A Facebook Ad Network? Not So Fast

mashable.com

Marketers will have to wait a little longer to advertise on Facebook's third-party ad network.

A company spokesperson confirmed to Mashable Wednesday that it is halting its mobile-ads test on third-party apps.

"While the results we have seen and the feedback from partners has been positive, our focus is on scaling ads in mobile news feed before ads off of Facebook. We have learned a lot from this test that will be useful in the future," the spokesperson said.

In September, Facebook began working with a number of ad exchanges to serve ads on third-party mobile apps. A mobile ad network -- what could be the social network's equivalent of Google's AdSense -- looked to help Facebook build up its mobile-ad inventory without flooding users of its mobile apps and website with more ads.

Network partners and advertisers have already been notified that testing has been paused.

We're told that the decision was driven by the need to reallocate resources to improving the ads that appear in Facebook's mobile news feed. Sources told AllThingsD that the "major problem for both Facebook and its potential partners ... is concern that Facebook isn’t ready to deliver ads on external sites that produce significant value for either the network or its partners."

Facebook will continue to run third-party ads on Zynga.com.

00:59

Gateses Suggest 5 Tech-Savvy Ways to Give This Holiday Season

Bill and Melinda Gates are often asked how individuals can help with the work the Gates Foundation does. While the foundation isn't seeking donations -- it operates on the Gates family wealth -- Bill and Melinda have suggested five worthy non-profits whose work they admire.

In their joint Impatient Optimists blog post on the foundation's website, Bill and Melinda offer some holiday giving suggestions:

"This holiday season, we decided to list several of the charity initiatives that have sparked our interest. Each of these projects takes a different approach, but they have three things in common: they’re innovative, committed to transparency and accountability, and they’re getting good results."

Here are their five picks:

• Catapult: This just-launched crowdfunding site helps organizations raise money for initiatives combating gender inequality.
• Charity: water: In the past 6 years, this non-profit has contributed $75 million toward building freshwater wells, rainwater catchments and biosand filters to bring clean water to the 800 million people living without access to it.
• Donors Choose: Donors Choose is a forum for U.S. teachers to request supplies, from crayons to science lab equipment. All donations to STEM projects during the holiday season with be matched when you enter the code HOLIDAY at checkout.
• Gifts That Give: This for-profit retailer contributes 20% of your sale to the charity of your choice.
• Care: All of the proceeds from sales from the winner of a recent crowdsourced T-shirt design competition with Threadless will go toward helping women and children's health and education, through the support of Gates Foundation funding.
Bill and Melinda encourage you to investigate these and other charities onCharity Navigator and GreatNonprofits.

23:20

12/12/12 Is Here: How to Celebrate the Century's Last Repeating Date

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For those who like to get a bit nerdy with their numbers, one of the century's most significant dates is approaching. Wednesday is 12/12/12, the last of the great repeating dates to occur in our lifetimes -- unless you're planning to live until Jan. 1, 2101, that is.

Despite its auspicious status, 12/12/12 doesn't seem to be quite as big a deal as 11/11/11 was. That milestone date had the added bonus of being a binary number; that's why it was also known as Nerd New Year (binary joke tagline: "it's ON!"). It was also Veteran's Day, of course, making 11:11 a.m. on that Nov. 11 even more sublime than normal.

So how to celebrate 12/12/12? Read all the signs in your daily horoscope? Bowl a perfect game in 12 strikes? Crank up "The 12 Days of Christmas" 12 times until your work colleagues run you out on a rail?

Well, first of all, there's the Concert for Sandy Relief, taking place at Madison Square Garden Wednesday night. The lineup is truly star-studded -- from Clapton to McCartney via the Stones, the Who and the Boss, Bruce Springsteen. It'll be streaming live on nearly 30 websites, including YouTube, MTV.com and Hulu. There are worse ways to spend an evening, and it's for a good cause.

(Appropriately for such an event, some wags on social media are calling 12/12/12 "National Soundcheck Day." That is: "one, two. One, two. One, two.")

Meanwhile, the collaborative film project One Day on Earth is filming again, following on from its successful 10.10.10 and 11.11.11 events. The creators will take any video you care to upload to the site and edit it into a movie showing life around the globe. (To get an idea of what that looks like, check out the similarly excellent Ridley Scott-produced documentary "Life in a Day" on Netflix streaming.)

If you're in the mood to get hitched, and you're anywhere near Fort Myers Beach in Florida, you're in luck. There you will find an event called "Weddings in Paradise," which The American Academy of Wedding Professionals apparently dubbed the "wedding event of the century."

Couples can get married for $250 a head, or $500 each if you want to do it on the stroke of 12:12 p.m. The organizers are at pains to point out that it isn't a Moonie-style mass wedding; every marriage will be conducted individually. That said, the event is expected to break a world record for most marriages in a single day. If you don't want to go the whole hog, there's also a Chinese-style mass lantern release at sunset that should at least make for a great Instagram shot.

In Asian countries, where 12 is almost as lucky a number as 11, expectant mothers are once again booking themselves in for C-sections to ensure a fortuitous birth date for their progeny. According to numerology, anyone born on the 12th will be highly imaginative, quick-witted and artistic. And a triple 12 in your birthdate? Make of that what you will.

23:16

MediaTek Launches Its First Quad-Core Processor

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Taiwanese chipmaker MediaTek announced its first quad-core SoC (System on chip) processor Tuesday, the first of its kind to hit the market.

“Its not the first one announced, it’s the first one shipping, ” MediaTek spokesperson Finbarr Moynihan told Mashable during a demo of the new mobile processor earlier this week.

