Who would bet against Facebook today, as it readies for the largest initial public offering (IPO) in the United States in the coming months?

Yet, amid the excitement, one thing that investors will read about is this troubling reminder of the threat coming from rival social networking efforts from the likes of Google, which can take away key advertising dollars.

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Cellphone users in Singapore can expect extended coverage in buildings, on roads and when travelling in an MRT train underground, when stricter rules on 3G coverage unveiled today by the government regulator kick in as soon as April 2012.

Following a number of high-profile network outages last year, the Infocomm Development Authority (IDA) today spelt out the new rules, which will include 85 per cent coverage for each building here. Currently, telcos only have to cover 85 per cent of “public access areas”.

For commuters, the coverage will now include all road and MRT tunnels as well as the CTE by 2015, extending from the previous requirement of 95 per cent across road and MRT tunnels tested. In all, about 99 per cent of the outdoor space on the island is to be blanketed by 3G signals. Previously, the requirement was only 95 per cent across all roads.

And each time any of the three telecom operators here – SingTel, StarHub, M1 – fails to meet one requirement, they can be fined up to S$50,000, instead of the previous “slap on the wrist” S$5,000 per indicator per month.

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Singapore is so small that if you don’t know how to get around town, you really shouldn’t be driving around much. That was my response to in-car GPS kits in the past, being the smart driver that I thought I was.

Then I started using Google Maps on my Android phone to start getting around town. I realised the suggested route sometimes helped me rethink how I always went around town – it often got me there without me testing out routes and missing a turn to a building’s car park, for example.

Thus when I placed the TomTom Go 2050 in my car a few weeks ago, I was more than happy to hear a friendly female voice tell me how best to get from, say, Takashimaya shopping centre to Alexandra Road. …

Of all the things that can happen during Chinese New Year this week, I accidentally made the data on my network attached storage (NAS) device unreadable – and could easily have wiped out all the years of reports, financial statements and holiday pictures I’ve stored on those two 1TB drives.

After days of pulling hair out, I eventually salvaged everything. But the entire episode prompted me to ask if I was really as prepared as I thought if I had accidentally deleted my data or, in this case, plugged my drives into a new NAS without backing things up.

The answer lies in a series of software tools you can use at home, before really going to the pros in data recovery for help. Here are a few that I tried out while panicking through my attempt at rescuing my data.
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If 2011 was remembered for shiny new tablets that made people part with their hard-earned cash, then 2012 may just be the one where the craze for these thin and light yet powerful and affordable ultrabooks takes off big time.

At the annual CES show just concluded earlier in the week, a good number of laptop makers joined the fray with their takes on what people would be carrying to meetings and classrooms in the coming months.

Perhaps having seen Asus, Acer and Lenovo whip up demand for such ultra-light PCs in the closing months of 2011, the likes of Sony, Dell and HP showed of their versions of the ultrabook at CES this year. Lenovo too came up with a quite surprising “yoga-like” ultrabook cum tablet.

Here’s a sneak peek.

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Motorola is putting up a lighter, more powerful follow-up to its Xoom tablet for sale here in Singapore from today, but with a rather hefty price of S$978.

The new Xoom 2, which will come with both 3G and Wi-Fi, sports a 10.1-inch screen and a faster processor, but will run only on Android Honeycomb (3.2) for now. It should likely be upgradeable to the newest Android 4.0 later in the year, if Motorola Singapore follows the practice of its US headquarters.

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Okay, its eyes don’t light up in red and it doesn’t breathe digital fire, but a gaudy golden dragon – as cheesy a “Chinese” symbol as you can find – is going to adorn the face of Vertu’s new Signature phone specially designed for the Lunar New Year. …

The much-awaited Samsung Galaxy Nexus, the next “Google phone” featuring the new Android 4.0 operating system, will only reach Singapore stores in February 2012, a month later than expected.

Samsung Singapore today said the units would be sold at S$948 (without contract), as it revealed earlier in November. However, the delay will not be good news for folks here who have been waiting for the latest and greatest from the Android camp.

The Galaxy Nexus, following in the Nexus One and Nexus S tradition, would come with a “clean” interface without any add-on software, which is a boon to those who want a “pure” Google experience without clunky extras. It has another plus: being a Nexus phone, it will be the first to get the latest updates direct from Google. …

As technology users welcome 2012 everywhere, it’s clear the year that had just passed was filled with no little controversy and memorable incidents.

From Steve Jobs’ death to the delay of the much-awaited iPhone 5, from the rise of Android devices to Nokia’s return with its Windows Phone devices, and finally, with the potent mix of mobile devices and social media that  helped ignite protests in the Arab Spring and Occupy Wall Street, but also encouraged the thuggery of the London riots, 2011 was a big year in technology.

The next 12 months look to be just as interesting, as existing technologies mature and grow, while other new trends emerge. Here are five things to look out for in 2012: …

Singapore Press Holdings (SPH) has accused Yahoo! of “free-riding” on the print publisher to drive up page views and maximise advertising dollars, as a much-watched legal tussle between old and new media rumbled on in Singapore on Wednesday evening.

In a statement to the stock exchange hours ago, SPH said the United States Internet company had plagiarised its articles by “substantially reproducing the words and expressions used in SPH’s articles without permission”.  …