That is right, Facebook, after having 500 million friends when “The Social Network” was released, is now closing in on the 700 million user mark. Of course, it can be a bit hard to determine how many of these users are actually real people and are not driven by some programming or a bot, but it definitely will help many to get an idea of just how large the site has become. Where the ceiling is, it can be hard to tell but it definitely looks as though one billion is not out of the range of Facebook.

They have become by far the largest site in social media and have been able to expand their huge social network in a way that has never been seen before. They have added a growth of 11.4% in May of this year, which is the largest growth that they have seen so far. Brazil led the charge, but Indonesia also added 1.5 million users, while the Philippines added an additional 1.3 million users over that same period of time. A number of other countries have also seen their number of Facebook users skyrocket. The US still is the largest base of users for any country in the world with about 150 million users in all using the service.

The other top five countries include Indonesia, Turkey, the UK and then India. It will be interesting to see what other countries might potentially become major players in the Facebook user base. China has a huge potential for users, but their laws will not allow users to sign up on the site, which is something that facebook has said that they will not budge on and has made it clear that they are not interested in censoring any of the content on their site in order to get China into the mix. The 700 million mark is huge, and you can bet that it will closely be followed by the one billion mark if this recent growth is any indication.

Translating language from mobile phone to mobile phone is definitely something that has been around for awhile, but most companies have had a very hard time doing it in a consistent manner. However, the new translation system currently being worked on by NTT Docomo looks to be an exciting technology so far. They are currently the largest mobile carrier in Japan, and is utilizing some of the top technology out there for voice recognition, translating of language and also voice synthesis.

The company also released a video that shows the technology online, which showed a user reading a Japanese magazine and watching as the text was updated in real time in English. It was actually very accurate, which is not something that most have come to expect from a translation service. The text was then read back to the user in English. You can already see how this would help businesses to communicate with one another around the globe.

As with any automated translation service, accuracy will need to be fine tuned in order to get it to read flawlessly, but in all the accuracy was a lot better than most of the other translation services. This is a technology that the company envisions being a few years away from widespread use, but the fact that they are confident enough to debut it at this time shows how confident they are in it so far.

Speed is also something that they are taking very serious, and it will need a little work before it becomes more practical. Technology like this could allow for people around the world to do business with one another without having to have an interpreter or translator on board at all times. Although this is still a ways away from being released, it is an exciting technology none the less.

Microsoft has acquired Skype for a total of £5.19 billion in cash. This news hit the web just a few days after reports stated that both Face book and Google were interested in acquiring the company themselves. They will look to match the video chat software of those other companies through their acquisition of Skype. The company has really come into its own in recent months and has put together one of the best video chatting applications currently available on Sim free HTC 7 Surround, and nearly completely for free.

Microsoft is a company that had not yet got into the video chat market, and this acquisition shows that they would like to get in and in a big way. Skype will connect users through a number of applications including their XBox, Kinect, any of the Windows phone such as Sim Free Dell Venue Pro applications and also through their other software platforms. Imagine Microsoft being able to connect to their video chat software through all of their applications and bringing real video chatting to the console.

They are hoping to give their users a way to stay easily connected. This would also be a great business application if used correctly. Already the video chatting industry is a multimillion dollar industry. You can bet that it will continue to grow in the future as video chatting becomes more feasible.

Look for Microsoft to release more information about their plan for Skype in the very near future. Skype currently has 170 million users in total, and will become a completely new entity alongside the rest of Microsoft’s other business. This is a huge acquisition for the company and it will allow them to quickly get into the business with one of the largest names in the industry by their side. The £5.19 billion price point is probably higher than Face book and Google were willing to go, allowing Microsoft to come out on top.

Have you ever considered spending tens of thousands of dollars on a smart phone? Probably not, most would guess. However, a new $61,000 cell phone, targeted toward the rich and very wealthy, is a device that is made out of gold or metal and makes calls and sends texts – only.

Yes, that is right. The phone can only make calls and send texts but is not able to browse the internet and do all of the things that smart devices such as Sim free Apple iPhone 4 are expected to in this day and age. It certainly is not practical, but perhaps they are trying to make it into a useless object of status. You can not imagine that most people – even the wildly rich would want one of these phones.

