Whatsapp just released a client for Windows and Mac – It kinda sucks.

WhatsApp – The popular messaging and VOiP calling service to other users has been very successful, especially in countries like India where Telecom providers still charge separately for Voice Minutes and Texting. Aside from getting purchased by Facebook for $19 Billion, the service also now provides end-to-end encryption.

WhatsApp has been available on most devices from Android devices to Windows phones. WhatsApp just released a client for Windows and Mac and it kinda sucks.

The Windows client which we used and assume the Mac app is the same way..

The client is just a embed browser with WhatsApp’s online interface released last year for serving messages and calls.whatsapp-win-x1

That saying is not all bad. The navigation bar does provide a more ‘windows-like’ UI for things you can do with the web UI like marking a conversation as read or creating a new chat. However the best feature of the application are the Windows 10 integrated notifications.whatsapp-win-x2

This is probably is most useful feature of the application.

Now I’m not gonna give it too much slack as it’s still in beta but, to summarize the UI sucks, the functionality is kinda there and it most likely going to get better in future versions.

It’s so pre-release that the Mac version of the app actually has to be downloaded in a ZIP and “manually” installed.

As I said before we’re still testing the Mac version of the app.

Sprint and Shentel have completed their acquisition of nTelos.

On May 6th Shentel – a local provider has completed their acquisition nTelos – a Virginia based wireless provider. Shentel works in conjunction with Sprint to expand their network. Just last year Sprint was able to enable LTE in most of Virginia including Roanoke, Va. and some of West Va. Read More.

Shentel has acquired all of nTelos’s stocks, wireless network assets, retail shops and ~290,000 existing nTelos customers.

What Shentel will be doing next

Customers

All nTelos customers will receive notices via mail, email, text etc.. To complete their server move over to Sprint or Boost Mobile (A sprint MVNO). We’re not 100% how Sprint will be charging the new customer and what plans will go to what carrier (Sprint or Boost Mobile) however it seems like the FRAWG nTelos plans will be transferred to Boost Mobile.

However we do know this:

  • All nTelos customer will still be able to use their nTelos phones and service until they have completed their transition.

Once you receive your instructions from Sprint, you’ll have the following options:

  • Choose a customized Sprint plan which is going to be same or better than what you have now and will include – Unlimited Text, Data, and the same amount of data you have right now along with the same price as what you pay now.
  • Customer will also have the option to move over a standard Sprint plan and they will not have to worry about their contract ETF or anything like that.

If a customer does not want to switch over to Sprint – they will have the option to change carrier when their contract(s) are over.

Coverage

For all nTelos customer the coverage will improve all now you’ll have access to Sprint’s LTE coverage nationwide not just 3G, like before.

Sprint/Shentel are also going to be investing $350 Millon into the network over the next two year, so be prepared for carrier aggregation (Sprint’s fastest LTE network. Up-to 100 Mbps however much faster as time goes on, along with 5G like speeds.).

Phones

All customers with a handset – iPhone 5C or older – will keep their device, a new SIM card will just be inserted. For all other customers, you phone will be replacement for the new network improvements. Most likely, without ETF charges.

Store

All nTelos retail store will be converted to Sprint-branded stores. The employees will remain the same as of now.

You can visit any nTelos store or call customer service to move over to Sprint.


Our first report on Sprint and nTelos’s agreement to bring LTE. Click Here.

Our report on Shentel agreeing to buy nTelos. Click Here.

WWDC 2016 dates set for June 13-17th!

Apple has just confirmed the date for it’s annual developer conference to be held between June 13th to the 17th..

Considering this year’s theme it’s very likely that we won’t see any new hardware.. and is going to be more targeted towards developers; hence the name World Wide Developer Conference..
This year the event is being held at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium instead of Moscone West..wwdc16-home-hero-large

After a quick analysis of the invitation here are some apps the line of code could to be referring to:

Hello love at first swipe. Tinder
Hello other side of the road. Crossy Road
Hello yogi on my wrist. Pocket Yoga
Hello driver, fast as you can. Uber
Hello workout in my living room. 7 Minute Workout
Hello every pitch, every highlight. MLB At Bat
Hello self-combusting selfies. Snapchat
Hello double tap heart. Instagram
Hello rain in five minutes. Dark Sky
Hello 6 seconds of fame. Vine

You can order your tickets to WWDC here.

Watch the crash of FlyDubai flight FZ981 as it happened..

