It will be the result of the first public offering of stock for Facebook–the business, web site, and cultural phenomenon created by Zuckerberg. Investors talk about it in terms of Visa and GM’s IPO–only more so. Facebook watchers are saying the IPO will net Facebook $10 billion and give Facebook a total value of $100 billion, 24 percent of which belongs to Zuckerberg. It would put him, at age 27 in May, ahead of Steve Jobs’ net worth and the 35th richest American, according to Forbes....

Yesterday’s Facebook outage – which took down Facebook Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp as well as the main service – resulted from a mistake by the company’s own network engineers. The mistake led to all of Facebook’s services being inaccessible, with one analogy likening it to a failure in the “air traffic control” services for network traffic … We reported yesterday on the massive failure. It gradually appeared that the problem might relate to DNS – the domain name servers that tell devices which IP addresses to use to access services – but it was unclear what exactly had happened, and whether this was an external hack, malicious action by an insider, or a catastrophic mistake....

Facebook is updating its Messenger Kids app this week with three new features including dark mode and voice effects. Each update is available first on iOS and coming later to Android. Facebook is also introducing a new way to interact with PAC-MAN on its gaming platform. Messenger Kids is Facebook’s messaging app for users under 13 years old. The app includes a dashboard for parents to manage contacts, view blocked accounts, and monitor messages....

As if Fallout 76 wasn’t dealing with enough problems, it has been recently discovered by data miners that the always-online survival game may be adding pay-to-win elements soon. These pay-to-win products will take the form of lootboxes, and it appears that Fallout 76 developer Bethesda Game Studios will refer to these lootboxes as “Lunchboxes.” Fallout 76 was panned upon launch like no other Bethesda release before it, and the game remained in the spotlight when Bethesda shipped the $200 Power Armor Edition with cheap nylon knockoffs of the edition’s advertised canvas bags....

And it’s only for jailbroken devices with a front-camera. The $7 RecognizeMe by Apocolipse unlocks your phone by matching pre-recorded images of your face against the front camera feed. Simply holding the device in front of your face for a couple of seconds should automagically unlock it. Check out a cool video demonstration below… Granted, the RecognizeMe tweak is not a suitable replacement for the iOS passcode lock feature, Engadget has found out....

TechCrunch reports today that Facebook is testing a new privacy setting that would share location history from Instagram with Facebook. This news comes on the heels of the Instagram cofounders leaving the company, with Facebook’s former VP of News Feed being named Head of Instagram. The Instagram location sharing is still in the testing phase, but Facebook did not rule out a full launch. This Instagram location sharing capability is located in the Privacy and Security settings of Facebook, where it is explained that Instagram and Messenger data can be used to collect and build a history of locations based on your iPhone’s Location Services feature....

Facebook’s interest in AR smart glasses was telegraphed by Mark Zuckerberg at the company’s 2016 developer conference. A new report today reveals some details about Facebook’s “Orion” project and a possible time frame. According to CNBC, Facebook’s glasses are internally code named “Orion.” Named after the hunter in Greek mythology, the project is being developed by Facebook Reality Labs — which essentially subsumed Regina Dugan’s Building 8 skunkworks group — in Redmond, Washington....

Well, it looks like Bethesda forgot to register the domain Fallout First before they unveiled the new Fallout 76 membership of the same name, and angry fans have bought it instead. Announced earlier this week as a way to access premium content, such as private servers and an unlimited storage container for scrap items, Fallout 1st costs players either $99.99 for a full year’s membership or $12.99 a month. Since both the ability to play on private servers and better storage for scrap were things which Fallout 76 players have been asking for since the game’s launch last year, many fans were understandably upset when these much-wanted updates were thrown behind Bethesda’s new paywall, especially considering the developer’s previous promises from last year which claimed all content for Fallout 76 would always be free....

A “massive” Facebook hiring freeze has been announced, which the company says will affect “almost every team across the company.” Parent company Meta told employees that four factors were behind the decision, and that Apple’s introduction of App Tracking Transparency was the first of these … Business Insider got access to a memo sent to all employees by chief financial officer David Wehner. In it, he lists four factors responsible for slowing revenue growth and increased costs....

Facebook released version 9.0 of its Messenger app for iOS today bringing an improvement to how photos and videos are viewed. Previously trapped to a smaller section when shared, photos and videos in messages can now be viewed full screen like you would expect. It’s a small improvement to Facebook Messenger, but now that the social network is stripping messaging functionality out of its primary Facebook for iPhone app, you can expect to see even more focus in this space in the future....

