Messenger Lite was previously only available in developing countries, but Facebook apparently decided that it will also be useful in the United States.
Facebook initially rolled out Messenger Lite for Android exactly a year ago, as an app that specifically targets users with low bandwidth connections and older smartphones. The app was first released in Kenya, Malaysia, Tunisia, Venezuela, and Sri Lanka, and was later expanded to more than 100 developing countries.
“Messenger Lite is a slimmed-down version of Messenger that offers the core features of the app, while giving everyone the opportunity to stay connected to their friends and family, regardless of device or quality of internet connectivity,” said a spokesperson for Facebook.
Messenger Lite does not support video calls, Messenger Day, selfie lenses, games, and other features that are not critical to the purpose of the app, which is to enable basic communication between users. In addition to text messages, Messenger Lite still allows stickers and sending pictures and links, and carries the same design as Messenger.
The app is available on the Google Play Store, and it is compatible with Android devices that are running on as low as Android 2.3 Gingerbread.
The mobile networks in the United States are far better compared to those in some developing countries, so why did Facebook decide to launch Messenger Lite here?
Messenger Lite will be a valuable tool for users who want to keep their data usage low, as Messenger sheds data-hungry features that can be found in other messaging apps such as Snapchat. There may also be some users who prefer a barebones version of Messenger, as it looks less cluttered and simpler to use.
Unfortunately, Facebook has not revealed any plans for an iOS version of Messenger Lite, whether only for developing countries or also for the United States. Messenger and Messenger Lite work best when everybody is on the platform, so the company should work to bring the stripped-down app to the iOS.
The launch of the Messenger Lite app in the United States, however, is a short reprieve from the issue that Facebook is handling right now.
It has been previously reported that a Russian troll farm spent $100,000 on Facebook advertisements to sway the mindset of the public during the 2016 presidential elections. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has since apologized that the social network caused a massive political divide in the country.
Yahoo on Tuesday said that all 3 billion of its accounts were hacked in a 2013 data theft, tripling its earlier estimate of the size of the largest breach in history, in a disclosure that attorneys said sharply increased the legal exposure of its new owner, Verizon Communications Inc (VZ.N).
The news expands the likely number and claims of class action lawsuits by shareholders and Yahoo account holders, they said. Yahoo, the early face of the internet for many in the world, already faced at least 41 consumer class-action lawsuits in U.S. federal and state courts, according to company securities filing in May.
John Yanchunis, a lawyer representing some of the affected Yahoo users, said a federal judge who allowed the case to go forward still had asked for more information to justify his clients’ claims.
“I think we have those facts now,” he said. “It’s really mind-numbing when you think about it.”
Yahoo said last December that data from more than 1 billion accounts was compromised in 2013, the largest of a series of thefts that forced Yahoo to cut the price of its assets in a sale to Verizon.
Yahoo on Tuesday said “recently obtained new intelligence” showed all user accounts had been affected. The company said the investigation indicated that the stolen information did not include passwords in clear text, payment card data, or bank account information.
But the information was protected with outdated, easy-to-crack encryption, according to academic experts. It also included security questions and backup email addresses, which could make it easier to break into other accounts held by the users.
Verizon in February lowered its original offer by $350 million for Yahoo assets in the wake of two massive cyber attacks at the internet company.
Some lawyers asked whether Verizon would look for a new opportunity to address the price.
“This is a bombshell,” said Mark Molumphy, lead counsel in a shareholder derivative lawsuit against Yahoo’s former leaders over disclosures about the hacks.
Microsoft held an event today in San Francisco dedicated to its Windows Mixed Reality platform, where Kinect and HoloLens mastermind Alex Kipman showed off some impressive live demos and unveiled a new headset and motion controller combo from Samsung. In a separate press demo room following the presentation, we were able to experience the new hardware, called Samsung Odyssey, running a virtual reality Halo experience, Halo Recruit,to showcase the platform’s underlying technology.
From my admittedly brief experience using the Odyssey running the full version of Halo Recruit, I can say that Microsoft and Samsung have managed to design and develop something that feels nearly identical in image and software quality, as well as comfort, to the Oculus Rift. Odyssey is even priced and packaged similarly, with built-in headphones and motion controllers built to Microsoft’s specs that resemble a cross between Oculus Touch and the HTC Vive controllers. The whole thing will cost $499 starting November 6th, while Halo Recruit launches on October 17th with Microsoft’s Fall Creators Update.
Photo by Tom Warren / The Verge
Of course, Oculus pretty much dominates the virtual reality market, with a growing library of existing games and cinematic experiences on top of the financial and technical support of its owner, Facebook. However, where Samsung, and by extension Microsoft, do have an advantage is in accessibility. The Odyssey does not require a ton of cables snaking through a living room to your PC, because it uses what’s known as inside out positional tracking that lets the headset tell the PC where your body is, while the motion controllers take care of your hands. (Oculus and Vive both require external tracking hardware placed either on a desk or mounted to the wall or ceiling.)
