Facebook might soon let you choose your favorite friends

Mark Zuckerberg and his engineering team are always making tweaks to the Facebook News Feed to try and keep users coming back and spending more time on the site. Now some social networkers are seeing a new option that lets them pick particular friends and Pages that they’d like to give priority to.

Social Times has the details and a couple of screengrabs — a friendly animated puppy appears at the top of the screen prompting you to “see more of what you love” by picking out some of your favorite contacts. Facebook confirmed to Social Times that the test was real but it’s not certain that it’s going to be fully rolled out in the future.

Related: Facebook’s new suicide prevention feature can help you save lives

After all, giving users more control over the News Feed is a potentially dangerous move — Facebook’s own algorithm might be better than we are at deciding what’s interesting and what isn’t. If our favorite friends aren’t sharing much then we might log into Facebook less often.

Ever since the News Feed was introduced, Facebook has given users varying degrees of control over the people and organizations appearing in it. This new trial looks designed to try and make the whole process more straightforward and convenient for users on mobile.

In other Facebook news, the Wall Street Journal reports that Facebook’s plan to host publishers’ content on its own platform is close to being realized. We reported on the rumors in March and the WSJ says the scheme is set to launch before the end of May.

FACEBOOK’S FUTURE IS TELEPATHY, MARK ZUCKERBERG SAYS

Public Q&A sessions at Facebook’s Menlo Park headquarters have become a regular part of company life since CEO Mark Zuckerberg led the first one in November 2014.

Keen to do things a little differently this month, Zuck turned to the Web for his latest session, taking questions on his Facebook page from not only regular members of the public but also actor Arnold Schwarzenegger and physicist Stephen Hawking. Yes, the Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Stephen Hawking.

If you needed any more convincing that this was no ordinary Q&A session, the Facebook boss also talked about how he believes technology is on its way that’ll give us the ability to send an emotion or feeling to someone just by thinking about it.

Describing the capability as “the ultimate communication technology,” Zuck said that one day “we’ll have the power to share our full sensory and emotional experience with people whenever we’d like….you’ll just be able to think of something and your friends will immediately be able to experience it too.”

Turn your phone into a legit camera with the Olympus Air, soon to come stateside

On Tuesday, Olympus announced that it will bring its Air 01 Micro Four Thirds (MFT) interchangeable lens camera (ILC) to the U.S. and Canada in July. Similar in concept to Sony’s QX1, the Air is a lens adapter designed to work with iOS (7.0 or higher) and Android (4.0 or higher, as well as Amazon Kindle Fire) devices, with all the camera guts inside a compact cylinder, minus a display and traditional camera controls. The lens mount is compatible with MFT lenses from Olympus, Panasonic, and other manufacturers.

The Air was announced in February for the Japanese market, where it’s currently on sale. The North American version is the same, but will have its own app and support for Amazon Cloud Drive. The Air will sell in the U.S. for $300 (body only; less expensive than a full MFT camera), or $500 with a 14-42mm lens. It ships in July.

THE WITCHER 3: WILD HUNT REVIEW

A griffin has terrorized local peasants for weeks. What do you do? Traditional RPGs have taught you to go find it and kill it. First, you grind up your experience by slaughtering a few lesser monsters, and then you slay the beast and collect your reward. Slow down – that’s not the Witcher way.

In this game, you might check the site of the attack, track the beast back to its lair, and learn why it’s suddenly grown so aggressive. Was its mate murdered? No wonder it went on the rampage. Now we know what kind of griffin we’re dealing with, and the state it’s in. The local militia probably won’t like hearing that this is their fault, and probably won’t even be very grateful after I’ve cleaned up their mess. Witching is lonely work, but someone’s got to do it.

A massive open world, but a single story

SVS PRIME SERIES SPEAKER SYSTEM REVIEW

We’re all looking for the sweet spot — that coveted place when every element converges for the perfect blend of form and function, value and performance, brilliance and balance. It’s a beautiful thing when it all comes together. And it seems to be exactly what SVS was aiming for when designing its Prime Series speakers.