The world has just learned of another horrifying crash.. This time it’s a FlyDubai flight FZ981 from Dubai (DXB) Rostov-on-Don (ROV). The plane crashed just off runway at approximately 20:41 UTC. Reportedly, All passengers and crew on board are dead.

We would like to extend our prayers for the family of all the crew and passengers on board.

A video that shows the crash of Flight FZ981. Whether this video is authentic or not has not yet been confirmed.

If you would like to see the flight’s confusing path in the reportedly very minimal visibility you can do so here. This page shows’s the flight’s movement in the air up-to right before it crashed.

Many other airlines have also extended their prayer’s for the crew and passengers who died.

Vessel is now ad-free and is offering annual subscription plans!

Vessel – A YouTube competitor video streaming service partly from the former Hulu CEO, Jason Kilar. The streaming service has racked up a number of content creators who release their videos on platform a period of time before it gets released to any other service like YouTube. All videos on Vessel have NO in video ads like some YouTube videos do.

Vessel allowed a number of users to sign up for the paid service free for a full year with their creator’s links. More Info here.

To cover the cost of those free subscriptions.. Videos on Vessel had 5-10 seconds ads integrated before each video along with random ads in your “subscription stream”.

THE FREE DAYS ARE GONE

Those free one-year subscriptions that we talked about before – yeh – they are expiring this month so Vessel is changing it’s strategy for earning money. Starting now Vessel will no longer have any ads (Except for music videos).

Due to the number of people who didn’t renew their free subscription, Vessel is offering a annual plan for only $19.99! That’s almost 44% off it’s regular monthly plans at almost a dollar a month!

Also to better compete with the market – Vessel now also has exclusive shows like Nerd Sports form ChannelSuperFun or LinusTechTips.

TL;DR: No ads, exclusive shows and $2.99 monthly or $19.99 annually (Just over a dollar a month).

Apple launches offical Twitter for support!

After so long Apple has finally launched a official Twitter account for providing support for it’s customers. Many companies have used the social media to help customers solve their problems.

It is a much faster and more modern way of helping customers since they don’t have to go though phone three and than wait for a representative to pick up.

The account is @AppleSupport that’s the ONLY twitter account officially backed by Apple. The twitter account is also verified by twitter so don’t give your personal information to any other account pretending to be the official account.

Other then support the account is also going to be providing helpful tips and tutorials for better using your device.

Tips for staying safe during the #Superbowl50 using Technology!

If you’re going out tonight for #Superbowl50 here are a few tips on staying safe by using technology:

Don’t Drink and Drive

As lame as it may sound.. If you’re going out tonight always remember – Don’t drink and drive. You’re not only putting your own life in danger but, you’re also putting other’s. Most people don’t want tonight to be their last night.
To help you not drink and drive use one of these services tonight:

Uber – Save $15 using promo code ‘uberddshd’ or ddshdyt.com/uber.

Don’t run out of power

Not an issue if you’re staying in but, if you’re going out make sure you have your devices charged and carry an extra battery with you just in-case of an emergency. Here are a few that we recommend:

Mohpie’s power cases and banks: https://goo.gl/HVXQGc.

We will try to add more but, depending on your location.. Just go to the nearest store and find one and meets your needs before you leave.

Those are just a few tips to keep in mind before and while you’re got for #Superbowl50!

iOS 9.2.1 Release, Changelog and exploit patched list.

iOS 9.2.1 was just pushed out to users using a OTA update. The update was just pushed out with the comment:

This update contains security updates and bug fixes including a fix for an issue that could prevent the completion of app installation when using an MDM server.
For information on the security content of this update, please visit this website: https://support.apple.com/HT201222

The official list of exploits patched was just released to public domain here:

Disk Images

Available for: iPhone 4s and later, iPod touch (5th generation) and later, iPad 2 and later

Impact: A local user may be able to execute arbitrary code with kernel privileges

Description: A memory corruption issue existed in the parsing of disk images. This issue was addressed through improved memory handling.

CVE-ID

CVE-2016-1717 : Frank Graziano of Yahoo! Pentest Team

IOHIDFamily

Available for: iPhone 4s and later, iPod touch (5th generation) and later, iPad 2 and later

Impact: A local user may be able to execute arbitrary code with kernel privileges

Description: A memory corruption issue existed in an IOHIDFamily API. This issue was addressed through improved memory handling.

