New Delhi: Google's much used instant messaging platform, Google Talk (also known as GTalk or GChat), was ignored by Google for some time now in terms of new feature additions. Google has now reinvented Google Talk as Google Plus Hangouts that in a way integrates Google Plus video Hangouts and Google Plus Messenger and also does away with the some much loved features of Google Talk.
The new Google Plus Hangouts replaces the Google Talk app on Android devices. Hangouts is also available on Apple's iOS and as a Chrome-based app for desktops. Google has not included a replacement for the classic installable Google Talk client. In fact to use Hangouts on your desktop you will be asked to install the Chrome Web browser, if you don't already have that.
Unlike the old Google Talk app that came pre-installed on Android devices and was not available on Google Play, the Hangouts app is there to download and install.
Google says that in the new Google+ Hangouts group conversations are better than before. Hangouts also allow users to turn any a conversation into a video call with up to 10 participants. Users can also add visual and sound effects to their conversations and can watch YouTube videos together....
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06:18 PM, May 17, 2013
San Francisco: Microsoft's disdain for Google doesn't extend to all of its rival's products. In a rare bit of cooperation, Microsoft's Outlook.com is giving users of its free email service the option of logging into Google Talk to exchange instant messages and engage in audio or video conversations. The tie-in announced on Tuesday represents an uneasy alliance in the midst of a typically contentious relationship between Microsoft and Google. Microsoft...
07:05 AM, May 15, 2013
Orlando: BlackBerry announced plans on Tuesday to offer its popular instant messaging system on rival devices and introduced a new mid-tier smartphone, the BlackBerry Q5, targeted at countries where its faded brand remains strong. Tapping into its popularity outside North America, BlackBerry said the new Q5 smartphone would be available in selected markets in Europe, Latin America, Asia, the Middle East and Africa. It gave no prices, but it will...
09:55 PM, May 14, 2013
New Delhi: Amid a large-scale usage of smartphone messaging services like BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) and WhatsApp by manipulators to spread sensitive information about their target stocks, market watchdog SEBI is mulling over steps it can take to check risks being posed by these new-age mobile applications. To strengthen its probe and oversight on stock market transactions, SEBI has already got software tools in place along with IT experts to analyse...
12:59 PM, May 05, 2013
New York: Americans are saying CUL8TR to text messaging, a wireless industry group says, as Internet-based applications such as Apple's Messages are starting to take over from what was once a cash cow for phone companies. CTIA - The Wireless Association said Thursday that Americans sent 2.2 trillion text messages last year, down 5 per cent from 2011. That's still 19 text messages per person per day. Text messages vaulted...
12:45 PM, May 03, 2013
New Delhi: Bharti SoftBank's free mobile messaging app 'hike', which was launched globally in December 2012, has crossed 5 million subscribers. "The free mobile messaging app 'hike' from Bharti SoftBank (BSB), has crossed the 5 million active subscribers mark in just four months after its launch. This makes 'hike' one of the fastest growing free mobile apps globally," the company said in a statement. Bharti SoftBank (BSB) is a joint...
12:23 AM, Apr 22, 2013
Los Angeles: Messaging app WhatsApp now has more users than Twitter, company founder and CEO Jan Koum said at the AllThingsD Dive Into Mobile conference in New York. Declining to cite a specific figure, Koum said WhatsApp has more than 200 million monthly active users who generate an average of 8 billion inbound messages and 12 billion outbound messages per day. Twitter has 200 million monthly active users. The WhatsApp...
08:01 AM, Apr 19, 2013
San Francisco: The crowded, fragmented mobile messaging app market, one of the hottest sectors in Silicon Valley, just got more crowded. Keith Teare, a veteran Valley entrepreneur, on Wednesday launched just.me, a service that claims to combine email, multimedia messaging and cloud storage in a single iPhone app. The startup, backed by Google Inc's venture arm and True Ventures, is the latest entrant among a wave of applications, including Whatsapp,...
01:20 PM, Apr 18, 2013
Create personal profiles. Build networks of friends. Share photos, videos and music. That might sound precisely like Facebook, but hundreds of millions of tech-savvy young people have instead turned to a wave of smartphone-based messaging apps that are now sweeping across North America, Asia and Europe. ...
10:04 AM, Apr 01, 2013
Facebook said it is testing the paid messaging service with a small percentage of individuals in the US. ...
07:12 AM, Dec 21, 2012
The new feature was added to the latest version of Facebook Messenger app for Android. ...
08:35 AM, Dec 05, 2012
As the short messaging service, or SMS turns 20, it has swept aside in two decades known conventions about courtesy, relationship, language and communication. ...
09:06 AM, Dec 04, 2012
If Facebook buys WhatsApp it will be its second major acquisition after Instagram. ...
06:33 PM, Dec 03, 2012
New York: Microsoft is dropping its instant-messaging program and forcing most users to switch to Skype. Maintaining Windows Live Messenger made less sense after Microsoft Corp. bought Skype for $8.5 billion last year. A new version of Skype released a few weeks ago allows users to sign in with a Microsoft account. By merging the two services, people won't have to maintain two separate contact lists. Microsoft says much has...
02:52 PM, Nov 08, 2012
Seoul: A handful of smartphone apps that began as basic instant messaging services have amassed several hundred million users in Asia in just a couple of years, mounting a challenge to the popularity of online hangouts such as Facebook as they branch into games, e-commerce, celebrity news and other areas. Among them is Line, which has grown to 60 million users, mostly in Asia including at least 29 million in...
10:48 AM, Sep 19, 2012
New Delhi: Exasperated users unable to communicate via Google's instant messaging service, popularly known as GTalk, are venting it out on the not-so-private communication services such as Twitter and Facebook. If Twitter updates are an indication then the latest Google Talk outage has affected users the world over. Many users have reported that their Google Talk contacts have disappeared while many others say that their messages are not reaching the...
04:14 PM, Jul 26, 2012
London: BlackBerry maker Research in Motion is considering splitting its business in two, separating its struggling handset manufacturing division from its messaging network, The Sunday Times reported. RIM, which last month hired JP Morgan and RBC Capital to look at its strategic options, could break off its handset division into a separate listed company or sell it, the British newspaper said without citing sources. Potential buyers would include Amazon and...
08:29 AM, Jun 25, 2012
New Delhi: The omnipresent Facebook Like icon will now also be available on your Facebook chats. Facebook has added shortcuts to the most popular emoticons to its chat window and this includes the Like icon. Facebook users can either choose the Like icon from the emoticon menu or simply type the letter y in parenthesis (y) for the Like emoticon to appear. This is however still not available for status...
01:57 PM, Jun 21, 2012
Seoul: Samsung Electronics Co said on Monday it would launch a mobile instant messaging tool in its latest push to attract more consumers to its handsets and challenge rivals such as Apple and BlackBerry maker Research in Motion. The new service, called ChatON, will be available from October and preinstalled in Samsung's feature phones as well as smartphones running on its own bada operating system and Google's Android software, it...
04:37 PM, Aug 29, 2011
New Delhi: After days of uncertainty, there's finally some good news for over one million BlackBerry users in India. According to reports, BlackBerry’s controversial e-mail and messenger service will now continue beyond Tuesday after Research In Motion (RIM) finally agreed to lift the veil of user confidentiality from September 1. The government managed to force the BlackBerry maker to agree to setting up a proxy server in the country to...
10:09 PM, Aug 30, 2010
