The Legendary Yahoo Messenger is Finally Shutting Down

One of the oldest Messenger apps is shutting down after 18 years of service. Yahoo has announced they will be signing off and closing their the app permanently on 5th August.

Yahoo messenger was originally named as “Yahoo Pager” and it was launched in 1998. It became quickly popular with its user-friendly interface and maintained a strong following over the years by introducing interesting additions to its functionality such as its famous emojis that provided its users with a unique online chat experience.

It developed a faithful user base in Asia-Pacific region and many of us have memories of the Yahoo and MSN Messenger days. Amazingly, according to Bloomberg, Yahoo Messenger still had a following among oil traders who used it to gossip and even bid on prices of commodities.

Last year, Yahoo announced a more modern and cross-platform supportive Messenger that laid the foundations of the End-of-Life for the Legacy Messenger.

Yahoo made this announcement with their official blog post, saying,

In December of 2015, we announced a brand new Yahoo Messenger for mobile, the Web and in Yahoo Mail on the desktop, built on a new modern platform. This complete revamp brings users an incredibly fast, beautiful and smart way to send — and unsend — messages, photos and animated GIFs in 1:1 and group conversations.

While today we provide basic interoperation between the legacy product and the new Messenger, we encourage all of our users to complete their transition to the new Yahoo Messenger as we will no longer support the legacy platform as of August 5, 2016. We intend to continue our focused efforts on the new Messenger, with a goal of delivering the best experience to our users.

The announcement indicates that Yahoo is reviewing its future projects and it wants to develop and enhance new apps.

After August 5th, anyone still using the legacy Messenger will no longer be able to log in or send messages. Same applies on messages sent through third-party apps built on top of Yahoo’s API. The new Messenger  is available on the iOS Store and Google Play.

This Case for the iPhone Runs Android

You may have seen dozens of hacks that put Google’s Android on every Apple iPhone out there (and in desperate cases, a cheap Chinese copy) but hardly any solution is as easy or convenient as the one which comes courtesy of developer Nick Lee, who has made a special case which brings Android brains to a traditionally iOS phone.

Nick Lee, who is already known for undertaking adventurous procedures such as when he made it possible to run Windows 95 on an Apple Watch, made the case so that he did not have to choose between two great platforms all the time.

The case may not win a lot of casual users because of its bulky design but that is not without reason. (You can argue that Apple itself has a case quite reminiscent to this one and that only holds a tiny battery pack.)

It contains its own SoC, which is Huawei’s Kirin 620 (no slouch), 2 GB worth RAM and 8 GB internal storage. He also made it possible to boost connectivity through options including HDMI, USB ports, Lightning port and a microSD card slot. He 3D printed these into a case along with a battery and the result is one of the coolest looking, if not the most attractive case that you have ever seen.

The version of Android which can run as a result is the version 6.0.1 Marshmallow, which appears to be running adequately if not completely smoothly. It is launched via a custom-built app courtesy of Nick Lee’s employer, Tendigi, which allows the circuitry in the board to interact with the display of the iPhone 6S.

Before he came up with this remarkable case, Lee also streamed Android on the iPhone through a microUSB cable from the Nexus 5, thanks to the Android Open Source Project to make sure that the concept worked.

Projects like these make sure that the smartphone industry remains open to all sorts of intervention from the hacking community. The project may not be very polished and certainly not practical for day-to-day use, but has a sort of sophistication that begs to be acknowledged.

Now, if only someone puts the circuitry into a transparent case and brings it out into the market that would be awesome.

Microsoft creates its own FreeBSD VM Image for Azure Cloud Computing Platform

This year, Microsoft impressed the world with 'Microsoft loves Linux' announcements, like developing a custom Linux-based OS for running Azure Cloud Switch, selecting Ubuntu as the operating system for its Cloud-based Big Data services and bringing the popular Bash shell to Windows 10.

Now, the next big news for open-source community:

Microsoft has released its own custom distribution of FreeBSD 10.3 as a "ready-made" Virtual Machine image in order to make the operating system available directly from the Azure Marketplace.

FreeBSD (Berkeley Software Distribution) is an open source Unix-like advanced computer operating system used to power modern servers, desktops as well as embedded systems.

Until now, the only way for Azure customers to run FreeBSD was to make use of a custom image from outside of Azure (from the FreeBSD Foundation).

However, the new release makes it easier for Azure users to launch FreeBSD directly from the Azure Marketplace and get official support from Microsoft whenever necessary.

Why is it so important for FreeBSD to run on Azure?

