Gadgetory

Facebook is out to destroy Foursquare I'm Bridget Carey and this is your see net update the juggernaut of social media known as Facebook rolled out a new feature called place tips it's basically four squares worst nightmare if you have GPS on when you're out around town you'll start to see these pop-ups on your Facebook newsfeed that tell you information about the place you're at it'll show what your friends posted about that location along with things like a menu or upcoming events this goes beyond Wi-Fi and GPS Facebook is also putting Bluetooth beacons in some areas like the Metropolitan Museum of Art and some other New York businesses it sends Bluetooth signals to nearby phones so the app can be more exact and knowing where you are and which tips to show for now these tips only show up on the iPhone Facebook app and you can disable it in Facebook settings the whole concept was for squares big vision to have fax and friend ratings about a place pop up when you walk inside but people are not using Foursquare as often or even that new spin-off swarm which is messy to jump back and forth between Facebook however is another story everyone has that app on their phone and speaking of apps spongebob squarepants is bringing his pineapple under the sea to your smartphone Nickelodeon is planning to create a standalone video service for watching on a phone or tablet the channels parent company Viacom is going to unveil the new Nickelodeon subscription service next month it's not clear if this would be live programming or on demand or even if it's going to feature older shows like Rocko's Modern Life but people are shifting away from watching TV on traditional ways on cable and moving towards streaming on the go from any device a standalone service means Viacom joins CBS and HBO and offering something straight to consumers bypassing cable and satellite providers you're going to need a fast internet connection to watch this new form of streaming live television and if you think you have broadband well I have some bad news for you the Federal Communications Commission says your broadband internet isn't good enough to be called broadband anymore the FCC which oversees rules the Internet has raised the standard for broadband to mean download speeds of 25 megabits per second up from 4 megabits and to be called broadband the upload speeds need to be three megabits instead of one this new definition means that millions of Americans are suddenly no longer considered broadband subscribers because the average speed in the u.s. is 10 megabits a second not 25 that your tech news update you can stay updated at cnet.com and follow along on Twitter from our studios in New York I'm Bridget Carey