Borrowing heavily from the company’s flagship Ultra series, SVS’ slimmer Prime series comprises a full collection of home theater speakers aimed for the audiophile on a budget. Like most speaker families, the series is heralded by its towers: 3.5-way mini-monoliths designed to carve out exceptional audio performance at a price starting as low as $1,000 a pair. The Towers are accompanied by a three-way center channel speaker, two-way bookshelves, and smaller satellite speakers (not tested here).

Since SVS’ Ultra Series was such a hit, we were anxious to find out just how well the Prime series would hold up given their size and price point. Turns out, dollar for dollar, the Prime Series offers some of the best sound on the market.

GARMIN NÜVICAM LMTHD REVIEW

The Garmin NuviCam plopped onto my windshield with a satisfying clunk. The unit felt sturdy and secure as I attached the suction cup to the glass, and the 6-inch screen’s magnetic mount emphasized its impressive build quality.

Garmin’s newest product, a part of the brand’s Prestige Series, combines dash cams, GPS navigation, and driver assist functions into one, making it a sort of digital Swiss Army Knife for your car.

The Garmin NuviCam is an ambitious product that does everything it sets out to do, and does it well.

At its core, the NuviCam is a solid navigation unit with a bunch of extras tacked on. Its HD dash cam is always recording, and it saves footage automatically in the event of an accident. When traveling over 30 mph, the device’s camera can sense if you’re following too close to the vehicle in front of you, and it uses visual and audible warnings to get you to back off. If you exceed 40 mph, the NuviCam recognizes when you’re drifting out of lane. It can do it all.

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided’s collector’s edition contents are up to you

This time, it appears you did ask for this. In preparation for the 2016 launch of Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, Square Enix has announced a collector’s edition of the game. However, the contents of the collector’s edition have not been finalized: that’s where you come in, as the publisher has opened up a poll to pick the top three most-wanted collector’s items for inclusion in the set.

Head over to the Deus Ex: Mankind Divided voting page, and you’ll see a list of 10 possible items to be included in the collector’s edition, of which you can pick and rank any three. They vary greatly in (at least apparent) value, with items as small as a mini art book and a pin set available as possible choices. Other items include a “Praxis Kit” lunchbox, a “Welcome to Golem City” metal sign, and even a tattoo sleeve to replicate protagonist Adam Jensen’s augmented body.

Top 5 best iPhone games you need to play this week

When you’re browsing the App Store, it can be challenging to find the best games for your iPhone because of the sheer amount of choice available. To help out, here’s our roundup of the games we think are worth downloading and playing this week. No matter your personal preference — whether it’s a strategy game, a kart racing game, or a puzzle game — we’ve got you covered.

Here are our top 5 best iPhone games you should play this week:

We are giving away chances to buy a UMi Iron for just $17.99

The UMi Iron is official from today, but don’t go off buying it just yet as we have coupons for lucky readers to buy the new phone for just $17.99!

The UMi Iron has grabbed a fair share of attention these past few weeks through teasers of the new device. Finally all the details were announced today on Facebook, and UMi are celebrating the launch by letting fans buy the phone for just $17.99!

UMi have given us 7 special coupon codes in total, and we are starting the giveaway with 2 coupons today (winners announced in a few days).

Samsung promises next-gen mobile batteries are on the way

Newly published search from Samsung Electronics could lead to smartphone battery life that’s double what it is on today’s handsets, Business Korea reports. You may have to go through the nightly charging ritual for a while yet though: Samsung says the technology is still two or three years away from being used in commercial products.

Today’s lithium-ion batteries are getting close to the limit of their usefulness, with larger batteries pretty much the only remaining way to improve longevity. Samsung’s researchers have been focusing on the cathode part of the battery — the part that receives the charge — and think that by replacing the graphite in today’s packs with graphene-coated silicon they can produce batteries that last a lot longer.