groups

Facebook Groups now show you who saw your posts, who didn't

Facebook this week started rolling out an update to Groups that allows you to view who has seen each post. If you don't see the functionality yet, don't worry: it's a gradual rollout like all of Facebook's new features.

Here's the official description of the feature from the Facebook Help Center (Group basics and Group features):

How do I know who's seen each post in a group? The check under each post indicates how many group members have seen it. This way you can stay updated on the group's activity. Hover over the … Read more

Retail sales of pricey ultrabooks up, vie with MacBook

Sales of pricey ultrabooks are up at retailers, a market research firm said, indicating that skinny laptops may be competing directly with Apple's MacBook line.

First, the bad news: the overall Windows market for notebook PC sales at retail fell by 17 percent in the first five months of the year, according to Stephen Baker, an NPD Group analyst, who published a research note Thursday.

The good news: sales of ultrabooks -- thin, light laptops that compete with the MacBook Air -- are up in the premium market segment. Those priced at more than $900 jumped 39 percent compared … Read more

Can you borrow e-books at the library? Most don't know

Do you know if your local library lends e-books? If not, you're in good company.

A full 62 percent of people recently polled by Pew Internet admitted they had no idea whether they could borrow electronic books from their library system. Even among active library card holders, 58 percent expressed the same confusion.

Only 22 percent of those polled said they know their library carries e-books, while 14 percent said they know their library has no such program.

Even those who would take advantage of e-book lending are unsure of their library's policy.

More than half (55 percent) … Read more

Small screens have a big future in the home

As consumers move to the Web for convenient anytime/anywhere access to the content they want, connectivity will play a larger role in TV viewing. The marriage of the Internet to the TV screen seems perfectly timed in this respect, with services such as Netflix, Hulu, and Pandora almost standard on most connected sets.

With nearly two in three displays 50 inches and larger being Internet-connectable, according to The NPD Group's Retail Tracking Service, the feature is approaching ubiquity on large screens.

As a way to easily deliver more content, the Web seems like a natural fit for primary displays in the home that tend to have larger screens. But as the installed base of streaming video and other apps continues to grow and become a larger part of the everyday user's consumption routine, demand for access to them across the household is also likely to increase, giving rise to a new market for smaller connected-TV screens suited for secondary rooms in the home.

… Read more

Five tools every iPhone photographer must have

As the saying goes: "The best camera is the one you have with you." More often than not, for me, that camera is my iPhone. I always have it on me, it's ready to take a photo in a matter of seconds, it takes amazing photos, and I can edit and share those photos all from the same device.

With the iPhone's camera continuing to be used more and more, there are plenty of accessories available to aid iPhone photographers in getting the best shot possible.

Here are five tools you should have in your bag:… Read more

Amazon, Independent Publishers Group reach settlement

Amazon has reached a settlement with the Independent Publishers Group over sales of the e-book versions of the nearly 5,000 titles distributed by IPG.

In February, Amazon stopped selling digital versions of titles distributed by IPG, which represents more than 500 publishers, owing to a disagreement about terms. As The Wall Street Journal points out in its report (subscription required), publishing terms cover such things as wholesale pricing, payment requirements, and marketing.

The Journal paraphrases an unnamed source as saying that IPG's terms, in February, were not as good as those from rival distributors. But IPG's president … Read more

100 Apple iPads save Greece $140 billion

The daunting task of restructuring Greece's debt fell to Bob Apfel and his company, Bondholder Communications Group, according to Fortune.

To help complete a complicated series of transactions in which the country's Finance Ministry agreed to settle for far less than the $270 billion owed, Apfel and his team used a network of iPads.

The task involved capturing approval from nearly 100,000 debt holders scattered around the world in a very short amount of time.

Armed with a custom-built debt-restructuring app, the effort's leadership, including representatives from the Finance Ministry, the Hellenic Exchange, the Bank of … Read more

Turn a single video frame into a photo with StillShot

How many times have you gone to take a picture and realized your iPhone was still in video mode after hitting the shutter button? How many videos have you taken and wished you could've taken a photo as well? By using a new app called StillShot, you can dissect a video, frame-by-frame, and save a single frame to your Camera Roll.

Once you have loaded up a video in StillShot, you'll see the first frame of the video loaded. The time of the clip, along with the frame number for that second of video is displayed on each … Read more

Facebook Groups to get file-sharing access -- reports

Facebook is slowly rolling out file sharing for groups, Mashable and TechCrunch reported. The company described a slow-motion rollout where a "small percentage" of groups would be able to send files starting today and more will have access in coming days.

Users can upload most file types up to 25MB -- the same file size limit as Gmail. The exceptions: music files (sorry, old-school Napster fans) and executable (.exe) files (sorry, hackers). But e-books, comics, music videos and other small movies are fair game. To prevent the spread of malicious, inappropriate or copyrighted files, "users can report … Read more