The Facebook IPO and the marriage of Mark Zuckerberg (founder and CEO of Facebook) dominated technology news for the week. Many top stories got buried in the traffic.

Top Costa Rica News

• My Babilon launched a new Costa Rican grown social network, with President Laura Chinchilla present at the launch event. With My Babilon, you don’t need Google Translate to translate message between members who speak different languages. My Babilon automatically translates messages for you. It truly is a new network, as there are currently less than 900 members. My Babilon supports Web pages for both PCs and mobile devices. A more extensive review will appear later.
• SUTEL announced Costa Rica’s support for World Telecommunication and Information Society Day (WTISD). May 17th marks the 147th anniversary of the founding of the International Telegraphic Union. The purpose of WTISD is to raise the awareness of the opportunities that Internet and other Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) can bring to societies and economies. The theme for 2012 is “Women and Girls in ICT.” Gender equality is one of the human rights enshrined in the UN Charter. The theme emphasizes the use of ICT to achieve this goal.
• On May 16th, President Laura Chinchilla signed an order creating the Network of Communication Science, Technology and Innovation Costa Rica (RedCyTec). The goal of the network is to promote communication science, technology, and innovation to help improve the quality of life for Costa Ricans.

Top Mobile Device News

• Facebook IPO went for sale at $38 per share. After a brief spike to $48 a share, the price per share fell back to $38.23. The low closing price resulted in a number of frustrated investors, who were hoping to see a closing price nearer to $54. With the IPO now closed, the next week may yet see a bump in the share price for Facebook. Facebook still faces challenges with a decline in advertisement revenue, and no advertisement revenue from its iOS and Android apps.
• Since its launch on May 3rd, Samsung reports 9 million pre-orders for the Samsung Galaxy SIII. The Samsung plant is running at maximum capacity to produce 5 million units a month. All this for a phone that officially doesn’t go on sale until May 29th. Getting a Samsung Galaxy S III may be harder than buying Facebook shares last Friday.
• On Friday, comScore released its report of US on-line video rankings for April. Google sites continue their domination with 157.7 million unique viewers, with Yahoo coming in second at 54.6 million viewers. For engagement, Google sites remain the top at 7.2 hours per viewer, with Hulu coming in second at 3.8 hours per viewer. The most interesting change from the previous month was the dramatic rise in ads viewed. The 9.5 billion ad views reached 51.7% of the US population. Hulu was top in ad viewings, with Google coming in second. These numbers are important for Costa Rica businesses seeking to attract US customers, and for call centers that respond to the customers interested in the products.
• Tired of advertising that interrupts the use of your Android device. Lookout released version 1.2 of Ad Network Detector to help monitor and control how ads impact on your system. Ad Network Detector identifies such ad networks as “SellARing,” which plays a 10 second ad every time you make a call. Besides SellARing, Ad Network Detector monitors apps for 35 other ad networks. Lookout gives you the option of finding more information about the ad network, opting out of the ads, or deleting the app that uses the offending network.
• For all tennis fans, the French Open starts on May 27th, and lasts for two weeks. You can follow the event with the official app for the tournament – Roland-Garros 2012. The app starts with the preliminary reviews on May 22nd, with the final update to the app on May 25th.

Other Top Technology News

• With only half a second to go before launch of SpaceX, the on-board computer aborted the launch. It was an exciting morning following the tweets from @NASA, with a disappointing ending. Apparently, high-pressure readings from engine number 5 triggered the launch abort. The SpaceX team will try another launch as early as May 22nd, or 23rd.
• For those who enjoy electronics DIY, how about a Notifying Doorbell with PushingBox. When someone pushes the doorbell, this little device sends a notification to your phone, and sends an email with a picture of who is at the front door. The major component is the Arduino, which you can purchase locally from CRCybernetica. This is but one of many Arduino projects for the electronics experimenter.