By Kelly Faircloth 10/05/12 8:00am

Linkages

Now is the part where I throw my head back and laugh. (Photo: flickr.com/oreilly)

Booting Up: Jeff Bezos Bets a Bit on Quantum Computing

No, Facebook is not outing the links you share in private messages by adding them to your list of likes–though those pages do get an additional, unattributed thumbs-up. But what if you hate-shared the link? What then, Zuck? [Business Insider]

Speaking of: Here come the Facebook IPO lawsuits! [Reuters]

Jeff Bezos and the CIA believe this startup can pull off a quantum computer, to the tune of a $30 million investment in the company. Many others are skeptical. [Technology Review]

This morning, the entire Apple homepage is devoted to a remembrance of Steve Jobs, who died a year ago today. [Apple]

New York City teens can now pay a dollar to have their smartphones stored in a truck just off campus during school hours. Just another chapter in our town’s long, proud history of hustling.  [USA Today]

By Jessica Roy 5/15/12 10:34am

Facebook

Making friends: Clockwise from left, Kallie Hoots, Maima Hartl, Veta Behrends, Trinidad ransen, Taisha Tryon and Donette Morrency

Like for Sale: Invasion of the Fugazi Facebook Friends

“The only way to have a friend,” Ralph Waldo Emerson once wrote, “is to be one.”

This was pre-Internet.

These days, friends, fans, followers, likes and other signs of affection are available for purchase, and they’re dirt cheap. On a recent balmy afternoon, we whipped out a credit card and used it to purchase 250 Facebook fans for our tech site, Betabeat, from the Uruguay-based Bulkfans.com. The price? $30. Better, the site guaranteed they were “targeted USA citizens.” We were initially wary of giving this company our credit card number, but the order page linked to a prominent ecommerce site, so we went for it. Read More