According to the company, it’s important for FreeBSD to run in Azure because many top-tier virtual appliance vendors develop their products on the operating system.

However, the key reason for building, testing, releasing and maintaining its own FreeBSD 10.3 image is to ensure its users have an enterprise service level agreement (SLA) for their 

"FreeBSD VMs running in Azure," says Jason Anderson, Principal PM Manager at Microsoft's Open Source Technology Center.

As shown in the image, just click on the +New on the Azure Marketplace tile on your dashboard, Type "FreeBSD 10.3" in the text search box, and here you are.

He also added that Microsoft did so to remove "burden" from the FreeBSD Foundation that fully relies on community contributions.

"We will continue to partner closely with the [FreeBSD] Foundation as we make further investments in FreeBSD on Hyper-V and Azure," Anderson said, as well as add "new Hyper-V features – stay tuned for more information on this!"

The company has previously worked on supporting FreeBSD on Hyper-V as a virtual machine that was aimed at ensuring software appliance partners' kit functioned smoothly in Azure that makes use of Hyper-V.

Samsung introduces its first ever cord free earbuds - For ANDROID ONLY

Samsung showed off its first-ever cord-free earbuds Thursday, extending its line of wearable fitness gadgets.

The Gear IconX has built-in heart rate and distance monitoring that works by using an optical sensor and accelerometer.

The earbuds can play music with or without a phone, and they can take calls when paired with a phone by acting as a Bluetooth headset. They have 4 GB of internal storage and can stream Spotify, Google Music and Pandora (P) through a Bluetooth-connected smartphone. There's also a cool ambient sound feature that lets outside noise blend in with the audio.

I spent a little time wearing them and found the earbuds to be very comfortable and secure. I ran on a treadmill at about 6 mph for two minutes and they felt securely tucked in my ear -- after I found right size plugs. (One of the earbuds fell out about halfway through on my first attempt.)

The sound quality is rich and full, and volume and menu options are accessed through touch control.

The Gear IconX earbuds come in a charging case that can hold two additional full charges. Samsung says battery life should run around one and a half hours if the earbuds are paired to a phone and three hours if they're not.

Cordless earbuds aren't a new concept, but current models tend to be either too expensive with too few features, or inexpensive and questionable quality.

At $200, the Gear IconX isn't exactly cheap, but Samsung will likely offer promotions for the device in the third quarter when they become available. There are three colors -- black, white and blue.

I stopped listening to music at the gym last year after I crushed my iPhone between the pedals of an elliptical machine. Luckily, only the charging port was dented, but it was enough for me to understand that cords and swinging arms don't mix.

Still, cords and wires at least make it easier to find headphones in a bag, and if you lose one of these earbuds, you'll have to buy a whole new set.

Samsung also introduced an update of its Gear Fit activity tracker Thursday.

The Gear Fit2 now has GPS, a much wider screen that displays text vertically and a curvier shape for better fit. The Gear Fit2 also comes in a smaller size.

Like the Gear IconX, the new Fit has 4 GB of storage and Spotify is built in to play play music without a phone. The Gear Fit2 is also waterproof for up to half an hour.

Pre-orders for the Gear Fit2 start Friday for $179.

Raspberry Pi 3 to get official Android OS Support

It's fair to say the success of the ARM-powered Raspberry Pi computers have surpassed expectations and have been a godsend to hobbyists, hackers, and students.

If you're one of those people looking for unofficial hacks to install Android OS on a Raspberry Pi device, then stop and wait for the official release.

Raspberry Pi computers have largely been Linux affairs, as several Linux distributions have supported this tiny ARM computer.

Now, it seems like Raspberry Pi is ready to get official support for one of the most popular mobile operating systems out there: Android.

Google has recently registered the $35 Raspberry Pi 3 ‒ the newest version of the Raspberry Pi ‒ as a new device 'tree' in its Android Open Source Project (AOSP) repository.

If you're not aware, Raspberry Pi is cheap, credit card-sized, single board ARM computer that looks and feels very basic, but could be built into many geeky projects.

What Google is planning for Android and the Pi is unclear. However, once released, Android support for Raspberry Pi 3 would give programmers access to more than 1.5 million apps, allowing them to mess around with their own custom projects too.

Last year at Google I/O developer conference, the company, announced Brillo OS, a lightweight Android-based operating system for low-power devices built on ARM or Intel i.e. the Internet of Things (IoT).

This might be possible that Android support for Raspberry Pi 3 could be part of Project Brillo.

Interested Raspberry Pi enthusiasts should keep an eye on Google’s Repository.