WhatsApp Officially Confirmed To Be Free For All Users

Whatsapp was declared officially free by the companys president, Jan Koum.

Far from what you might be thinking!  The application will still remain free of adverts as the company seeks to maintain its advert free policy.

The company in a blogpost wrote:

https://blog.whatsapp.com/615/Making-WhatsApp-free-and-more-useful

“That’s why we’re happy to announce that WhatsApp will no longer charge subscription fees. For many years, we’ve asked some people to pay a fee for using WhatsApp after their first year. As we’ve grown, we’ve found that this approach hasn’t worked well. Many WhatsApp users don’t have a debit or credit card number and they worried they’d lose access to their friends and family after their first year. So over the next several weeks, we’ll remove fees from the different versions of our app and WhatsApp will no longer charge you for our service.”

This move from Whatsapp is to enhance its competition against other instant messaging apps that are free, many have already been switching to Telegram for one of these features, but there are still a question of who can see your interactions aside you on whatsapp ( privacy)

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Your voice calls can be hacked sooner than you thought

As the use of mobile devices for business continues to rise, the risks stemming from the hacking of voice communication have increased dramatically. From public embarrassment and backlash to the loss of sensitive or regulated data, the implications are vast.

Think you’re not a target? Think again

While spying and hacking may seem like things that only fall under the realm of governments, security organizations, and the occasional celebrity, the reality is that these kinds of attacks are happening to more and more businesses, regardless of size or industry. The statistics are striking:

• At the end of 2014, security experts found that mobile attacks had increased four times to over 1 million unique attacks, compared with the same period in the previous year.
• A recent BlackBerry commissioned survey indicated that 68% of CIOs and risk and compliance leaders agreed that mobile devices were the weakest link in their security framework.

Your data can be captured even before you start to speak

Karsten Knol, a cryptography and security researcher responsible for exposing weaknesses within GSM networks, says, “Current commercial interceptors decrypt within seconds, often faster than the time a user takes to answer the call.”

The methods will leave you speechless

Hackers are highly nimble and inventive. The following examples show that where there’s a will, there’s a way:

• In 2011, researchers hacked GSM mobile calls using $9 handsets.
• The previous year, a hacker also demonstrated how to intercept calls with a $1,500 device.
• More recently, researchers at ANSSI, France’s information security research organization, showed that digital assistants can be co-opted into issuing malicious commands from up to 16 feet away. All that was needed was some fairly low-cost radio transmitting equipment and a headphone used as an antenna.
• As the News Of The World scandal in the UK proved, voicemail can be easily hacked by having two people call a user’s phone at the same time. The first call generates the busy signal, while the second caller is sent to a voicemail prompt. From there the hackers utilized insecure passwords, like 1111, to access the user’s messages.
• A 2015 undercover investigation by an Australian news program exposed vulnerabilities in the signaling system architecture. By giving German hackers access to the reporter’s phone, the hackers were able to intercept and record any of the reporter’s phone conversations with any individual, anywhere in the world, even though the hackers were half a world away.

Raising awareness and security

Part of the solution is making users aware of the vulnerabilities. Experts advise that anyone who discusses confidential or sensitive information on their mobile phone should assume that they can be eavesdropped on and act accordingly.
However, there’s no need for this awareness to be tempered with fear. Instead, this knowledge can be combined with trusted enterprise security tools that provide effective, end-to-end encryption to protect both business and personal calls. Like most business concerns, common sense and practical tools go a long way toward combating data breaches.
If you’re looking for such a tool to protect your users’ calls and text messages, read this blog to get an overview of SecuSUITE for Enterprise, a software-based solution that works across multiple platforms and carriers, providing end-to-end encryption and peace of mind for mobile communication, or check out the brochure or data sheet on our SlideShare channel.

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Star Wars Episode IX will be shot on traditional film

Did you enjoy the authentically retro visual trappings ofStar Wars: The Force Awakens? Lucky you, because its not going anywhere.

J.J. Abrams shot Episode VII on film, and its a process that his successors are going to continue for at least the remainder of the Star Wars sequel trilogy. Speaking at Sundance Film Festival, incoming Episode IX director Colin Trevorrow said he also intended to shoot the movie on actual film, rather than using digital cameras.

Explaining his preference, he compared it to the more authentic look it lends period pieces, saying "Theres something in my brain that says, well they didnt have video cameras then,", before joking that the untitled Star Wars: Episode IX is "a period film. It happened a long time ago."

Trevorrow isnt just keeping in line with the style Abrams established, either. When he shot Jurassic World, he and cinematographer did so on a mixture of 35mm and 65mm film.

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The benefit to shooting on the seemingly archaic medium is, counter-intuitively, future-proofing. When a movie is shot digitally, it will only ever be the maximum resolution of the technology used at the time. Barring often-messy upconversions, something shot in 1080p, 2K, or 4K will only ever be that native resolution, and as displays get better, the product looks worse.

With film, so long as the reels are well stored, future remasters can be remade at much higher quality than may have been seen at a movies original release. Just look at the difference between a picture on VHS compared to Blu-ray. And the larger the film stock, the more detail will be captured and made available for future generations.

Although fellow Disney stablemate Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 will be the first film shot in digital 8K, thats at the high end of what the human eye will take in and a form of future proofing itself -- most cinemas cant display in 8K yet anyway.

Trevorrow is among a growing number of Hollywood directors championing traditional film, too. Notably, Quentin Tarantino and Christopher Nolan are among those evangelising the format, and the resurgence in popularity in recent years has meant that Kodak expects its film business, once on the brink of closure, to return to profit.

  source :- http://www.wired.co.uk/

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Future iPhones May be powered by Li Fi Light FiCapabilty a Technology With Transfer Speeds 100x Faster Than Wi Fi

iOS code shows Apple is experimenting with the new ultra fast, light-based Li-Fi (light Fidelity) wireless data for future iPhones

Recent versions of iOS have been found to contain references to Li-Fi, an experimental high-speed wireless networking protocol that uses pulses of light to transmit data and is being marketed as a long-term replacement for Wi-Fi.
Beginning with iOS 9.1, the operating systems library cache file makes mention of "LiFiCapability" alongside other hardware and software capability declarations. The change was spotted by Twitter user Chase Fromm and independently confirmed by AppleInsider.

Li-Fi works in a way not entirely unlike a traditional infrared remote control. Data is transmitted by rapidly modulating a light source, and received with a light sensor before being reassembled into an electronic signal.

Unlike your television remote, Li-Fi uses visible light and the modulation happens in a manner imperceptible to the human eye: that means the same bulb that lights your hallway can act as a data access point. Its also much faster, with theoretical throughput capacity of up to 224 gigabits per second.

Li-Fi is still in the experimental phase, but a number of companies are working to commercialize the technology. At least one firm, India-based Velmenni, has already begun real-world testing.

In addition to the software references, Apple is known to be working on hardware implementations for light-based wireless data transfer, or optical wireless communication.

A patent application filed in 2013 and assigned to Apple describes a method of "optical modulation using an image sensor." The sensor in question could be switched between image capture and data capture modes, allowing for light capabilities without adding additional hardware.

Apple envisions this particular system being used for indoor location, but the general principle is the same as more high-bandwidth applications.

Appleinsider.com

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