The lucky denizens of Glens Falls and Utica, N.Y.; Lawton, Okla.; and Brownsville and McAllen, Texas, will now start getting Verizon’s LTE speeds.

The tweaks make photos and albums “up to two times faster,” according to Facebook’s product manager Keith Peiris in blog post. It also simplifies the way users share pics, edit captions and read comments.

The company is launching a Facebook app on Tuesday that allows its fans to instead post a birthday song performed by a favorite band — and sing along, if they so choose.

A Microsoft employee who tweeted about an unreleased Nokia Windows phone has left the company after being told that he violated Microsoft’s social-media policy.

The mother of all ingenious hacks has emerged: if you have an Android smartphone and a T-Mobile (US) unlimited messaging plan, you can now use an app called Smozzy to surf the web… for free.

Almost half of UK internet users are going online via mobile phone data connections, according to the Office for National Statistics.

irst, Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg told reporters that the company was planning to “launch something awesome” next week. Next, Facebook e-mailed journalists (including myself) with an invitation to a Facebook Event at 10:00 AM PDT on Wednesday July 6, 2011.
Now, the rumors and speculation are starting to pour in. The most likely one so far is the announcement of Skype video integration on Facebook (one of my many guesses when Zuckerberg first declared that something awesome was coming next week).

Cable giant Comcast is teaming up with Skype to offer its subscribers video calling on their TVs, in a move that could bring more affordable video conferencing to the home.

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, along with AT&T Chairman and CEO Randall Stephenson, announced Thursday a five-year initiative to bring free Wi-Fi to 26 locations in 20 New York City parks across the boroughs. Today, AT&T Wi-Fi will be up and running in Battery Bosque (a garden in Battery Park), the north-end playground in Joyce Kilmer Park in the Bronx, and around the recreation center at Thomas Jefferson Park in East Harlem.

Skype has a solution for bringing tech savvy users back online. It requires deleting the shared.xml file, instructions for which are available for Windows 7, XP and Mac OS X (so yes, Apple computers have been bitten by the same bug too). A simpler fix is said to be in the works as well.