New persistent notifications also part of undocumented update

Facebook -- facing increasing negative reaction to its Facebook Home launcher as AT&T (at least temporarily) dropped the price of the HTC First to a mere 99 cents -- has silently added support for the HTC One as well as unofficial support for the Samsung Galaxy S4.

The change comes as the official Facebook app received an update just hours after Facebook held a small press conference at its campus in Silicon Valley, touting some 1 million total installations, apparently without listing how many active installations it has. (And that still wouldn't account for anyone who has installed Facebook Home but isn't actually using it.) Following that event, the Facebook application itself received an update. The Facebook Home launcher has not been updated as of April 22.

That brings us to the Galaxy S4, which you see above. Without a mention in any changelog in any of the Facebook Apps, our Galaxy S4 now show the option to "Use Home Anyway." Tap it, and Facebook Home launches just fine. Same goes for the Sony Xperia ZL.

Additionally, Facebook Home is working without this "Use Home Anyway" intercept on the HTC One. It wouldn't surprise us in the least to see it working -- with or without the warning -- on other devices. Both the HTC One and Galaxy S4 were listed as "supported" devices when Facebook Home was announced, but until now they'd been unable to officially run the launcher.

Also, the Facebook app update has added a new notification -- a persistent "ongoing" notification that lives in your notification pull-down. You can turn it off in the settings menu.

If you've been waiting to try Facebook Home but your device hasn't been supported -- and let's face it, that's probably not a whole hell of a lot of you reading this -- give it a shot now.

Profits are up 29-percent year-over-year, revenue up by 3-percent

NVIDIA has posted their Q1 2013 financials, and while profit, at $78,000,000 is down by 55-percent compared to last quarter, the year-over-year numbers is up by 29-percent. Earnings show a similar trend, with today's $955,000,000 down by 13-percent from last quarter, but up 3-percent year-over-year. Today's news beats the projections by Wall Street, and we expect the stock to reflect that when the market opens tomorrow.

NVIDIA  CEO Jen-Hsun Huang says the successful quarter comes from the Kepler GPU, and the Kepler and Tegra 4 platform are both expected to drive next quarter's numbers further into the black.

The success of Kepler-based GPUs within and beyond the PC helped drive another quarter of record margins. Kepler is capturing share among gamers, strengthening our workstation and supercomputing segments, and will fuel new growth opportunities for our GRID server graphics solutions. With Tegra 4 devices and Tegra 4i certification on the way, we're gearing up to return to growth in the second half.

All you financial types can check out the full statement at the source below. 

Source: NVIDIA

Channels will start at a 99 cent monthly subscription and have a 14-day trial period

YouTube made a big announcement today: paid subscriptions for certain channels. It had been rumored for some time that YouTube was readying some sort of paid model and today that becomes reality. This is the beginning of a pilot program that will likely see many more premium channels in the future.

So how does it work and how much is it? There are a select few YouTube Paid Channels launching today with that are partnering with YouTube to provide richer content starting at $0.99/month. Some channels offer discounts if you subscribe annually. All channels also offer a 14-day free trial and they insist that you use it to see how you like it. Once you subscribe, you can watch on your computer, mobile device and television.

For example, I am a huge fan of Big Think, which is a channel that brings together thinkers from around the world and produces short videos dedicated to specific ideas. They are launching a premium channel called Big Think Mentor (seen above), which will provide more videos and longer content. By making it paid, this allows them to gauge their audience and produce content that is demanded.

YouTube is a great platform and has always provided countless free videos with the support of ads. That model is still the same and will not change. However, I think YouTube wants to be able to offer its users the chance to access higher quality content aimed at a certain audience that is willing to shell out a little money. Let's be honest, 99 cents is not that much and if the creators use the platform and money strategically, I feel  that it could be a success.

