Instant messaging

Photo: NIKOLAY DOYCHINOV/AFP (Getty Images)In the summer of 2022, 18-year-old Aditya Verma was boarding a flight to Spain at London’s Gatwick Airport when he sent a message to his friend on Snapchat: “On my way to blow up the plane (I’m a member of the Taliban).” As you might expect, the message was a joke. Unfortunately, the kid happened to be using the airport’s WiFi network when he sent it.Why Banning TikTok Won’t Protect Our Privacy Several hours later, when Verma deplaned at his destination, he was arrested and…

A disturbing cyberattack on Discord reportedly sent some University of California, Irvine students to the hospital on Wednesday, according to a CBS News report. Hackers infiltrated student Discord servers and bombarded them with graphic images that reportedly traumatized students, causing them to cry, vomit, and even require medical assistance.“There were some things on there that I just could really not unsee,” student Alina Kim told CBS. “Very graphic, violent.”Roughly 3,000 students witnessed the gory cyberattack where…

Welcome to AI This Week, Gizmodo’s weekly deep dive on what’s been happening in artificial intelligence.Why is Everyone Suing AI Companies? | Future TechA chatbot at a California car dealership went viral this week after bored web users discovered that, as is the case with most AI programs, they could trick it into saying all sorts of weird stuff. Most notably, the bot offered to sell a guy a 2024 Chevy Tahoe for a dollar. “That’s a legally binding offer—no takesie backsies,” the bot added during the conversation.We all…

Apple’s recent move to block Beeper Mini, the app that lets Android users chat with iPhone through the iMessage protocol, has caught the eye and a fair bit of ire of several U.S. congresspeople. Now lawmakers are calling for an investigation into the tech giant over “potential anticompetitive treatment” of the smaller messaging app.Threads Needs These Five Missing Features to Be a Twitter KillerOn Sunday, Sens Amy Klobuchar and Mike Lee and representatives Jerry Nadler and Ken Buck signed a letter requesting that the…

Apple isn’t keen to let just any peasant enter its hallowed and gloried domain of iMessage. The company officially declared it had blocked the Beeper Mini app, which let Android users send blue bubble messages to their friends and family on iPhone by reverse engineering the iMessage protocol.'Even AI Rappers are Harassed by Police' | AI UnlockedI guess you should go ahead and buy your mom that iPhone, just like Apple CEO Tim Cook once told a reporter asking questions about Apple’s dreaded blue bubbles. Gizmodo took the…

Image Source : FILE WhatsApp Channel alerts to roll out soon for the Android users WhatsApp, a Meta-owned instant messaging platform is set to roll out a new feature for searching messages by date, hidden navigation labels and channel alerts. The feature will apply to Android users only. As per the WABetaInfo, the new features are available to some beta testers…

Image: StravaThose of you on an Android device may be exhausted by the emotional turmoil brought on by messaging apps. I warn you: this next bit of news may be too much too soon. Strava, the fitness tracking app geared toward athletes and People Who Like Data, has announced that it’s launching messaging between its users on iOS and Android. It’s good news for everyone using Strava since the app aims to help friends from Run Club coordinate the next meetup. And, hey, you won’t have to worry about revealing yourself as the…

Google’s bet on RCS is paying off, or at least that’s what it wants us to think. After a few minor wins, including Apple quietly confirming RCS support in the next iPhone and officially surpassing 1 billion monthly active users, Google is celebrating its successes by announcing new features for Messages users on Android.“Even AI Rappers are Harassed by Police” | AI UnlockedI do want an official count on how many of those billion users felt forced onto the standard because it was the platform’s only option for…

Image: SunbirdThis week brought a series of disasters (and quite some embarrassment) to Android messaging apps that were trying hard to break the infamous green-blue bubble barrier between Android and Apple users. It started with the failure of Nothing Chats and recently extended to the shutdown of Sunbird.Threads Needs These Five Missing Features to Be a Twitter KillerNothing Chats launched fairly recently (and didn’t even last a full day) with the ambitious goal of being able to chat through the same servers as Apple…

Last week was certainly exciting for the prospect of green and blue bubbles finding peace and harmony in the chat realm, though that excitement was a bit premature in Nothing’s case. Threads Needs These Five Missing Features to Be a Twitter KillerNothing, the company behind the Android-based Nothing Phone, announced Nothing Chats, an app that could send and receive iMessage-style messages through the same servers as Apple users. Then, just as quickly as it launched, to particularly rave fanfare, it was pulled from the…