To better detect different kinds of clickbait headlines, Facebook is now separately identifying signals that withhold or exaggerate information. For the social giant, this is just the latest effort to cut down on crappy content in users' New Feeds.

As of this week, Android is now active on more than two billion devices, Google CEO Sundar Pichai announced on Wednesday. "This is all because of the growth of mobile and smartphones," Pichai told attendees at Google's I/O developer conference. Rather than celebrate its mobile successes, however, Pichai said Google has to move fast to continue positioning itself for the AI revolution.

From the boring to the boorish, Facebook knows that its Live video content could use some refining. For that reason, the social giant just added some additional caveats to its developer policy, including a warning not to broadcast images -- be they static, animated, or looping -- on Live, or live-stream polls associated with unmoving or ambient broadcasts.

Tencent just put another $90 million in mobile gaming startup Pocket Gems -- an interesting development because the Chinese tech giant is expected to give the US-based Pocket Gems a foothold in a market overflowing with opportunity.

Last month, after Amazon outbid Twitter for streaming rights to some NFL games, we thought the social network's season was toast. Proving us wrong, Twitter and the NFL just announced a multiyear partnership, which seems to encompass everything except full-length games. Per the content-sharing pact, the pair is inviting brands to advertise on "official" NFL content created specifically for Twitter's unique platform.

Surprising no one, Snap's first earnings report is eliciting mixed feelings from analysts and company watchers. Among other issues, Jessica Liu, senior analyst at Forrester, believes that the "camera company" has yet to prove itself in the key areas of ad tracking and measurement.

Pinterest this week is rolling out new object-detection capabilities to its Lens beta, including the ability to read QR Codes with Lens. "Now, people can tap the Lens icon in the Pinterest app and hover over any QR Code to discover more ideas and information," a company spokeswoman told me on Tuesday.

Catching Apple asleep at the wheel, smart speakers are becoming the next big thing in consumer gadgetry. Year-over-year, in fact, the number of U.S. consumers using voice-activated assistant devices is up 128.9%, according to a new report from eMarketer. Meanwhile, Apple's smart speaker remains in the development stages.

Brands are spending more on iOS, while performance marketers are becoming more efficient with their spending on Android, new research from Fiksu suggests.

During the second half of 2016, the number of U.S. households relying solely on mobile phones surpassed those with landlines, according to fresh findings from the Centers for Disease Control.