Facebook Will Remove Chat to Promote Messenger App

Facebook is going to remove chat from the primary iPhone and Android app, in order to force users to install a standalone Facebook Messenger app.

 

Facebook has already notified its users in the United Kingdom, France and other European countries that they will need to install a separate Messenger app if they want to continue using Facebook chat on their smartphones. The company issued a statement, saying that they have created a fast and reliable messaging experience via Messenger, and are now determined to focus on that experience.

The representatives of the company admitted that they plan to eventually require that users all over the world install the Messenger app, but they couldn’t provide a specific timeframe for the change.

The app developers point out that the free, standalone Messenger is faster than the messaging service built into the main Facebook app for smartphones. The users will also be provided more features in the Messenger app, including the ability to make voice phone calls via Wi-Fi in some countries and send texts on Android.

At the moment, Facebook keeps facing increasing competition from new and fast-growing mobile messaging application like Line and WeChat, along with such established brands as Google Hangouts and BlackBerry’s BBM. Fortunately, Facebook managed to acquire one of its biggest messaging competitors, WhatsApp, for $19bn a couple months ago. WhatsApp then announced adding voice calling later in February at Mobile World Congress.

Industry observers believe that Facebook’s decision to encourage users to switch to a separate messaging app on mobiles could either help boost the popularity of its Messenger or cause a backlash if users view the action as heavy-handed. In addition, this standalone app will also directly compete with WhatsApp.

Nevertheless, Facebook is increasingly moving into the mobile space, believing that it is a way to continue expanding its 1.2 billion-strong user base. The company has developed or acquired a catalogue of standalone apps aside from its main application over the past few years. Three months ago, Facebook launched Paper, a photo-heavy news-reading application that has already earned positive reviews. The company also purchased photo-sharing app Instagram a couple years ago, which recently reached 200 million users.

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Skype For Outlook Now Available Worldwide, Adds HD Video Calling Support

Skype for Outlook.com, the integration of Skype’s messaging features into Microsoft’s webmail platform, is now available worldwide, the company is announcing this morning. To get started with the feature, users must first download a web browser plugin, which is available for IE, Chrome, Firefox and now, Safari, browsers.

Afterwards, those who already have Skype accounts can link them to Outlook. If you haven’t yet signed up for Skype, you can instead use your Microsoft account to sign in.

Once installed, Skype users can place video and audio calls right from their email inbox. And today, Microsoft notes that’s it’s also adding support for HD video calling for PC users, while also fixing earlier bugs some users had experienced with calls continuing to ring after pick-up when they were running the Outlook.com plugin and Skype on their desktop at the same time.

The HD calling feature only works when users have compatible HD displays, web cams, messaging clients, and broadband internet, Microsoft notes.

The company had previously introduced Skype for Outlook.com in a preview mode for select markets last year, including the U.S., U.K., Germany, France, Brazil and Canada. Now Microsoft is making the service available worldwide, though presumably, this could still be a staged rollout.

The integration offers a Microsoft-flavored competitor to Google’s Gmail + Hangouts features, which also combines a messaging and voice client in users inboxes, in Google’s case, Gmail. As for Microsoft, the combination of the two services could lead to a wider footprint for both Outlook and Skype, the former of which has over 400 million users.

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Spectrum auction for 3G‚ 4G technologies on April 23

 

Dar says PTA should ensure the best quality service for the consumers.

ISLAMABAD (Web Desk) - Spectrum auction for 3G and 4G technologies is scheduled for 23rd of next month and the sealed bids will be submitted to PTA on 14th of next month.

This was stated during a meeting of the Advisory Committee on Spectrum Auction held in Islamabad on Thursday under the chairmanship of Finance Minister Ishaq Dar.

Chairman PTA Dr. Syed Ismail Shah briefed the committee on the progress made so far on the auction of 3G and 4G licenses.

 

Dar said that PTA should ensure that quality service of the best international standards is provided to the consumers.

The minister emphasized that the whole process should be completed with transparency.

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Taiwan offers free Wi-Fi to all foreign tourists

Taiwan became one of the first countries in the world to offer free Wi-Fi on a mass scale to its citizens, and now it is extending that to any foreign tourist, also for free, in a move that will gain it a lot of goodwill.

The Taiwan government-backed free “iTaiwan” wireless network launched in 2011, and now has about 4,400 hotspots in major tourist spots, transportation hubs, cultural establishments and government offices all over the island country.

Citizens needed just their local phone number to register and then use the semi-fast 1 MBPS service.

Now, for foreign vistors, who generally have trouble getting a local SIM in the country (two forms of identity, etc), the process of tapping these wi-fi networks has been made a lot easier starting this month.

Visitors can open an iTaiwan account at a Taiwan Tourism Bureau counter/center, show their passport as ID and that’s it: they can login using their account, on their digital devices.

In addition, iTaiwan has established roaming agreements with four local governments so that tourists also have access in Taipei City, New Taipei, Taichung and Tainan.

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