Facebook releases Paper, its own news-reading app

It might be time to slide over that Facebook app on the homescreen of your smartphone — to make room for another Facebook app. Paper, a news-consumption app akin to existing options like Flipboard, Feedly and Zite, will be released for the iPhone in the United States on February 3, with other versions presumably to follow.

Social networking giant Facebook is set to give users a new way to explore and discover content both on and off the service with its upcoming Paper app, while Carrot Fit aims to help users lose weight with what the company calls a ‘sadistic’ approach. Paper presents stories from the user’s Facebook news feed as well as outside sources in a sparse, gesture-based user interface reminiscent of the Flipboard newsreader. Content is segregated into themed sections — the news feed is first, and users can mix-and-match other sections with topics like photography and sports.