Google inc opened Google Plus social network

Google Inc has opened up its Google Plus social network to everyone after testing it with a limited audience for 12 weeks.

Google said in a blog post on Tuesday that it will now let anyone sign up for Google Plus. Previously the service was only available by invitation, though it got easier to join in recent weeks.

The company also added a search capability to Google Plus that will let users sift through posts on the site.

Google Plus is the online search leader's attempt to compete with Facebook, by far the world's most populous online social network with more than 750 million users. Tuesday's upgrades come two days ahead of Facebook's f8 conference in San Francisco, where the company is expected to unveil several new features.

Google also made Plus's "Hangouts" feature - which lets users video chat with multiple people at a time - available on smartphones with front-facing cameras. The feature currently works with phones running Google's Android system. Google says support for Apple devices is coming soon.

A new service called "Hangouts On Air," meanwhile, lets users broadcast their videos online or view these videos as spectators. Google said it's starting off with a limited number of broadcasters. Google plans to host its first such hangout with Black Eyed Peas frontman Will.i.am. on Wednesday night.

Facebook upgrades photos with larger sizes, makes them load twice as fast

Social networking giant Facebook is to increase the resolution of photos that people post to its website and will load them twice as fast as before.

As photo sharing is proving to be one of the main battlegrounds in the social networking war, Facebook announced that the resolution of displayed photos would now be 33 percent wider, with a variable height.

The new features will be available to users over the next few days.

The changes come the same week that Facebook said it will allow users pre-approve having their names attached to a photo posted by a friend before that photo appears on their profile.

The tagged photo will still appear on the friend's page and could show up in the news feeds of common friends.

Social networking teens may turn drinks, drugs addicted

Teenagers using social networking sites like Facebook are risking themselves to end up being addicted to drink and drugs, researchers have found.

Scientists at the National Centre on Addiction and Substance Abuse (Casa) at Columbia University, surveyed over 1,000 children aged between 12 and 17 via an online poll and another 1,000 by telephone, Daily Mail reported.

It was observed teenagers spending any time on social networks daily were five times as likely to smoke than those who didn't visit such sites. They were also three times more likely to drink alcohol and had double the chance of smoking cannabis.

The nationally-representative survey indicated that peer pressure was playing a major role, with 40 percent of the teenagers seeing pictures of friends getting drunk on sites like Facebook and MySpace.

Half of the youngsters saying that they watched pictures of people being drunk, passed out, or using drugs first saw such images when they were just 13 or even younger.

Joseph Califano, Jr who is CASA Columbia's Founder and Chairman and former US Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare said: 'The relationship of social networking site images of kids drunk, passed out, or using drugs and of suggestive teen programming to increased teen risk of substance abuse offers grotesque confirmation of the adage that a picture is worth a thousand words.

'The time has come for those who operate and profit from social networking sites like Facebook to deploy their technological expertise to curb such images and to deny use of their sites to children and teens who post pictures of themselves and their friends drunk, passed out or using drugs.'