london

It seems that everyone is going to London lately, so why should the world's largest social network be left out?

Facebook announced today it has opened an engineering office in the U.K. capital, its first engineering office outside the U.S. Calling London "a perfect fit" for Facebook engineering, Facebook software engineer and London team leader Philip Su touted the city's advantages in a Facebook post this evening.

"It's a global hub, and it has a vibrant local startup community with lots of great technical talent," Su said. "Our team in … Read more

The International Olympic Committee has always been a highly progressive organization.

Why, it allowed women into its bosom as early as 1981.

So who can be surprised that the Olympic movement has continued along its headlong path toward untrammeled world freedom?

I am grateful to the Index on Censorship, which has quickly discovered something higher and stronger in the area of joyous freedom than many might have imagined possible.

For, in the Terms of Use of the London 2012 Olympics Web site, there exists a clause that truly has fearsome claws.

For it reads:

We at CNET of course believe in the importance of science education -- and if going on a 1,000-mile bike ride with a life-size skeleton as a passenger helps more students get one, why, all the better.

Kadhim Shubber, a physics undergraduate at the high-ranking science-based Imperial College London, is currently riding the length of the British Isles to raise money for his school's Rector's Scholarship Fund. It's a long and sometimes tedious journey, but Shubber has constant company in the form of King Arthur, an artificial skeleton riding on the back of his Claud Butler racing tandem. … Read more

RIM is looking to a host of new products to help it recover in 2013, according to details reportedly found in a leaked product road map.

The company is set to kick off the year by launching both touch-screen and traditional QWERTY keyboard phones in the first quarter, according to enthusiast site BlackBerryOS.com. The BlackBerry London will be RIM's first touch-screen phone, the site says, while the BlackBerry Nevada will carry on with a physical keyboard.

Both phones will sport the BlackBerry 10 OS, which is finally slated to debut in the first quarter of 2013 following a … Read more

The mystery of the magic Microsoft device is finally solved, but what's with all the unanswered questions? In trying to add fuel to the Surface hype machine, Microsoft leaves too much to the industry's collective imagination as we all keep speculating about the tablets' battery life, release dates, prices, and UI experience.

The competition among tablets is still presently in favor of the iPad, so we're hoping that Microsoft has more compelling announcements in the future that integrate some of the company's other inventions.

Jeff and I always fight about which popular musician deserves credit for this generation's aural decay, but the Imperial College in London may have a solution to our problem: let computers compose the music!

A team of researchers believe that digital music can move beyond human creation and evolve autonomously without a real composer. They've developed a learning computer algorithm that continuously creates and combines loops in a random sequence.… Read more

Claire Lomas suffered a T4 spinal injury in a 2007 horse riding accident that left her paralyzed from the chest down. In 2012, she completed the London Marathon. What happened in between was the development of a robotic suit that let her tackle the challenge on her own two legs.

It took 17 days for the 32-year-old resident of Leicestershire, England, to cross the finish line. Her motivation for the marathon was to raise funds for spinal cord injury research. So far, she has raised nearly $200,000.

The robotic ReWalk suit, one of several such devices, is made by Israeli company Argo Medical Technologies. It's a powered exoskeleton full of motion sensors, rechargeable batteries, and a computer system that allows the walker to control the suit.

ReWalk lets users stand, walk, and even climb and descend stairs. Crutches are used for stability (Lomas still has use of her arms). … Read more

NBC is taking a big step with this summer's Olympics that is sure to please Internet viewers.

Reversing an earlier policy, the network is expected to formally announce tomorrow that all 32 sports at the Olympic Games in London will be streamed live at NBCOlympics.com, The New York Times reports.

"Whatever is on schedule that day, if cameras are on it, we'll stream it," Rick Cordella, vice president and general manager of NBC Sports Digital Media, told the paper. "The hot topic is always, 'Why don't you show all your sports live?' We … Read more

Ikea wants to build you a house. Not a pine bookcase, not a nice little side table, not a quirkily colorful kitchen implement -- an entire house. LandProp, the property development arm of the Swedish furniture company, is building and renting out an entire neighborhood of homes in London, according to The Globe and Mail.

No, really. The Ikea neighborhood -- Ikeahood? Ikeatown? -- is to be located in east London, near the Olympic site. It will be named Strand East and filled with families and leafy pedestrian boulevards.

Read more of "Ikea building and renting an entire neighbourhood in London" at Crave UK. … Read more

Stupid Andy helps us out today with a busy rundown that includes Netflix earning first rights to new movies before cable TV; an interactive ad in the U.K. that claims it can recognize gender at a 90 percent success rate; a new Low Latency comic on Crave, and YouTube getting caught with its pants down!… Read more