Facebook users may be in store for some design tweaks to their Timelines.

The popular social network is testing a revamped layout for the Timeline among select users in New Zealand, a spot where Facebook typically tries out new features.

A representative for the company told CNET that "this is a new design Facebook is testing with a small percentage of people to make navigating Timeline even easier."

The new layout sports a single-column for all the posts and updates on your Timeline, according to a screenshot obtained by The Next Web. That by itself would be a … Read more

Chrome 25 for Android (download) finally gets another update, this time bringing numerous fixes to stability, speed, and overall browser behavior.

The last time Chrome for Android updated was November 2012.

In the interim, Google has been building significant backend improvements for the browser. In its blog announcing the Chrome update, Google programmer Jason Kersey revealed the changes but with few details.

The biggest improvement that Chrome fans will appreciate is the update to the latest version of V8, Chrome's JavaScript engine.

Other changes include better responsiveness when using pinch-to-zoom; improved scrolling performance; expanded support for HTML5 changes since … Read more

BARCELONA, Spain--People save 1 billion files every day to Dropbox's online storage service, Chief Executive Drew Houston said today at the Mobile World Congress show here.

In addition, the company's 100 million users tap into the service with 500 million devices, he said. The statistics shows major growth for a company founded in 2007 when today's high-end smartphones only just were emerging.

When the company started, Dropbox could synchronize people's data among PCs, but now of course it helps bridge the gaps to smartphones, tablets, and presumably other Internet-connected devices of the future. The company has … Read more

Google and Spain's data-protection authorities took to Europe's highest court, the European Court of Justice, to discuss whether the search giant has a responsibility to delete data that could infringe a person's privacy.

The issue at play relates to what is and what is not suitable for public consumption. Spain's regulators argued in the European court in Luxembourg today that Google must delete from its search results any information that would potentially hurt a person's privacy. Google, however, argues that it doesn't have a responsibility to wipe search results, and doing so could create … Read more

Consumers looking for Apple products or accessories can now find them at Staples, at least online.

The retailer is now officially stocking a variety of Apple items at its Web-based store. Staples is offering accessories for the iPhone, iPad, iPod, and Mac, including keyboards, mice, cases, covers, and cables. Larger and pricier items such as Time Capsules and Apple TVs are also available.

The products will start to pop up in Staples' retail stores as well. A salesperson at one Staples store told me that about half of the physical outlets will soon begin to stock various Apple items.

Staples … Read more

BARCELONA, Spain--Opera Software has dropped the new engine into its browser and now has begun revving it up.

At the Mobile World Congress show here, the company began showing for the first time its new WebKit-based version of Opera for Android. That browser is the first product from a completely overhauled product line and technology strategy for the company based in Oslo, Norway.

Opera is changing the browser engine at the core of its software, dumping its own Presto for the open-source WebKit used in Chrome and Safari. It's a radical change in many ways: many engineers are changing … Read more

Fewer people are illegally downloading and sharing music, NPD Group said in a report today.

Among those surveyed for NPD's "Annual Music Study 2012," 40 percent who illegally downloaded music via peer-to-peer services in 2011 said they had stopped or decreased their illegal downloads in 2012.

Overall, the number of illegally downloaded songs from P2P services dropped by 26 percent in 2012 from 2011.

Part of that was due to an overall decline in the use of P2P services. At the 2005 peek of P2P file sharing networks, 33 million people used them. For 2012, that number … Read more

Internet Explorer 10 debuted on Windows 8, and until now was only available to people who bought into Microsoft's big Windows redo. That changes today, as Redmond rolls out IE 10 for Windows 7 (download).

The update brings enormous changes to the browser, and mostly for the better. Internet Explorer 10 is not only faster and more stable than the current IE for Windows 7, version 9, it's also far more standards-compliant.

"Gone are the days when developers aspire to build for the lowest common denominator. The way the Web becomes like an application is when you … Read more

Private browsing, or 'porn mode' for people with more prurient Web browsing requirements, will soon be available in Firefox on a per-window basis for desktops and a per-tab basis on Android.

The latest versions of Firefox 20 Beta (download for Windows, Mac, and Linux) and Firefox 20 Beta for Android (download) have been updated to allow people to have a more streamlined private browsing experience. Private browsing disables built-in browser recording, including history and cookies.

This is a pretty big change for Private Browsing aficionados, since previously in Firefox switching to Private Browsing would save all your tabs, close the … Read more