messaging

WhatsApp Messenger (iPhone|Android) lets you chat for free with anyone else who owns the app and offers a few extra useful features to make text messaging more fun. With this chat app installed on your smartphone, you'll save a little money on text charges through your carrier and across platforms. The only catch is that you'll have to persuade your most frequent texting buddies to download the app, too, but once they see WhatsApp's advantages, they'll probably give it a try.

Like iMessage for iOS, WhatsApp Messenger shows your chats in little text bubbles, gives … Read more

WhatsApp Messenger (iPhone|Android) lets you chat for free with anyone else who owns the app and offers a few extra useful features to make text messaging more fun. With this chat app installed on your smartphone, you'll save a little money on text charges through your carrier and across platforms. The only catch is that you'll have to persuade your most frequent texting buddies to download the app, too, but once they see WhatsApp's advantages, they'll probably give it a try.

Like iMessage for iOS, WhatsApp Messenger shows your chats in little text bubbles, gives … Read more

Leaked from today's 404 episode:

- Did 4chan just find the Boston Marathon bomber?.

- 4chan's Boston bombing Google Doc culls photos, speculation, and accusations.

- Internet tough guys and girls already pointing fingers at the Middle East. Response: "Please don't let it be a Muslim."

- Beating conspiracy theorists at their own game.

- Using Microsoft Photosynth to recreate a panoramic photo of the bombsite.

- Encode hidden messages in your Facebook pics with "Secretbook" extension.

- Demonic portraits and other evils lurking beneath waves of musical spectrograms.… Read more

Apple's iMessage and FaceTime networks are once again experiencing outages.

The outage, which is the second this week, began just before 8 a.m. PT, and once again affects "some users," according to Apple's system status page.

Both services experienced a similar outage this past Tuesday that lasted more than five hours.

iMessage is Apple's proprietary messaging platform that works between iOS and OS X users. FaceTime is the company's live video chat service, also for those two platforms. In January, Apple said that iMessage users were sending more than 2 billion messages a … Read more

Leaked from today's 404 episode:

- Hi-fi reviews based purely on the feel of the knob .

- Which celebrities can you pay to message on Facebook?

- Can you bully a celebrity? Short answer: no.

- How the hell do you pronounce GIF anyway?

- Follow Emily Dreyfuss on Twitter.… Read more

Two of Apple's communication networks, iMessage and FaceTime, are currently experiencing outages for some users.

According to Apple's fancy system status page, the issues for the two services began just after noon PT.

iMessage, of course, is Apple's proprietary messaging platform that works between iOS and OS X users. FaceTime is the company's live video chat service, also for those two platforms. Affected users report being unable to send or receive iMessages or FaceTime video calls.

This is not the first outage for either service, though iMessage has historically experienced more problems. This latest follows one … Read more

Pidgin is a multi-service messenger app that lets you chat with users from MSN, AIM, Gmail, ICQ, and more, all from a single app. Users can keep their modern clients but also keep in touch with their old-school friends and family who just refuse to get off AOL Instant Messenger and Yahoo Messenger. It also supports lesser-known protocols like Jabber, MySpace, and Gadu-Gadu.

Installation was pretty straightforward: You'll be taken through a series of standard confirmations for install directories and then be introduced to an initial setup process to have your accounts synced up. Unfortunately, at the time of … Read more

Working with multiple e-mail addresses and inboxes often requires a management client. Mozilla Thunderbird for Mac, despite its dated look, performs well as an open-source e-mail manager.

As an open-source project, this program is available as freeware with no restrictions or payments required. Download and installation occurred quickly and without any problems. After initial setup, which prompted us as to whether the program should be the default email client, Mozilla Thunderbird for Mac welcomed us with a well-designed main interface. Aesthetically, the graphics were dated and would have been appropriate for a program several years old, as opposed to a … Read more

A mobile communications company is suing Apple for allegedly infringing on its patents with messaging services on devices like the iPhone and the iPad, patent blog Patently Apple reported today.

Mobile Telecommunications Technologies claims Apple has infringed on seven patents and filed a suit involving Apple's iMessage, Airport Express, Airport Extreme, and Time Capsule and devices like the iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch. The company is essentially saying Apple shouldn't offer iMessage or any other messaging services including text messaging, iCloud, or e-mail.

Mobile Telecommunications Technologies runs communications service SkyTel, which provides paging and messaging services to U.… Read more