Facebook F8: Social Operating System Redesigning and hitting 800 million users

F8 , a yearly event held by Facebook and takes place in San Francisco, California, is a conference where developers and entrepreneurs collaborate on the future of personalized and social technologies. The f8 conference starts with a keynote speech by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg followed by various breakout sessions concentrating on specific topics. The f8 conference is known for being the place where Facebook introduces new features and announcements to the public for the first time.

Facebook on Thursday delivered an entirely new profile design, called Timeline; a few new verbs to go with the Like button, such as read, listen, watch, run and cook; and a few numbers as well -- among them 800 million.

While the focus of CEO Mark Zuckerberg's keynote at the F8 conference in San Francisco held last September 22, 2011 was on the new products, Spotify's CEO Daniel Ek mentioned that Facebook had passed 800 million users. Facebook's chief technology officer, Bret Taylor, confirmed that fact in a news conference after the keynote. But that wasn't before he mentioned during the keynote that more than 350 million people use Facebook on mobile devices each month.

Zuckerberg earlier in the keynote also mentioned that in one day recently, Facebook had more than 500 million users overall, testifying to the fact that indeed, the world's most popular social network's user base is active.

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http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2011/09/facebook-f8-media-features.html

New Finding could overturn Laws of Physics

GENEVA, Sept 22 (Reuters) - An international team of scientists said on Thursday they had recorded sub-atomic particles travelling faster than light -- a finding that could overturn one of Einstein's long-accepted fundamental laws of the universe.

If confirmed, the discovery would undermine Albert Einstein's 1905 theory of special relativity, which says that the speed of light is a "cosmic constant" and that nothing in the universe can travel faster.

The totally unexpected finding emerged from research by a physicists working on an experiment dubbed OPERA run jointly by the CERN particle research centre near Geneva and the Gran Sasso Laboratory in central Italy.

A total of 15,000 beams of neutrinos -- tiny particles that pervade the cosmos -- were fired over a period of 3 years from CERN towards Gran Sasso 730 (500 miles) km away, where they were picked up by giant detectors.

Light would have covered the distance in around 2.4 thousandths of a second, but the neutrinos took 60 nanoseconds -- or 60 billionths of a second -- less than light beams would have taken.

The existence of the neutrino, an elementary sub-atomic particle with a tiny amount of mass created in radioactive decay or in nuclear reactions such as those in the Sun, was first confirmed in 1934, but it still mystifies researchers.

It can pass through most matter undetected, even over long distances, and without being affected. Millions pass through the human body every day, scientists say.

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http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/09/22/science-light-idUSL5E7KM4CW20110922