That’s a big part of Microsoft’s mixed reality push and why the headsets from partners Acer, Dell, HP, Lenovo, and now Samsung might just catch on. While the phrase has always sounded like a bit of marketing jargon, and it certainly to some extent still is, mixed reality is effectively the idea that you can blend the best of virtual reality, like high-fidelity visuals and immersive and interactive worlds, with the promise of augmented reality, which fuses your real surroundings with digital objects. It involves letting a headset see the physical space you’re standing or sitting in with cameras and sensors, while software merges the two worlds into one with object recognition and other feats of programming.
While the Odyssey headset, and a lot of what Microsoft has showed off both today and in the past, looks and feels strictly closer to VR, the headsets are in theory capable of tracking your body in space. That’s what allows them to do positional tracking without requiring you set up cumbersome cameras. Down the line, Microsoft wants to take those capabilities and expand the range of experiences these headsets can offer into ones where VR objects are dropped into the real world and the lines between that technology and AR blur. New demos like Star Wars: Jedi Challenge on Lenovo’s Mirage headset show off what that might look like in the future.
Onstage today, Kipman also showed off an impressive demo of standard Windows productivity apps inside a virtual mansion the company calls the Cliff House, which will act as the central hub of its Mixed Reality platform in the same fashion as Oculus Home. Though unlike with Oculus Home, Kipman was able to move around the space naturally and without worrying about the line of sight of nearby cameras. In the future, Kipman imagines everything from our chat rooms to our computer screens will be virtual objects that either exist in a virtual world like Cliff House or get augmented over real-life scenes like your desk at work or the wall of your living room. Mixed reality is the promise that headsets will do both seamlessly, and that there won’t be a hard division between AR and VR.
Right now, however, we’re still mostly in VR territory. Playing Halo Recruit, I didn’t have to worry about bumping into an imaginary software wall that meant I would lose the system’s positional tracking. But the game was rather simple — it involved an elaborate target practice simulation in a training facility within the Halo universe — and didn’t involve anything beyond what you’d expect from a standard VR game. I can easily see the convenience benefits of having solid inside out positional tracking for other apps and games. Playing a ported version of the excellent Superhot VR, which does make you move around more actively, I felt a lot more freedom. But mixed reality remains more a roadmap than a viable platform.
Still, Oculus wouldn’t need to be too worried about Microsoft’s competing push if not for both the comfort and entry-level PC requirements the Windows Mixed Reality platform enjoys. Samsung’s Odyssey headset felt just as good as the Oculus Rift, and Microsoft says PCs as cheap as $500 can run less intensive experiences, which is cheaper than the recommended minimum rigs for Rift and Vive. And the software quality from Microsoft is surprisingly solid, with fluid VR motion and high-res visuals on Halo Recruit that made it look indistinguishable from a high-end Rift game.
So Microsoft may be pretty far off from Kipman’s grand vision of mixed reality, in which we’re all donning headsets all day long and working, conversing, and hanging out in a sci-fi blend of the real and the virtual. Yet what the company has accomplished so far is both a step toward that vision and a strong challenge to Facebook and Oculus.
Uber's board of directors struck a grand bargain on Tuesday, settling a fractious internal battle that has hamstrung the ride-hailing company for months and paving the way to a giant IPO in two years.
The board also agreed to move forward with a multi-billion deal that would give Japan's Softbank as much as a 17% stake in Uber, the world's most valuable privately held tech startup.
Here are the changes approved by Uber's board, which will take effect after the Softbank deal closes, according to a person familiar with the matter:
The special supervoting shares that concentrated power in the hands of cofounder Travis Kalanick and other insiders, will be annulled. Instead, all shares in Uber will have one vote.
The board of directors has been expanded to 17 members, up sharply from its current 11 member size.
A commitment for the company to have an IPO by 2019.
Any new CEO must have 2/3 of the board vote until after the IPO
Uber's board agreed to the changes after meeting for several hours on Tuesday afternoon.
And Benchmark Capital, an early Uber investor that had sued Kalanick, has agreed to drop the litigation once the Softbank deal closes, the person familiar with the matter said.
The deal appears to significantly curtail Kalanick's power, a somewhat surprising outcome after various moves and statements by the Uber cofounder that seemed to suggest he was spoiling for a fight.
Kalanick struck a conciliatory note in a statement to Business Insider on Tuesday:
"Today the Board came together collaboratively and took a major step forward in Uber's journey to becoming a world class public company. We approved moving forward with the Softbank transaction and reached unanimous agreement on a new governance framework that will serve Uber well. Under Dara's leadership and with strong guidance from the Board, we should expect great things ahead for Uber," Kalanick said.\
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