Source: YouTube

Interface improvements that make booking and managing reservations easier

OpenTable has taken a big step forward in interface design today with an update to v2.5 of its app, which makes several much-needed changes. First up is the mapping experience, which is dramatically improved thanks to Google Maps v2, and now gives you more freedom to browse the map in different areas and have reduced pin clutter from lots of restaurants. Next are the restaurant pages, which have received a facelift as well. You can now modify your reservation -- date, time and party size -- right from the restaurant page rather than your account. OpenTable has also improved the load times of menus and reviews for restaurants.

A much-awaited feature of being able to add reservations to your calendar has also been added -- no more excuses for missing a dinner reservation. All of these new features can be accessed much easier as well thanks to general improvements to the navigation elements in the app that have been moved to the top action bar, reducing the number of times you have to jump back and forth between the settings. You can grab a download of the new OpenTable app from the Play Store link above.

Slowly but surely I'm starting to see the dust at the bottom of the mess that is my desk. Up for grabs today is a Mophie Juice Pack for the Samsung Galaxy S3. This thing'll protect your phone while it charges it up, basically giving you another battery cycle before you break down and plug it in.

If you're in it to win it, leave a comment on this post. We'll shut things down around midnight and scoop up a winner. Good luck!

As you by no doubt  have heard, there's an all-new version of the Android Central App amongst us. And now we’re going to walk through it in all its awesomeness. It's got full access to the Android Central blogs, forums, wallpaper gallery, store, podcast, and videos. Our people have worked hard on this, and there are still plenty more features on the way. 

Have a question about how things work? Give us a few minutes of your time, and we'll walk you through it.

We compare image quality on the HTC One and Samsung Galaxy S4 rear cameras

Though they're direct competitors, the HTC One and Samsung Galaxy S4 are two very different smartphones. That's especially evident when you look at the way they handle photography. The Galaxy S4 packs a 13-megapixel shooter with f/2.2 aperture, improving upon the 8-megapixel, f/2.6 unit in last year's S3 with the potential to capture even more detailed images. The HTC One trades sheer megapixel count for larger (2-micron) pixels on the sensor itself, allowing for improved low-light capabilities when combined with its wide-angle f/2.0 lens.

That's the basic hardware at work, but specs only go so far. That's why we've prepared a few direct comparison shots from the European HTC One (on the latest 1.29 firmware) and the international Samsung Galaxy S4 (GT-i9505). Check 'em out after the break.

Flipboard Editor for magazines also launched on the web

Popular news magazine app Flipboard has been updated to version 2.0 today, with new features focused on allowing users to create curated magazines of their favorite content. Articles and posts on Flipboard can now be added to users' own custom magazines to create a custom-built Pinterest-like arrangement of favorite articles, social posts and other content.

Each article on Flipboard now has a "plus" icon that can be used to add it to one of your own magazines, and magazines can be shared with friends through the app. It's also possible to "flip" other content into one of your magazines using Android sharing intents.

Flipboard has also launched the Flipboard Editor on the web to allow users to manage their magazines. Found at editor.flipboard.com, it's a simple web-based tool that provides an overview of everything you've curated.

In addition, the Flipboard team has announced that Financial Times content is now available through its app. FT blog and video content is available to all users, while FT.com subscribers will get access to all of the paper's content.

To grab the new version of Flipboard for Android, hit the Google Play link above.

Ren Zhengfei spoke to reporters for the first time since founding Huawei in 1988

Huawei CEO Ren Zhengfei denied allegations that its products represent a threat to U.S. national security. Speaking directly with the press for the first time today, Ren also denied any illicit ties to the Chinese government, a central part of U.S. concerns over the Chinese communications giant, according to reports from Reuters.

Last October a damning Congressional report concluded that Huawei and local competitor ZTE "cannot be trusted to be free of foreign state influence and thus pose a security threat to the United States and to our systems." The panel behind the report also singled out Huawei for criticism, saying it'd received evidence of corruption, bribery and copyright infringement at the firm from industry experts and Huawei employees.