Facebook is letting users of its flourishing social-networking community play together on the road by using Apple’s popular iPhone and iPod Touch mobile devices.
Facebook senior platform manager Dave Morin revealed the news on Saturday while flanked by an array of hip social software makers at a panel talk at the South By Southwest (SXSW) Interactive Festival in Austin, Texas.
“For the first time, your iPhone apps can now have friends,” Morin said before panelists demonstrated applications that expand the borders of Facebook’s online community onto iPhones and iPod Touch devices.
Facebook Connect for the iPhone debuted with nine applications available at Apple’s online iTunes store and a promise that more will launch in coming days.
Mini software programs tailored to mesh with the Facebook operating platform let social-networking service users play games with each other online, share restaurant reviews while on the move, and locate friends.
Facebook members can use the community-oriented applications through iPhones as they would if they were connecting through a home computer.
Facebook launched Connect last year as a way to break down the walls between the social networking service and other Web sites and services on the Internet.
Applications demonstrated to applause from a packed conference room at SXSW included a Who has the Biggest Brain game by Playfish and a new SGN Agency Wars game enabling users to play government spies.
Agency Wars lets people pretend to be members of agencies such as the US’ CIA or Britain’s MI6 and work as mobile teams on missions while becoming “the most deadly spy around.”
Who has the Biggest Brain? has been played by more than 15 million people since it launched on Facebook in 2007. The App Store now has a version that lets Facebook users train their brains while on the go.
“In addition to Facebook and other social utilities, we believe iPhone and iPod touch represent the next generation of entertainment platforms,” Playfish CEO Kristian Segerstrale said.
Other Facebook-oriented applications premiering at the App Store include a restaurant review-sharing service called Urbanspoon and Flixster, a film recommendation Web site, along with games iBowl, Live Poker, and Tap Tap Revenge 2.
“Win or lose, you’ll have the option to publish a story back to Facebook, where all of your friends can see it,” Facebook engineer Joe Hewitt said.
SECURITY: Taipei presses the US for arms supplies, saying the arms sales are not only a reflection of the US security commitment to Taiwan but also serve as a mutual deterrent against regional threats Taiwan is committed to preserving the cross-strait “status quo” and contributing to regional peace and stability, the Presidential Office said yesterday. “It is an undeniable fact that the Republic of China is a sovereign and independent democratic nation,” Presidential Office spokeswoman Karen Kuo (郭雅慧) reiterated, adding that Beijing has no right to claim sovereignty over Taiwan. The statements came after US President Donald Trump warned against Taiwanese independence. Trump wrapped up a state visit to Beijing on Friday, during which Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) had pressed him not to support Taiwan. Taiwan depends heavily on US security backing to deter China from carrying
The subsidiary of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) in Kumamoto, Japan, turned a profit in the first quarter of this year, marking the first time the first fab of the unit has become profitable since mass production started at the end of 2024. According to the contract chipmaker’s financial statement released on Friday, Japan Advanced Semiconductor Manufacturing Inc (JASM), a joint venture running the fab in Kumamoto, posted NT$951 million (US$30.19 million) in profit in the January-to-March period, compared with a loss of NT$1.39 billion in the previous quarter, and a loss of NT$3.25 billion in the first quarter of
RESOLUTE BACKING: Two Republican senators are planning to introduce legislation that would impose immediate sanctions on China if it attempts to invade Taiwan US House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson on Sunday reaffirmed US congressional support for Taiwan, saying the US and “all freedom-loving people” have a stake in preventing China from seizing Taiwan by force. Johnson made the remarks in an interview with Fox News Sunday on US President Donald Trump’s summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) last week. In an interview that aired on Friday on Fox News, just as Trump wrapped up a high-stakes visit to China, he said he has yet to green-light a new US$14 billion arms package to Taiwan and that it “depends on China.” “It’s a very good
US President Donald Trump yesterday said he would speak to President William Lai (賴清德) as his administration considers whether to move ahead with a US$14 billion weapons sale to Taiwan — a potential arms deal that has drawn criticism from China. “Well, I’ll speak to him. I speak to everybody,” Trump told reporters yesterday when asked if he had any plans to call his counterpart, although he did not offer a time frame for when such a conversation could take place. Trump previously said he would speak to the person “that’s running Taiwan,” without specifying who he meant. “We have that situation very
RSS