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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:Facebook To Buy Oculus VR, Maker Of The Rift Headset, For Around $2B:

Facebook To Buy Oculus VR, Maker Of The Rift Headset, For Around $2B In Cash And Stock

Facebook has announced plans to purchase Oculus VR, the company behind the Rift headset, for around $2B in cash and stock. This includes $400M, and 23.1 million Facebook shares. An additional $300M earnout will be paid in cash and stock if Oculus hits certain unspecified milestones.

“I’m excited to announce that we’ve agreed to acquire Oculus VR, the leader in virtual reality technology,” said Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg in a statement today.

Our mission is to make the world more open and connected. For the past few years, this has mostly meant building mobile apps that help you share with the people you care about. We have a lot more to do on mobile, but at this point we feel we’re in a position where we can start focusing on what platforms will come next to enable even more useful, entertaining and personal experiences.
This is where Oculus comes in. They build virtual reality technology, like the Oculus Rift headset. When you put it on, you enter a completely immersive computer-generated environment, like a game or a movie scene or a place far away. The incredible thing about the technology is that you feel like you’re actually present in another place with other people. People who try it say it’s different from anything they’ve ever experienced in their lives.

Zuckerberg says that their efforts with Oculus will continue to focus on gaming initially, and that the company will continue to operate independently of Facebook. But after gaming, Zuckerberg says, they’re going to expand into a variety of other arenas.

“After games, we’re going to make Oculus a platform for many other experiences. Imagine enjoying a court side seat at a game, studying in a classroom of students and teachers all over the world or consulting with a doctor face-to-face just by putting on goggles in your home,” he says. “This is really a new communication platform. By feeling truly present, you can share unbounded spaces and experiences with the people in your life. Imagine sharing not just moments with your friends online, but entire experiences and adventures.”

Facebook, of course, found early success with games. Social gaming is responsible for a lot of the growth and spread of Facebook as a platform, rather than just a social service. Acquiring Oculus could signal a variety of things, but being able to tap into what is potentially the next big gaming trend is likely one of them. In addition, Facebook has been aggressive about understanding and supporting mobile use cases but only after an initial period of foot-dragging and desktop focus. If VR is ‘what’s next’ then Facebook will want to tap the market early, to avoid any transitional gaffes this time around.

The purchase is expected to close in Q2 of 2014. Oculus has taken over 75k orders for its virtual reality headset so far. Those headsets have both been developer editions designed to get developers interested in playing around with VR technology. The most recent ‘Crystal Cove’ prototype features a full 1080P display and more sensors to detect and position users in virtual environments.

Of course, if you pull the thread of virtual reality out really, really far you could see a future where we’re not talking about the percentage of time people spend on mobile vs. desktop. Instead, we’re talking about the amount of time that people spend in virtual reality vs. actual reality. In that kind of landscape, Facebook starting in on VR early makes painfully obvious sense.

The company has received a total of $93.4M in funding so far from Spark, Matrix, Founders Fund, Formation 8, BIG Ventures and Andreessen Horowitz. Oculus got a big boost in legitimacy recently when one of the founding fathers of 3D gaming..

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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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Flickr Co-Founder Launches Findery App

Caterina Fake is the mind behind the massively popular Flickr photo-sharing site and is looking to eliminate that historical chain with a new location map-based social discovery platform, called Findery.

Findery is currently available on iOS, it becomes clear that the world is meant to be viewed by the user as a blank canvas that is ready for you to fully explore.  You can explore geo-tagged notes on a map to learn about places through experiences from different people from across the planet. Users of the app can post public or private notes with historical data, personalized stories via text, images, videos, and sound clips. The app will then cleverly annotate and then organize the information based on the location.

The social network side of the app, uses your current location to bring up appealing notes in the user’s immediate vicinity, thereby making it simple to find stories and pictures relevant to your own experience.  For example, you are exploring the historic city of Edinburgh in Scotland or you are visiting the Grand Canyon in the USA, all you need to do is open the Findery app to find out what previous visitors found of interest in those areas.  ”Every place has a story, or a thousand stories…Findery brings places to life, be they where you stand or where you hope to go,” Fake said in a statement.

Members are also able to create something called ‘Notemaps’ whih is a collection of notes about a location, topic or theme such as “Stag Party Blackpool” or “Blues in Chicago”.  This can then serve as either a travel diary or simply a record of your journey.  The app launches initially in English, although Findery have said they will support more languages this year. Findery is available now for free to download in the Apple iTunes Store.

If you have any sensible comments regarding this story, please leave your comments in the section below.

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