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The new company will be called T-Mobile Already frustrated with the lack of options when it comes to picking a cell phone provider? T-Mobile and Sprint have reached an agreement to merge, the companies announced on Yesterday. If successful, that would shrink the number of major wireless carriers in the United States to three. Shareholders and regulators would still have to approve the $26 billion deal, which the companies have tried twice before. In a joint statement, the wireless carriers said the combined company will have lower costs and better quality that could essentially help them compete with AT&T and Verizon. The proposed all-stock deal values Sprint at about $59 billion and while T. Mobile is valued at $146 billion. The combined company will be based in Bellevue Washington and will be called T-Mobile. Current T-Mobile CEO John Legere will run the combined company, while T-Mobile COO Mike Sievert will become the new company’s COO and President. T-Mobile’s majority owner D

Snapchat might really, really get hard hit  soon.  The battle for who is the best, has likely just begun. Last week as Snapchat distracts itself with new Spectacles 2 camera glasses , Instagram is arming itself with new firepower to take on its adversary app. A twitter user @wongmjane posted about various tests Instagram has conducted or is currently testing. Jane Wong is apparently a computer science student who appears to be looking through the app’s code. The Facebook owned app is reportedly testing these features with some users, but has yet to officially announce them. But if Instagram does release them, Snapchat might be in deep trouble. The new features would give Instagram users more control over their account and content and further drive them to dump Snap. Here is a breakdown of the feature conducted or yet to be released: Reaction to stories The feature was first spotted by a twitter user @wongmjane while conducting a coding on the social media platform ,in a tweet which re

As the general elections draw closer in Nigeria, the country has taken a trend to promoting fake news and counterfeit pages which will likely affect people"s behaviour ahead of the polls. It is becoming increasingly difficult to different between fiction and reality in the digital world; Nigeria, however has taken the fake news age to a new dimension and every social media platform is being exploited especially Facebook and WhatsApp. This new trend is targeted to influence people"s behaviours towards the upcoming elections. It"s more pathetic because it appears that many Nigerians are ignorant and clueless about what an "ideal" should look like. On WhatsApp, countless videos of questionable characters have been on the circulation. These are videos of officials who have been in the government but failed to work during their time of appointment because of greed. It"s quite shameful because ignorant Nigerians are often quick to forward these videos which are

Virtual Reality is a trend that many businesses are approaching, whether if it"s for games, medical application or any type of simulation environment. What is the future of VR then? How will the VR industry develop in the next 5 years? Let"s try and break this down in a simpler way: The Gaming Industry When it comes to Virtual Reality, of course, the first application that comes to our minds is gaming-related. What will happen during the next years will be “development” based since many Gaming Studios are implementing VR peripherals in their game development plan. Right now, Oculus Rift , HTC Vive and many more have small applications in AAA+ titles with 4k graphics, but this will change soon since it"s already confirmed by Santa Monica that many trilogies are getting a remake in 4k and VR (God Of War in particular, even if they just released the last chapter) Training If we think about Virtual Reality, as said before, one of the applications that come to mind is related

The instant messaging app, Telegram has been under fire for its encryption which prevents a third-party from intercepting messages shared on its platform. Iran has joined the list of counties at war with Telegram. The Asian country is disrupting the swapping of videos and images via the service. Iran"s net regulator in an official statement said the sharing images and videos were banned and the move will apparently affect the "quality" of the app in the country. Last month, Russia had banned Telegram app for refusing to submit the encryption keys to the authority to intercept messages. Russia said it was a procedure to ensure safety and after it failed to comply with the power despite the ultimatum, the site was blocked which allegedly knocked out over four million IP addresses, including cloud services from Google and Amazon Like Russia, Iran telecoms official had given Telegram a mandate to move its servers to be routed through Iran"s Iran"s government-contro

Facebook makes a move to make the UK 2019 elections fake news free Following the controversies that trailed Facebook for weeks after the revelation about the data leak of over 87 million users used to aid president Trump in the last US election, the social network"s chief technology officer will make a promise to ensure that the platform will not be used to compromise the election result in the UK. Fake news thrived in the US, and even though Russia was blamed, the social media firm was reprimanded for not being quick enough to dissolve the divisive ads, remove the fake news created by the Russian propagandists and for allowing its platform to be abused by Russian propagandists. The Russian propagandists were accused of creating counterfeit pages to sew mistrust and influence user behaviour during voting. To prevent a similar occurrence, Mike Schroepfer, the CTO will be pledging to ensure that every ad is authorized before they can go live in the UK and Northern Ireland in the 201

RIP AirPort, AirPort Extreme, and Time Capsule. Roughly 6 years, AirPort products have not been updated since 2012 (Express) and 2013 (Extreme and Time Capsule), and in late 2016 by Apple Inc., which instigated that the longstanding rumours of Apple exiting the WiFi router market were true, according to Bloomberg, which explained that Apple had stopped development on the AirPort line up with the AirPort engineers reassigned to other products. And now, as reported, the company is officially discontinuing its AirPort and Time Capsule base stations. Apple has officially ended development on its AirPort line of products, which includes the AirPort Express ($99), the AirPort Extreme ($199), and the AirPort Time Capsule ($299). "We"re discontinuing the Apple AirPort base station products. They will be available through Apple.com, Apple"s retail stores and Apple Authorized Resellers while supplies last” an Apple spokesperson told iMore . WiFi has become a commodity. Apple int