Facebook has suspended around 200 apps as part of the internal investigation prompted by data misuse by Cambridge Analytica … Reuters reports that the social network took the step after identifying apps which had access to ‘large quantities of user data.’ However, Facebook says that this doesn’t necessarily mean the apps did anything wrong. Archibong said that the investigation was likely to run for some time. Cambridge Analytica filed for bankruptcy after the scandal, but there is speculation that it may re-emerge under a new name....

Bethesda is adding the first Fallout 76 raid to the online shooter this August. This raid joins the Fallout 76 battle royale mode, called Nuclear Winter, and the upcoming Fallout 76 Wastelanders expansion, which adds NPCs to the game, in fleshing out Bethesda’s lackluster foray into live-service gaming. Bethesda initially revealed Fallout 76 in May 2o18, and the game has been surrounded by skepticism and controversy since then. Players and critics alike were concerned about Fallout 76 even before launch, and players review-bombed Fallout 76 when the game’s servers went online....

Since January 31st, 1999, Family Guy has ripped into every headline, destroyed every celebrity, and broke every rule of network television and was even cancelled twice. But it continues to remain a staple of the Fox network and will return for a 18th season at the end of this year. Even after all these years, Family Guy can still bring in enough viewers to justify renewing it for another season. They have also announced, last August, that a feature film is in the works....

A pair of reports emerged today highlighting how Facebook does (and does not) want to work with and share user data with banks. The Wall Street Journal first reported on Facebook’s broad-reaching plans to work with major banks such as JP Morgan Chase and Wells Fargo, but TechCrunch disputes the details of that report… The Wall Street Journal first reported this afternoon that Facebook had asked U.S. banks including JP Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Citi, and Bancorp to share “detailed financial information about their customers....

Warning: SPOILERS for Fallen Angels #1 The X-Men’s new Fallen Angels series is the best book in the relaunch so far - but it’s also the darkest. Superstar comic book writer Jonathon Hickman has relaunched the X-Men franchise, and he’s gathered all the world’s mutants on the paradisic living island of Krakoa. Unfortunately, while the traditional battle between man and mutant rages in the shadows, another evolutionary successor is emerging in Asia....

Bethesda Game Studios has released an apology for their lack of communication regarding Fallout 76. News that the Fallout franchise would be getting its first MMORPG was not well-received by longtime fans. Unfortunately for Bethesda, the reception didn’t improve upon the game’s launch earlier this month. Critics and players found numerous issues and Fallout 76 became Bethesda’s worst reviewed game in over a decade. After weeks of complaints, the developer is reaching out to let players know they’ve been heard....

Plot Holes or unexplained questions are nothing new to Hollywood blockbuster, but sometimes, a movie’s logic problems go a lot deeper than dangling plot threads. Sometimes, the movie itself doesn’t make sense, since its plot holes are so obvious, audiences are guaranteed to wonder if the filmmakers are trying to trick them (since gaps in logic this big couldn’t have been arrived at by accident). Here are Screen Rant’s Famous Movie Plots That Make Absolutely No Sense....

The installer is just 481 kilobytes and the installation is quick. After it’s done, you’ll be asked to sign in with your Facebook account. It takes you to the Facebook page in your default browser. This will annoy some users. Another annoyance is you have to log out of Messenger from Facebook’s account menu. I didn’t really care about this, since I keep Facebook open all the time in a in a tab in Firefox....

We told you a few weeks ago that Facebook was rolling out the beta of its SDK 3.0 for iOS that included iOS 6 integration for native Facebook login, modern Objective-C language features support, pre-built UI components, and a new iOS Dev Center. Version 3.0 of the Facebook iOS SDK is coming out of beta today, and it is ready for developers to download and use in their apps. However, Facebook will continue to maintain a beta version that includes iOS 6 FB integration features....

Facebook says it has taken down hundreds of fake accounts with millions of followers in the run-up to the US midterm elections … The WSJ reports that the fake accounts were spreading misleading political content. At least one of the accounts had more than three million followers. The social network giant, which took down 559 pages and 251 accounts, said Thursday the accounts “have consistently broken our rules against spam and coordinated inauthentic behavior,” such as making their content appear more popular on the network than it actually was....