The device does not have an operating system like Sim free iPhone 4, and only makes phone calls. The Luxury phone is not currently being sold. The gold version of the device, which will have keys that are actually made out of gold will retail for $61,000, while the lesser metal one will retail for $10,000. You can bet that these devices will be showing up in some rap videos at some point in the near future.

The phones are made from “watch grade” material, are very sturdy, but unbelievably overpriced. While you may not want one yourself, you have to imagine that there is a whole subset of the rich class out there who would buy them just because they can.

I don’t know much of this phone but it is interesting to see how someone will go the extra mile to add luxury to their mobile device. Don’t think this type of modification will be trend; rather it will be sparse in nature only done by those who want to show their character in their phone. I would rather features.

Google updates their charts every month to give people an idea of what version of their operating system software a majority of users are running. The Google Android operating system has grown at a dizzying pace in recent years, and with all of the different devices such as Sim free Apple iPhone 4 that they cater to, they have had a wide range of users using many different versions of the operating system. They have now announced, that for the first time, seventy percent or more of their users are currently using at least Andorid 2.2 or higher at this current time. The number was close during their last disclosure, but this marks the highest the number has ever gone.

This means that many phones have upgraded since their original release. Some new phones such as Sim free iPhone 4 are still running on older software and have not yet made the jump to Android 2.3, even though Gingerbread, 3.0 just came out. It is clear that Apple takes pride in their ability to keep phones updated and convincing companies to not only stick with them but to upgrade their devices to make the end user happy.

This is good news for the company. Now, they will attempt to make 2.3 the next barrier of entry. That could take some time and will require that they provide new upgrades for some newly released devices as well as release some new devices running on the platform. They will continue to slowly crawl upward in version level as things go on, but for the way that they license the software out, you can bet that it is going to be taking some time for these updates to roll out, since Apple really has no real control over when the phones are upgraded or whether or not they are upgraded at all.

Apple has been growing at a phenomenal pace in recent months with the release of a number of their different devices that have been quite popular with the public including the Sim Free Apple iPhone 4, iPod and iPad, but now it looks as though they might actually become the first $1 trillion company in the world. Some have suggested, including the Formula Capital managing partner James Altucher,that Apple may already be worth that much in total.

As things are looking right now – there is not much that Apple can do wrong. The iPad 2 was launched to a resounding applause from users and critics alike, and with other devices quickly in the pipeline you can bet that they will continue to release devices that are hits. The iPhone 5 is next up, and one would assume that the iPad 3 will quickly rise to prominence in the tablet industry as well.

Apple has been able to rise to their current status with some very forward thinking executives including Steve Jobs and Tim Cook. As of right now, their market capitalization is sitting at around $320 billion. Their stock is performing well and their products are performing very well as well.

They appear to be poised to be the first trillion dollar company, but that could easily go to Google or another company as well if they were to step up and become the ISP that they are planning on becoming at some point in the very near future.

Sim free iPhone 4 maker, Apple would become the first trillion dollar company in the world if they were to reach that high level, but would probably not be the last – especially if there were some sort of currency change in the future, which has been something that many have silently wondered about for quite some time.

One of the biggest hurdles of any new mobile operating system is convincing developers to create apps for their new marketplace. Windows Phone 7 such as Sim free Dell Venue Pro is an operating system that has steadily grown in terms of the number of devices that use it, the user base, and the number of apps that are available to that user base. Windows Phone 7’s marketplace just recently passed the 15,000 app milestone. It was just a month and a half ago that they passed the 10,000 app mark, which shows that they are growing at an even quicker rate than they have in the past.

They also were able to garner some very highly publicized apps from developers. These apps include Skype, Layar, Doodle Jump and Plants vs. zombies, which is one of the more popular games on the iOS operating system.

It will certainly be interesting to see how fast their marketplace continues to grow in the future moving forward. Windows Phone 7 has been embraced by a number of phone manufacturers and it appears that developers have started to embrace the new platform as well. From here on out their app store should grow at exponentially quicker rates, and users can look forward to a larger selection of apps moving forward into the future.