Facebook Inc. on Wednesday reported an increase in the number of users and a rise in profit by 63%. The social network recorded a 13% increase in the number of active monthly users which rose to 2.2 billion. It"s been two years since the social network marked such massive achievement. Despite its scandal with Cambridge Analytica and its hearing with the US lawmakers and its sanctions from other countries, it did not affect the business. In fact, the scandal has been a blessing disguise; it apparently boosted Facebook"s popularity. Read more: Facebook’s Quarterly Earnings Are A Bright Spot Amidst A Sea Of Bad Headlines After the devastating disclosure in March that the British consultancy, Cambridge Analytica had harvested the information of about 85 million users to influence the US election, the social network subsequently lost about $50b as the scandal progressed. During this time, the investors called for his resignation, but he couldn"t be unseated because even thoug

Amazon is increasing the price of its Prime membership in the U.S. for the first time in four years. The change, effective from May 11, will allow new subscribers pay $119 a year for the shipping and entertainment membership program, instead of the normal $99. The new annual fee would apply to current Prime members starting with renewals on June 16. Amazon last raised Prime’s fee in 2014, when it costed customers only $79 a year. Prime is the most important lever in Amazon’s dominant online retail machine. Prime members make more purchases on Amazon than non-Prime members and spend more per year.  However, the program is incredibly expensive to fund by Amazon. The number of products available for free two-day shipping through Prime has grown from 20 million in 2014 to more than 100 million today. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos disclosed in his annual shareholders letter that Prime had more than 100 million members worldwide — a surprise unveiling since the company had never previously reported

After nearly over a year of unfulfilled promises, the tables have finally turned round for good as iTunes- Apple"s software for downloading, purchasing, and managing content on iOS devices and playing Apple content on Macs and PCs- is now available for download on Microsoft"s Windows 10 Store. In May 2017, Microsoft first announced its plans to bring the iTunes app to the Window s 10 Store , and made it clear that the app would be available by the end of 2017. In December, Apple released a delayed speech in which a spokesperson announced that the company would not hit that deadline. “We have been working with Microsoft to deliver the full iTunes experience to our customers and we need a little more time to get it right" Apple said. The addition of iTunes to the Windows Store is a big win for Microsoft, as iTunes is reportedly one of the apps that Windows users search for most often. iTunes- a standalone download on windows platform - has been made available for all wind

Spectacles version 2.0 is here Snap Inc, the parent company of Snapchat, unveiled a new version of its  smart sunglasses , which records bursts of videos. It is a slightly smaller, water-resistant pair of sunglasses. The company released the first version in 2016 in stand-alone vending machines called Snapbots. Over 220,000 were sold, though many of them didn"t make it off the shelf. The new Spectacles look incredibly similar to Snap’s original glasses- Snap chat version 1.0- and are sold through vending machines at launch. You can’t buy the new pair at a vending machine stand— only at Snapchat’s own website, Spectacles.com — but they offer a few new features that the original pair never had. Here"s a quick overview of the features: You can take pictures with the new Spectacles. The original version only recorded video. That"s a plus. The new Spectacles are water-resistant up to 1 meter deep and for about 30 minutes at a time, according to a spokesperson. That makes se

From scanning business cards to managing meetings across different time zones, administrative assistants are bombarded with tasks of varying complexity every single day. Here are six categories of office tools that can help you switch between these tasks seamlessly, and manage your day more easily. 1) Scheduling Tools Planning a meeting over email can be such a pain! This is where Scheduling Tools come to your rescue. They help you reduce the back and forth which often happens when both parties are trying to decide on a time convenient to everyone. Scheduling Tools can be integrated with your existing calendar, making planning much simpler. This also helps ensure that none of your meeting slots are double-booked. In fact, there are several tools in the market which let you set caps on the number of meetings that can be scheduled per day. Most of them come with features like cross-device support and intelligent timezone detection. This helps in scheduling meetings with people from all

The whole idea behind the invention of mobile phone devices was to make human life easy with a compatible device that one can carry in his hands. While the initial mobile devices were still big ones today you can find slim devices that are equipped with all latest features. In addition to other features, the nifty apps on your device have offered bunch of amazing features in your smartphones. Here, you can perform almost any task virtually on your device using these smart apps. While there are a lot of benefits of having smartphone equipped with powerful apps still it is not free from its own issues. One such issue is smartphone & social media addiction that is grappling users like never before. Track smartphone usage to save your valuable time : There are certain ways you can follow to track and limit phone usage effectively. It includes some basic steps like keeping tab on battery and data usage and some advanced steps like using apps that track phone usage. Let’s discuss ways to

