Facebook to hide “Like” counts?

A Twitter and blog post by Jane Wong got social media users talking up a storm last week with the “code leaker” revealing that Facebook is “working to hide ‘like’ counts.”

The revelation comes roughly a month after the Facebook-owned Instagram made it public that it is working on lessening the prominence of likes and shares stats in the platform on the premise to “remove the pressure of how many likes a post will receive.”

Wong reverse-engineered the Facebook app for Android to access a “hidden code,” and talked about what she uncovered on her blog. She notes that in the feature allegedly being tested by Facebook, a post creator can still see who likes or shares a post but can’t see a number of how many likes it garnered.

Reactions on the discovery and the impact it will likely have in the overall social media sphere should it be implemented has largely been mixed. A number of social media marketers aren’t keen about it, given that like and share stats are utilized as performance metrics in the field of social media marketing.

Others are questioning if the implementation of the scheme will have an impact on the overall Facebook algorithm that ranks post prominence on walls based on a particular post’s reactions/engagement stats.

It is unclear if or when Facebook will be implementing the new scheme.

A second Samsung foldable phone on the works?

Rumors that Samsung is working a second foldable phone model cropped up last week, days before the rescheduled release date of the brand’s first foldable phone – the “Galaxy Fold” – in Korea.

Colloquially named “Galaxy Fold 2,” various rumor sites note that the model will tout a form factor that’s similar to the design convention of the “Galaxy Note 10,” that it will sport a folded “front screen” measuring 6.7 inches (with a “punch hole selfie camera”), and that Samsung has contracted American designer Thorn Browne to collaborate on designing the device.

It’s also believed that the model will fold out to a square-shaped tablet, and that its foldable inner screen will be made with a type of material that’s only 3 percent as thick as those that’re used in phones currently in the market.

A Bloomberg report revealing that Samsung has been testing an Ultra-Thin Glass (UTG) material backs the rumored implementation of such a material.

In terms of operating system enhancements, the rumored next gen foldable model is believed to behave more like a regular phone, not like the “Galaxy Fold” which runs on an enhanced version of the Android mobile OS.

It is believed that the model will be unveiled by 2020, and that it is likely going to be thinner and less-pricier than the “Galaxy Fold.”

Apple to rollout augmented reality glasses?

A post by the folks over at the MacRumors site suggests that Apple has been laying down the groundwork for the rollout of a new type of product: a pair of augmented reality glasses.

Discovered by the site’s proponents by parsing through the code of an internal development build of the iOS 13 operating system, an app codenamed “STARTester,” which switches in and out of a “head mounted” mode (indicating “worn” or “handheld”) found in the build, hints that the operating system has been primed to support interactions with a type of human interface device.

A “Readme” file discovered in the build has also been found, which is noted to describe a “Starboard” system shell for stereo AR apps.

Though not explicitly an indication that a pair of Apple-branded AR glasses is coming, the discovery of the code backs previous rumors indicating that the brand is looking into developing such a device.

Previous rumors allege that the brand will be unveiling a pair of AR glasses by 2020 at the earliest.