Windows Phone 7 such as Sim Free HTC 7 Surround did not reach the 15,000 mark as quickly as Android or iOS, but then again they got a fairly late start in the mobile industry. The growth of their app marketplace shows that they are devoted to bringing as many resources as possible to their platform in order to put it in a good position to grow. The growth in the last two weeks has been some of their most significant, gaining over 1,600 apps in that time alone.

A recent story that stated that Sim Free Apple iPhone 4’s and iPad’s collected unwarranted information about their users, including the locations in which they took their device. The consolidated.db tracking file error was one that received a lot of attention. It was pretty clear that at some point a lawsuit would spring up and at a later date the federal government would be investigating the company to see whether or not they had broken any laws with the software that they had installed on their devices.

The first individuals to step forward and sue the company are Vikram Ajjampur and William Devito, who might have jumped a little hastily into the process in hopes of collecting some real coin in the process. Look for all of the facts to become much more clear in the future regarding Apple’s intentions in collecting the data. If it comes out that they had knowingly collected the data, then there could be some serious repercussions.

The company has not really publicly addressed the situation, even though most of the facts have been confirmed in many different reports from dozens of different outlets. Information regarding where the users had traveled with their devices was stored in a database inside of the Sim free iPhone 4. Of course, most users had some issues when that information was made public, but you can bet that the worst is to come for Apple. After the federal offices investigate the issue, if Apple was found to have acted illegally, you can bet that they will be ordered to repay certain amounts to ensure that they properly compensate users for their bad judgement.

Apple will probably stay tight-lipped moving forward. They are a company that has put a lot of stock into trust with their users, but their recent incidents have put them into question with many of their users.

The United Arab Emirates Telecommunications Regulatory Authority said on Saturday that they are going to be limiting the access their users within the country have to the Research In Motion BlackBerry Enterprise Servers. RIM responded quickly, saying that the new rules that have been imposed by the United Arab Emirates would not only effect the Sim free BlackBerry Curve 8520 and Research In Motion, but rather would encompass all of the enterprise services within the country.

Research In Motion has always had issues with countries getting involved in their business and not allowing the company to grow. They have been over this before with individuals in India who had issues with corporate emails going through the BlackBerry servers for the Sim free BlackBerry Torch 9800, and stated that they would like the emails to go through their own mediums if at all possible. Research In Motion and India have argued over this for years.

They have insisted that other companies are going to be feeling the weight of these new rules. Recently, the CEO of Research In Motion, Mike Lazaridis got up and walked out of an interview when the interviewer strayed too deep into discussions about these issues. RIM gets a lot of media attention about security issues with their devices, mostly because they have established themselves as the go-to company for business devices and easy communication between employees.

It will certainly be interesting to watch and see if other companies take the same route as the United Arab Emirates did with these issues. It is easy to see why they would have issues with the security and their personal and business emails going through the BlackBerry servers, where they could potentially be intercepted by competitors or employees looking to sell them for their own gain. It is a potential threat that Research In Motion has attempted to address.

Just two months ago HTC purchased Saffron Digital, a video streaming service that has received quite a bit of attention over the course of the last few months. The company did not immediately make their video streaming service plans clear, but have now announced a new plan.

They will be able to send movies through their 3G and Wi-Fi networks to users with smart devices such as Sim Free HTC Incredible S. Their new service, titled Watch will buffer videos and allow you to watch movies as soon as you start requesting them. There will be no time that you have to wait for the movie to buffer. This is great for users that are tired to downloading and buffering large movies while they are out on the road.

The pre-buffer is something that will set the Watch service apart from the other services that are currently available. HTC has worked hard to bring a quality streaming video service, and with their acquisition of Saffron Digital it appears that they are in a position to really put together a solid offering for their users.

They are currently working on putting together partnerships with movie companies to bring more movies to their platform. So far, they have been able to put together a few hundred titles, but have not been to secure enough to launch the program so far at this time.

Saffron Digital is a company that was first founded in 2006. They worked on putting together a video delivery platform to more than 26 countries and with 14 different languages. Their technology includes the ability for multiple devices such as Sim free HTC Desire HD to have video delivered to them, as well as very fast encoding of videos. The acquisition of Saffron Digital by HTC will  help them to put together a quality video streaming service moving forward.