Starcraft II fans who want to tout their strategies and winning scores will soon be able to conveniently do that in the usual place: Facebook.

Blizzard Entertainment announced Wednesday that its next-generation online gaming platform, called Battle.net, which hosts the upcoming and highly anticipated RTS StarCraft II, will integrate with Facebook to offer players an enhanced social-gaming experience.

Researcher finds correlation between Facebook use and syphilis infections.

Yesterday the Telegraph published a news story that linked Facebook usage with the rise in syphilis. The report cited Professor Peter Kelly, director of public health in Teesside, UK as finding that syphilis infections, especially in young women, have risen fourfold in the areas of Britain where Facebook is most popular.

Popular anti-virus company McAfee is reporting today that Facebook has become the target of a virus that aims to steal passwords and other sensitive information from the social network's 400 million users.

The virus comes via spam emails that state that users Facebook accounts have had their passwords reset. You are then urged to click on an attachment to "obtain new login credentials." Once opened, the attachment unleashes a group of trojans, including a password stealing software.

Militants and hate groups grow

Rather than bringing the world together in peace and harmony, social notworking sites are helping militant and hate groups grow.

A report by the Simon Wiesenthal centre, which was named after the late Nazi hunter , found that more than 11,500 social networks, websites, forums and blogs promoting violence, anti-Semitism, homophobia, hate music and "terrorism," had grown by 20 percent over last year.

Users of the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 video game consoles can now brag about their achievements on Facebook as both systems integrate the social network this week.

Microsoft Corp. switched on a slew of new features for its Xbox Live online service, allowing owners of the Xbox 360 consoles to update Facebook and Twitter directly from their consoles.

The Xbox 360 can also stream music from the Internet radio service Last.fm.

Defying the recession, Facebook plans to increase its workforce by up to 50% over the coming year. At a time when many technology companies are cutting back, Facebook is taking advantage of the abundance of highly-skilled professionals looking for work. The social networking company had planned to increase its size to 1,000 employees by the end of 2008, but scaled back its ambitions due to the economic crisis. Now Facebook has reached that target and plans to go on hiring throughout 2009.