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With the  clearest images  of Samsung's Galaxy S8 yet, WhatsApp reportedly  testing new features  for businesses, and Korean messaging giant Line introducing  its own assistant , you may have missed some of this week's best new apps. Luckily, we're keeping score for you for you. Each week, we round up the latest app news, along with a few of our favorite new and updated apps, to keep you in the loop with everything coming to your phone. Here's what we were following this week. And if you're looking for more, be sure to check out  last week's  look at top apps. Facebook's reactions mean more than you think Ever wondered how Facebook's News Feed algorithms respond when you "love" something instead of just "liking" it? Well, it turns out Facebook  does  treat its reactions differently than a mere like. The social network  confirmed this week  that it weighs reactions more strongly than likes in determining what type of c

Bitcoin has reached an impressive milestone as earlier this week the popular cryptocurrency became more valuable than gold for the first time ever. At the end of Thursday, the blockchain-powered currency topped off gold, hitting the price of $1,268 for a single unit of Bitcoin compared to $1,233 for a troy ounce of gold, BBC reports. Recovering from a massive drop to $200 per unit in mid-2015, Bitcoin has experienced a rather significant surge throughout the latter part of 2016 and early 2017 so far. Gold on the other hand has circled around the $1,200 price point for a while now, with some sporadic hikes and drops here and there. CoinDesk has made a nifty price comparison chart to demonstrate how the values of these two compare over the last three years: Earlier this year the cryptocurrency made headlines when it  surpassed $1,000  for the  first time since 2013 . But while comparing two currencies seems rather reasonable, this particular correlation between Bitcoin

Facebook finally has a Dislike button, but it’s not where you’d expect. How do you reply to a specific message in a rapid-fire chat thread? Facebook wants you to attach emojis to your friends’ messages the same way you do with News Feed posts. Hover over a message and tap the emoji button to add a Reaction Reaction counter TechCrunch reader  Hoan Do  sent us a tip that Facebook Messenger is showing some users a Reactions option. When you hover over messages friends have sent in a chat thread, you can tap the emoji button to pick from attaching a little thumbs-up Like, thumbs-down Dislike, or a heart-eyes, lol, wow, sad, or angry emoji. Everyone in the thread will then see that Reaction counted below the specific message you attached it to, and you can tap to see a full list of who left which Reaction. Facebook confirmed this new feature to TechCrunch, saying “We’re always testing ways to make Messenger more fun and engaging. This is a small test where we enable peo

South Koreans watching a television news broadcast at a station in Seoul, South Korea. IMAGE: KIM HEE-CHUL/EPA/REX/SHUTTERSTOCK  Former President Barack Obama wasn't impressed by the United States' missile defense systems. They constantly missed incoming blasts in practice, to say nothing of how they might fare in the face of an actual assault.  Obama was thinking about North Korea and its leader, Kim Jong-un, who's often going on about developing a nuclear warhead that can be fired atop an intercontinental ballistic missile. If this ever happened, U.S. defenses may well not be able to stop it. So, according to a Saturday  report by  The New York Times , Obama ramped up American cyber-attacks on North Korean computer networks. About three years ago, North Korean missiles sputtered during launch attempts. Some unraveled just after takeoff. The switch in tactics may have added years before North Korean nuclear weapons will have range enough to reach the U.S. But the

News can now be "disputed" on Facebook. IMAGE: CARL COURT/GETTY IMAGES Since people first started complaining about "fake news" on Facebook, the phrase has evolved—from a useful way to identify false-information-masquerading-as-traditional-news, to a term that means basically nothing, now wielded by President Donald Trump against stories he doesn't like, and also, drunk people in bars screaming about things and/or sports results they disagree with.  But the original problem still genuinely exists. And Facebook finally came out with its long-awaited response to beginning to cut away at the issue.  Spotted on Twitter  on Friday night, the tool identifies links to sites known to produce misinformation. The tool cites third-party fact-checking organizations like Snopes and Politifact—the kind of sites that Trump supporters also like to dispute.  Facebook  started testing  related features and  promised updates  similar to what debuted this week in Dece

Facebook co-founder sold 386,116 shares earlier this week at a weighted average price of $135.97 Getty Images Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg Facebook Inc. co-founder and Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg sold a chunk of the social network’s shares just as they rallied into record territory, according to regulatory filings. In an S-4 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission late Wednesday, Zuckerberg disclosed he sold a total of 386,116 Class A shares in a series of open-market trades throughout Monday and Tuesday at prices ranging from about $135.46 to $137.15. The weighted average price of the total sales was $135.97 and raised about $52.5 million. FactSet That is a tiny portion of Zuckerberg’s holdings. He controlled about 463.8 million Facebook shares, or 16.5% of the shares outstanding, as of a Feb. 14 SEC filing. Facebook shares  FB,  +0.30%  closed down 0.5% Thursday, while the Global X Social Media exchange-traded fund  SOCL,  +0.73%  sl

Mobile World Congress could have been Samsung’s big moment to put 2016 behind it once and for all with a brand new flagship handset. Instead, the company is using the world’s biggest smartphone show to debut two distinctly different – yet decidedly Samsungy — takes on the largely staid tablet space. The company was certainly up front about the fact that the  Galaxy S8 would have to wait  for its own standalone announcement at an event next month, instead issuing an invite that hinted at the release of a new slate that early rumors suggested would serve as the long awaited followup to 2015’s Galaxy Tab S2. And, indeed, the Galaxy Tab S3 has hit the stage in Barcelona, as planned, bringing a familiar Android interface, with some hardware tweaks and peripheral updates that are well in line with the company’s other Galaxy offerings. Slightly more surprising, however, is the addition of another device to the ever-growing universe of Galaxy products, the Galaxy Book, a Windows-based c

It might not be as noble as the now-completed Ice Bucket Challenge that went viral back in 2015, but the Steve Buscemi Challenge is starting to cement its status as one of the most resilient internet phenomenons to have popped up on Facebook in recent years. The initiative – which aims to sort of jokingly celebrate the actor by occupying Facebook with his pictures – appears to be making a comeback for a fourth year in a row. The challenge was first born in (the distant in internet years) 2014, but has consistently been making the rounds every year since then. Here are the rules of the game as stated on Facebook: The idea is to occupy Facebook with pictures of Steve Buscemi to break the monotony of pictures that aren’t Steve Buscemi. Whoever likes this post will be given a mood and has to post a picture of Steve Buscemi in that mood on their wall.   The initiative is essentially a pass-the-torch type of game where one your friends challenges you to