facebook and other social networks looking for victims.

“Between the mind that plans and the hands that build there must be a Mediator and this must be the heart.” – Metropolis, 1927 - Universum

Governments around the globe are working hard to develop guidelines and laws that will ensure the protection of your data, your information and you. That has to make you feel about as safe as someone coming to your door and saying, “I’m from the tax service and here to help you.” Actually, their work doesn’t make me feel good or concerned. My information – and yours – is already out there. And we all keep adding to it voluntarily for them.

If you thought it was bad that AT&T dropped the price on HTC’s Facebook centric phone to $0.99 in less than a month you haven’t heard anything yet. It is not only consumer acceptance of the Facephone that Facebook gets to look forward to. There is also a problem with the Facebook Home App despite Facebook’s claims that it has been downloaded one Million times. I seems that Facebook cannot catch a break when it comes to mobile.

If Mark Zuckerberg and crew needed any more evidence that people are not interested in a FacePhone they only have to look at the HTC First. This new phone has already dropped down from its introductory cost to the $.99 bucket which is normally reserved for products that are at or near the end of their sales life. The HTC First is less than a month old so why is it already in the bargain bucket? Is this showing that people do not want Facebook running their phone or simply a reflection that people are do not want a phone that is too social network oriented?