CVE-ID

CVE-2016-1719 : Ian Beer of Google Project Zero

IOKit

Available for: iPhone 4s and later, iPod touch (5th generation) and later, iPad 2 and later

Impact: A local user may be able to execute arbitrary code with kernel privileges

Description: A memory corruption issue was addressed through improved memory handling.

CVE-ID

CVE-2016-1720 : Ian Beer of Google Project Zero

Kernel

Available for: iPhone 4s and later, iPod touch (5th generation) and later, iPad 2 and later

Impact: A local user may be able to execute arbitrary code with kernel privileges

Description: A memory corruption issue was addressed through improved memory handling.

CVE-ID

CVE-2016-1721 : Ian Beer of Google Project Zero and Ju Zhu of Trend Micro

libxslt

Available for: iPhone 4s and later, iPod touch (5th generation) and later, iPad 2 and later

Impact: Visiting a maliciously crafted website may lead to arbitrary code execution

Description: A type confusion issue existed in libxslt. This issue was addressed through improved memory handling.

CVE-ID

CVE-2015-7995 : puzzor

syslog

Available for: iPhone 4s and later, iPod touch (5th generation) and later, iPad 2 and later

Impact: A local user may be able to execute arbitrary code with root privileges

Description: A memory corruption issue was addressed through improved memory handling.

CVE-ID

CVE-2016-1722 : Joshua J. Drake and Nikias Bassen of Zimperium zLabs

WebKit

Available for: iPhone 4s and later, iPod touch (5th generation) and later, iPad 2 and later

Impact: Visiting a maliciously crafted website may lead to arbitrary code execution

Description: Multiple memory corruption issues existed in WebKit. These issues were addressed through improved memory handling.

CVE-ID

CVE-2016-1723 : Apple

CVE-2016-1724 : Apple

CVE-2016-1725 : Apple

CVE-2016-1726 : Apple

CVE-2016-1727 : Apple

WebKit CSS

Available for: iPhone 4s and later, iPod touch (5th generation) and later, iPad 2 and later

Impact: Websites may know if the user has visited a given link

Description: A privacy issue existed in the handling of the “a:visited button” CSS selector when evaluating the containing element’s height. This was addressed through improved validation.

CVE-ID

CVE-2016-1728 : an anonymous researcher coordinated via Joe Vennix

WebSheet

Available for: iPhone 4s and later, iPod touch (5th generation) and later, iPad 2 and later

Impact: A malicious captive portal may be able to access the user’s cookies

Description: An issue existed that allowed some captive portals to read or write cookies. The issue was addressed through an isolated cookie store for all captive portals.

CVE-ID

CVE-2016-1730 : Adi Sharabani and Yair Amit of Skycure

Sprint finally ditching 2 year contracts for new customers..

As we expected just behind T-Mobile, AT&T and Verizon, Sprint will not longer allow customers to buy phones on a 2 yr. contact. The only options that will be available are Full Price, Lease and EasyPay and ANY of the Sprint planes. However this does not apply to existing customers that are on the Everything Data/Share or Unlimited My Way plans (Information still pending on whether existing customers on any other plans will still be able to sign a contact.) Any existing customers can still add line(s) to their account using a 2 year contact.

DON’T WORRY: You still have until the 8th of this month (Jan. 2016) to get new lines with a 2 year contact. However after that NO MORE accounts can be opened with a 2 year contact.
You can still however use any of the other options like Lease, Easy Pay etc. These options might end-up being cheaper in the long run anyway if Sprint decides to lower some of the prices.

The options to drop the 2 year contact started with T-Mobile back in 2013. Many other carriers followed with Verizon and then AT&T also announcing it will drop contracts on the 8th. It only made sense for Sprint to also drop it’s contracts since it’s the only carrier in the top 4 list that would still have contracts.

This information about the contract drops might create confusions at your local Sprint store(s).. So if there are any problems just show them a news articles (like this one) with the facts or a post on newsroom.sprint.com.

Netflix is giving out 2nd FREE trials!

Netflix is giving past-trail users a second change to try out the service. Selected users, not sure how they’re selected but Netflix has sent out these users emails offering them a second change..

netflix-2nd-trail.jpg

This sure does seem like a marketing tactic to get more users to sign-up during the Holiday and Tax season. The second trails are just like the first ones with a 30 day access to the whole Netflix category.

If you get an offer be sure to jump on it as fast as possible as it expires on January 31st 2016. You can of-course cancel the subscription as soon as you sign-up for the service so it doesn’t renew and you can enjoy the service for FREE without getting charges.. If you like the service you can go heard and sign-up for it for as low as $7.99!