Ahead of the new EU data regulations which will take effect on May 25, the instant messaging app, WhatsApp which is also owned by Facebook Inc. is raising the minimum age limit to 16 in the European Union. The European Union"s General Data Protection Regulation, (GPDR) will accord users the control over how their data is used as regards the information they supply to internet-based companies. The new law will also take cognizance of kids who use platforms like WhatsApp. Since the platform does not verify users" ages before accessing their site, it will now to obliged to make an effort to ensure that a parent has given permission or authorization for their kids or wards to use the online service. This new law applies to users below 16. Other countries aside the UK will maintain the cut-off age at 13.  Read more: The New European Privacy Laws Will Not Protect The Other 1.5 Billion Facebook Users The app currently allows users from the age of 13 to use the app but will begin to

After the rain, comes the rainbow. It has been a stormy and rainy season for the social media giant, Facebook, as today they announced a strong first quarter earnings . This is an incredibly good news as who would have thought that despite all the challenges they faced since the beginning of the year, following the Congressional testimony cantered on its chief executive , and what has shaped it up to be the largest crisis till date. The Cambridge Analytica data privacy scandal came to light late in the first quarter, and therefore the substantial impact on Facebook’s business would be hard to see until the next quarter of the year. The tech giant was able to recover from the daily active user slump it suffered last year, when its US and Canada daily active users (DAU) number shrank to 184 million and marked the first time Facebook usage has ever decreased in the company’s primary market. The slump was primarily attributed to Facebook tinkering with the News Feed to favour more meaning

Indeed, it has been an incredible year for this social media platform and we can only say Twitter is having a surprisingly good 2018 in all areas especially from a business perspective. Not only has the company made a profit for the second time in its history, but its users-base is also growing massively. Twitter also revealed while reporting its Q1 2018 earnings that it expects to be profitable throughout the rest of the year, which would be a significant turnaround after four years of losses as a public company. Twitter posted its first ever quarterly profit this last quarter and now its active users’ number has added 6 million new monthly users during their first quarter. It has only been this good twice since the start of 2015. In the most recent quarters, it added 3 million monthly users or fewer, and it even lost users in some period. Read more: More Users On Twitter But Still Can’t Break The Ads Earnings Ceiling Twitter also reported $61 million in earnings during the first quar

We knew a significant Gmail redesign was in the works, as the changes report was leaked earlier last month   and Now The world’s most popular email service is making the changes official . Well, it looks like that time has come and the brand new Gmail features are now available to some users. Today, Google announced that all you have to do to get them is go to the Settings  and select the T ry the new Gmail option — if you can’t see it yet, don’t worry, it’s coming soon. You can also switch back to classic Gmail. So what"s new? More buttons to push Gmail is now making it easier for users to interact with emails and their contents. Firstly, while Hovering over their email user can get a new menu that lets them quickly deal with their loads of email at ease. You can archive, delete, mark as read, or snooze an email without opening it. Smart Reply on the web Smart Replies which allows users to get instant message option replies below their  received email.  These features are awes

Are you an IT company? Are you in a requirement of an application that is custom made to your needs? Well, not only you many other successful and developing IT companies need applications that are tailor-made to their needs. The purpose of these applications can be different as per different company needs. Many companies may need this application for the attendance of the employees, work reports, automated billings, etc. What is Enterprise application? Enterprise applications are applications that are specifically designed as per the company needs. This application basically refers to a mobile application that solves business problems of an enterprise. This application enables the company to interface or combines with other enterprise application that the company holds that other commercial apps are unable to do. With the help of enterprise apps, all the employees can have access to the same application like other employees in the company. Enterprise app needs to large enough to handle

Now, instead of opening a local audio/video file in your browser and casting the tab, you can simply– from the new material refresh design elements of its Chrome web browser to split-screen tablet functions which Google has been currently working on for a while now. The search giant has started testing the Chrome design in the latest Canary developer builds of the web browser, allowing anyone to get an early look at what Google is experimenting with. The most obvious addition is a new address bar with rounded tabs that look really ugly on the desktop version of Chrome. Google’s rounded corners on tabs look a lot more like Firefox’s old design, and they look very different to the current trapezoid-like shaped tabs found in the existing version of Chrome. 9to5Google first reported the new design which Google published in an updated Material Design document , that references a “Material Design Refresh” instead of the “Material Design 2” naming we’d seen earlier this year. The refresh appe

Time to clean up your Facebook settings to keep them more private. Here"s how.  — the social media company is for the first time publishing its secret rules and guidelines which will tell users what they can (and can’t) do on Facebook, so it"s 2.2 billion users can know what or not to post on the social network, including hate speech, pornography, even cannibalism. Last May, The Guardian published a leaked copy of Facebook’s content moderation guidelines , which describe the company’s policies for determining whether posts should be removed from the service. Almost a year later, Facebook is making an expanded set of those guidelines available to the public, a move designed to gather input from users around the world. The company is also introducing a new appeals process, allowing users to request a review if they believe their post has been removed unfairly. Until now, Facebook had not publicly disclosed the lengthy rules given to its content reviewers to guide their decisio