Codenamed Buffy, more details leak on the real "Facebook Phone" coming from HTC

Before we had Arrested Development, and now it's Buffy. But Facebook and HTC aren't getting into the TV business; rather Buffy is the purported codename for the long-rumoured "Facebook Phone", according to reports online. AllThingsD claims sources familiar with the Facebook Phone project have indicated Buffy will run on a "modified version of Android that Facebook has tweaked heavily to deeply integrate its services, as well as to support HTML5 as a platform for applications". If the reports are accurate, it would seem the social network has chosen experienced hands; HTC released two specialised Facebook-integrated Android smartphones earlier in the year, the ChaCha and Salsa. (Samsung was reportedly also in the running for the Buffy project.) It also sounds like heavily customised and differentiated Android builds are increasingly being viewed as the best way to tackle the iOS juggernaut, with Buffy's outing closely following the recent launch of Amazon's US-only Kindle Fire tablet, which presents a locked-down Amazon front end (with no access to Android Market) over a hidden version of Google's OS.