WhatsApp will soon let you set up group chats where only the admin can send messages. Once iOS and Android users update to the latest version, they’ll be able to set up groups where only one member has the power to talk to members — giving them a captive audience. “One way people use groups is …
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Last summer, Dr. Mohamad Al-Hosni got a WhatsApp message from doctors in Syria. They couldn’t figure out why an infant born prematurely at 34 weeks was having a hard time breathing. The St. Louis neonatologist, along with about 20 other US physicians, received an image of a chest X-ray in a group chat. The US doctors discovered the baby’s intestines …
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WhatsApp founders Jan Koum and Brian Acton reportedly left $1.3 billion behind by leaving Facebook. According to The Wall Street Journal, both men chose to depart after a number of long-standing disputes. The major divide was over monetizing the messaging app, which has 1.5 billion users. Koum and Acton had been resistant to adopting Facebook’s widely lucrative targeted advertising model, …
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Uganda’s parliament has passed a law to tax people’s social media use. The Excise Duty (Amendment) Bill imposes a 200 shilling (5 cent) daily charge for messaging services such as Facebook, WhatsApp, Viber and Twitter in the African country, BBC reported Thursday. Uganda President Yoweri Museveni has been pushing for the tax since March, when he wrote a letter to Finance …
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WhatsApp is adding new features to streamline group chats and make it easier to manage your groups. Facebook’s popular messaging client announced the new features on its blog Tuesday. They include: A group description visible to all members Restrictions over who can edit the subject, icon and description of a group A single-tap “what’s new” button to see new postings …
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How many messaging apps do you have on your phone right now? It’s probably at least one, if not two or three. Now Yahoo wants to add another. The company is testing a messaging app called Squirrel focused on group messaging. Spotted by Android Police on the Google Play store, the app is currently in invite-only mode. “Organize groups and …
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Jan Koum is moving on. The WhatsApp co-founder said in a Facebook post Monday that he plans to leave his messaging company, which Facebook bought four years ago for $19 billion. Koum, who reportedly will also be leaving his position on Facebook‘s board, said “it is time for me to move on.” He said he’s taking time off to pursue hobbies like …
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Teenagers may need to wait a while if they want to WhatsApp their friends in Europe. That’s because the messaging service is raising its age limit to 16 from 13 in the region due to new EU data privacy rules. Users will have to confirm their age when WhatsApps rolls out its new terms of service, the company said in a blog …
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Fingerprints taken from a photo sent over WhatsApp have led to the arrest and conviction of several members of a drug ring in the UK. The arrests occurred after police in Wales discovered a photo on the messaging app on another person’s phone that showed a man’s hand palm up, holding ecstasy tablets, according to the BBC. While the parts …
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Messaging service WhatsApp can’t legally share customer data with parent company Facebook in the UK, the local regulator said on Wednesday. The sharing of customer information between the two companies would breach data protection law, said the UK Information Commissioner in a blog post. Fortunately for Facebook, the Commissioner didn’t discover any evidence of data-sharing activities between the two services, …
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