For the sake of their careers, Carl Newport -- a computer scientist, author and blogger -- is advising his fellow millennials to quit social media. “In a capitalist economy, the market rewards things that are rare and valuable,” he writes in The New York Times. “Social media use is decidedly not rare or valuable.” As such, “The idea that if you engage in enough of this low-value activity, it will somehow add up to something of high value in your career is the same dubious alchemy that forms the core of most snake oil and flimflam in business.”

Campbell Brown, Facebook’s head of news partnerships, is reportedly on a mission to improve ties between the social giant and the media. Last year, “Brown hosted a roundtable of top editors and executives at prominent US news outlets, including the New Yorker’s David Remnick, the New York Times’ Andrew Ross Sorkin, Vox’s Melissa Bell, and USA Today’s Joanne Lipman,” Buzzfeed reports.

Microsoft is rolling out Skype Lite, which The Next Web calls “a retooled version of its voice and video calling service, designed for use in areas with limited connectivity on Android devices.” In fact, the app takes up a mere 13MB of space, and will support nine regional languages, and chatbots for connected services. “It also lets you read and reply to SMS messages, and includes a tool to help you track your mobile data usage,” TNW notes.

Facebook’s mobile app analytics now encompasses more than a million apps, mobile sites, and bots. “Surpassing the 1 million mark is notable, but it perhaps isn’t that surprising given the adoption of other Facebook properties and services,” Venture Beat reports. “Additionally, with developers likely growing increasingly concerned about Twitter and taking a particular interest in social data, Facebook is seeing more interest.”

Apple has reportedly bought iCloud.net. “Subsequent to that, the small-time Asian social network that existed at the site has informed its users that it will be shutting down by the end of this month,” TechCrunch reports. “The icloud.net domain … was one of the last major iCloud-based web addresses that was not owned by the company.”

Despite Mark Zuckerberg’s stated commitment to a healthy press, critics see Facebook as posing an existential threat to the business of news. “News organizations are perhaps the biggest casualty of the world Zuckerberg built,” Adrienne Lafrance writes in The Atlantic. And, “There’s reason to believe things are going to get worse.” According to Lafrance: “Zuckerberg is making it clear that he wants Facebook to take over many of the actual functions -- not just ad dollars -- that traditional news organizations once had.”

Apple just bought Realface -- an Israeli startup that makes facial recognition technology, which can be used to authenticate users. “The deal is estimated to be worth a couple of million of dollars,” The Times Of Israel reports. “Realface, set up in 2014 by Adi Eckhouse Barzilai and Aviv Mader, has developed a facial recognition software that offers users a smart biometric login, aiming to make passwords redundant when accessing mobile devices or PCs.”

BuzzFeed News is rolling out “Outside Your Bubble” -- a feature that shows users what folks outside of their social-media spheres are saying about the news. “The idea is an attempt to get readers to understand -- or even acknowledge the existence of -- the viewpoints of people who don’t think like them,” Bloomberg reports. The feature will appear at the bottom of Buzzfeed’s most popular stories.

Facebook is making another push into the music business. “The world’s largest social network has redoubled its efforts to reach a broad accord with the industry,” Bloomberg reports, citing sources at music labels, publishers and trade associations. “A deal would govern user-generated videos that include songs and potentially pave the way for Facebook to obtain more professional videos from the labels themselves,” it writes.

To compliment its HoloLens service, Microsoft is developing a “spectator view” for people to view the virtual reality experiences of their friends. “It’s a small step, but it’s one headed in the right direction for head-mounted displays,” The Verge writes. “And it’s coming at a time when VR and AR companies aren’t just dealing with technical challenges around sharing their apps, but running into ethical boundaries as well, sometimes relying on special effects rather than ‘real’ video to get their points across.”