Ed Oswald

Facebook Camera in actionFacebook might have acquired Instagram, but that’s not stopping the site from releasing a social photo-sharing app of its own.

Camera is Facebook’s newest mobile app for iOS, and it puts the many photos our friends post every day into one place. Like Instagram, photos are arranged in chronological order, and you can add your own photos directly from the app.

Microsoft appears to be closing in on a release of Microsoft Office for both iOS and Android this fall, despite previous denials.

The software is expected to be ready for a release in November, sources tell Boy Genius Report. This would match up with a previous report from The Daily, which claimed to have seen a working prototype of Office on an iPad.

OoVoo's 12-way Facebook chatOne of Google+’s most attractive features is the free group video chat service called Google Hangouts. Soon Facebook users will be able to enjoy a similar experience, although no thanks to the social networking site itself.

Video chat service ooVoo Tuesday introduced an upgrade to its service that bumps the number of participants in free video conference calls from six to 12, and debuts a Facebook application that allows for 12-way video conferencing in high definition.

Credit: Creative CommonsGoogle honors the legacy of Robert Moog Wednesday, the father of the modern electronic synthesizer, with what quite possibly is its most elaborate doodle yet -- a working Moog synthesizer. Wednesday marks the late music pioneer’s 78th birthday.

The sounds of the Moog synthesizer became a recognizable part of popular music during the 1960s, 70s, and 80s. Acts ranging from The Beatles to Donna Summer to Yes and the Beastie Boys have all used a Moog synthesizer.

A mock-up of what the Sidecar interface looks likeThere are a lot of apps out there that allow you to do just about anything with today’s smartphone, but most of them avoid trying to better the good old voice call.

That’s not to say anyone has not tried: Apple made waves with its FaceTime video chat, but that only works on iOS and only on W-iFi. Skype and other apps attempted to liven up the voice experience, but they focus on the data side of things first, and the interfaces are often clunky.

Facebook’s initial public offering, or IPO, hits Wall Street Friday, and is one of the most highly anticipated tech stock offerings of the past decade. Everyone, it seems, wants to be in on the action. And it's possible to do so--after the big boys get their hands on it first.

Want to Own a Piece of Facebook?

You can grab a piece of Facebook from many places--a regular trading firm, a stock market savings plan, or a company that specializes in selling single shares of stock.

Google says its new Knowledge Graph will make searches easier, presenting you with information right away rather than having to click around to find it, but the search giant’s motives aren’t totally altruistic -- they’re also focused on the bottom line.

Knowledge Graph is based on what the search companies call “semantic search.” With semantic search, the search engine attempts to think more like a human. The information is presented immediately, typically near the top, a service that Google has been providing for years. For example, if you search for “Philadelphia population,” right there at the top is your answer: 1,526,006 people. No searching needed; that’s semantic search in action.

Google+: No Comments?Google+ now has more than 100 million users, but data shows that once we’re signed up for Google's social networking site, we lose interest in it quickly.

The average post has less than one +1, less than one comment, and is re-shared less than once, says Business metrics firm RJMetrics. That means a majority of us post information that doesn’t get noticed, and that lack of notice likely is the reason why many of us don’t come back, or that we come back very rarely.

You would think Apple’s virtual assistant Siri knows who pays its bills. Apparently not--when asked, Siri says the best smartphone ever is Nokia’s Lumia 900.

What caused this apparent oversight? Siri uses Wolfram Alpha, which answers questions based on sets of data maintained by the company’s researchers. When it comes to smartphones, somebody at the company must be asleep at the wheel. Lumia 900‘s high rating is based on just five reviews of the device, all of which give the phone five stars.

Just when you thought you were safe from Facebook’s facial recognition software, there’s a new app in town using the social networking site to tag photos automatically. It’s called Klik, and is every bit as creepy as the facial recognition software that Facebook tried to use.

Klik allows you tag friends and locations, and add captions directly in the app.Available for the iPad and iPhone, Klik connects to your Facebook profile and scans the pictures of your tagged friends. Klik will then auto-detect the faces using that tagging information, and does so in real time when taking pictures from the app or from pictures in your photo library on your iDevices. To use Klik, you need a Facebook account, and iOS 4.3 or above.

Dream of hanging your Instagram photos in your living room? A new service will allow you to do just that, printing your best snapshots on “museum-quality canvas.” The service is called Instacanv.as, and it officially launches Wednesday.

With Instacanv.as, you first choose which of your images you'd like transferred to canvas.Users sign in with their Instagram accounts and choose a photo from their Instagram profiles, or browse through shots from other contributors to the site. The canvas prints come in three sizes: 12 inches by 12 inches, 16 inches by 16 inches, and 20 inches by 20 inches. Your photos can be printed on either black or white canvas. Pricing starts at $31.99 plus shipping.

Nokia Lumia 900 smartphoneNokia continues to push its Lumia line of Windows Phone smartphones hard, announcing several deals with app developers on Tuesday, including some that would be exclusive to the Lumia platform initially.

ESPN’s Windows Phone app will be exclusive to the Lumia through May of next year; Groupon’s and AOL Entertainment’s app are exclusive for six months from a summer 2012 debut; and the PGA tour’s app will be exclusive to the Lumia for one year following launch. Nokia will also partner with Rovio and Electronic Arts to speed the availability of top games.