Already being tested by some of MediaTek’s mobile partners, the company expects the processor to ship in devices starting the first quarter of 2013. Qualcomm announced a similar chip last week, which is not expected to hit the market until the second half of 2013.

MediaTek is a company traditionally focused on the low-end smartphone market. But this processor, called the MT6589, will allow MediaTek to break into the mid and high-end Android smartphone and tablet market.

MediaTek doesn’t make smartphones, only the processors that run in them. Its solutions, however, allow cell phone makers to create smartphones around those processors.

The power-efficient MT6589 runs cooler than much of its competition, and offers a number of multimedia features that can allow manufacturers to make stand-out devices (or entry-level), focusing themselves on making the hardware for those device rather than on building or enhancing the processor.

The MT6589 for instance has native support for 3D cameras and displays, and built-in high-end camera features such as face beautifier, a panoramic mode, best shot, and a smile shot feature. The processor can support up to a 13-megapixel camera, and supports 1080p video playback and recording.

Moynihan says that those features are particularly important in emerging markets where someone’s cell phone might be not only their only internet-connected device, but also serve as their only camera.

“In emerging markets people will spend that little bit of extra money to get a really good camera,” he says. “It’s not all about the lowest cost smartphone.”

The MT6589 is also the world’s first HSPA+ smartphone supporting dual-SIM, a feature particularly important in emerging markets with customers who might want to use two SIM cards in the same handset simultaneously.

22:57

The 10 Best Indie Games for the Holiday Season

The fantasy-RPG sequel to the wildly popular 2009 game Torchlight, Runic Games' latest installment in the franchise, doesn't mess with its recipe too much. And in this case, that's a big positive.

Part steam-punk treasure hunt, part magic-heavy flight of fancy, Torchlight 2 capitalizes on the fast-paced, action-filled environment crafted by the designers of Diablo, Diablo 2 and Fate. Expect a lot of loot-grabbing from this game, as a bulk of the fun takes place in expansive and randomly generated cave systems practically filled to the brim with treasure and fancy equipment for your specific character class.

Torchlight 2 really gilds the lily with a long-awaited and happily embraced local LAN option — meaning you can raid dungeons with three of your closest friends. This makes the experience, for the first time, a cooperative one, and has been one of the best new features.

This game is really a continuation of that old-school play style seen in the previous Diabloinstallments, so if solo (or small group) hunting is your thing, download away.

07:27

Google Pays Tribute to First Computer Programmer Ada Lovelace

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Today's Google Doodle is a tribute to the woman who's considered to be the first computer programmer, Ada Lovelace.

Born on December 10, 1815, Ada was the daughter of Lord Byron and his wife Anne Isabella Byron.
She was interested in science and math, and is best known for her work on Charles Babbage's mechanical general-purpose computer, the Analytical Engine. Her notes on the machine are considered to be the first-ever algorithm encoded to be processed by a machine.

Ada Lovelace died of cancer at the age of 36, on Nov. 27, 1852. Today's Doodle marks the 197th anniversary of her birth, depicting her writing the famous notes, alongside a progression from the first mechanical computer to a modern laptop.

06:15

McAfee in Live Video Q&A: 'I Had Absolutely Nothing to Do With the Murder in Belize'

McAfee in Live Video

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John McAfee reiterated his innocence in a live video session Sunday night, during which he updated viewers on his current situation, and answered questions from the press.

Wearing black square-frame glasses and sporting a goatee and mustache, the former tech entrepreneur who is wanted in connection to the murder of American expat Gregory Faull, hosted the news conference from a bare white room while in custody at a Guatemalan jail. McAfee was arrested for illegally entering Guatemala after fleeing to the country from Belize, where local authorities want him for questioning.

“Did I kill Mr. Faull? No. Let me be clear: I had absolutely nothing to do with the murder in Belize," he said.

McAfee, 67, added that his relationship with Faull was virtually nonexistent. "I barely knew the man. I've spoken perhaps 50 words to him over a period of five years. I did not particularly care for him."

The Belize government's desire to question him, McAfee claimed, has nothing to do with Faull's murder. "Since April of last year, the Belizean government has been trying to level charge after charge against me -- all of them groundless, none of them sticking. This is simply the latest in that chain."

The founder and former head of anti-virus software company McAfee said he and his girlfriend Samantha hope to return to the United States. McAfee has been in touch with the U.S. embassy "a number of times," but called it "powerless to interfere within the laws of other countries."

He mentioned England as another potential place to settle, but was adamant that he could never return to Belize, particularly after launching his blog "The Hinterland." In it, McAfee details alleged corruption by the Belize government, and his experiences hiding from police.

"The issues that I am discussing are hurting the government; they're hurting tourism," McAfee said, adding that it raided his home multiple times while he was in hiding. "The government was mad at me before. They are seriously mad at me now. There is no hope for my life if I ever to return to Belize."

"I don't think I can, not unless there's a change in government and a serious decline in corruption."

In the video, which addressed inquiries from Mashable, McAfee also condemned the media for portraying him as a "paranoid schizophrenic." He said he started blogging to "get the truth out," and to put pressure on the Belizean government.

Calling it "the worst drug on the planet," McAfee also denied reports that he has taken bath salts (synthetic drugs similar to amphetamine and cocaine). "I do not take drugs, and have not taken drugs for over 30 years."

Starting Sunday at 8 p.m. ET, McAfee hosted two separate video sessions: The first was an introduction lasting less than five minutes, and the second was a Q&A that continued for nearly 15 minutes.

05:53