SMS

They say haste makes waste and while there are some cases where speed is critical, there are also times when it results in less than ideal situations. Google may have accidentally run into something like that in one of its silent updates for critical Android background apps. The good news is that it is already rolling back the offending update but, considering the usual Android update system, some users might still find themselves unable to send or receive text messages in the meantime.

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Destiny 2 has seen a lot of major changes in the last 23 months alone. After it split from Activision, Bungie quickly recovered ground to make the controversial launch of the game nothing more than a distant memory. It will be competing for attention and gamer time with all the new games have that launched in the past few weeks, especially Cyberpunk 2077, but fans of the online sci-fi shooter still have a lot to look forward to, like the upcoming crossplay support. Before that happens, though, Bungie is addressing the white elephant in the room and requiring SMS verification on PCs in an attempt to curb cheating.

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As of this week, scheduled sending was released to a wide variety of Android smartphones in Google Messages. This new system allows users to set a time for sending any individual message. If you've never used this feature in any sort of app before - now's a good time to start.

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This week it was revealed that the app GO SMS Pro uploaded shared files (photos, videos, audio) to public URL hosting on the internet. This is a privacy nightmare, and one that could have been avoided. The app GO SMS Pro is one of the most popular messaging apps for Android because it's simple and it appears to be free. But they've got to make their money somewhere, right?

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Google made a big splash about the completion of the global rollout of RCS and its next steps to ensure its security on Android via end-to-end encryption. Coincidentally, this latest bit of security news highlights why this development is critical in a post-SMS world. A once-popular alternative SMS app on Android has apparently been exposing any photo, video, or file that its users have been sharing and its developers have conveniently gone silent when notified of the security lapse.

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Today we're taking a peek at Rich Communication Services (RCS) and what it means for you as it's reached global coverage. RCS is an open standard for messaging services on mobile devices that works with your data connection rather than your cellular connection. RCS chat features upgrade the abilities of SMS text messaging to take advantage of the abilities of smart devices and mobile data connectivity - and it's ready to roll now, around the world.

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It may seem almost unimaginable but one of the world's largest social networks was actually built upon SMS, that service we often refer to as old-school text messaging. That explains, for example, why tweets were limited to 140 characters up until recently. Twitter shed off the latter limitation last year and is now dropping the last traces of its true origin. But in dropping SMS support, it also reportedly dropped millions of accounts, most of them inactive, that relied on the technology.

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I started to write an article about the latest update for Telegram, when I realized I might only be speaking to a select few in-the-know users. Far fewer than I think should be interested, anyway. Telegram is a private chat system with end-to-end encryption support and cross-platform functionality. It's privately funded by a guy named Pavel Durov, whose only goal seems to be "fast and secure messaging that is also 100% free."

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As of this week, the RCS chat protocol was activated for Android devices in the USA. This means that when you've got the official Google Messages app and the latest version of Carrier Services, you'll have a slightly more advanced version of SMS TXT messaging on your hands.

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Humans seem to be terrible at creating and using strong passwords, let alone remembering them. Various technologies have popped up to alleviate those flaws, like password managers and two-factor authentication. The latter has been particularly popular especially with the rise of fingerprint and face recognition. Many, however, still use SMS as the second factor, which is just a half-step above having no 2FA. Fortunately, Twitter has finally seen the light and will allow users to opt for a more secure option.

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Users will soon get a more comprehensive and "rich" experience in SMS text messaging in Android. This is thanks to Google's push for RCS (Rich Communication Services) in SMS text messaging over the past few years, enabled here in the USA in late 2019. To enable this newly-enabled more powerful chat system, users will need the official SMS text messaging client from Google called Messages - which can be downloaded as the Messages app in the Google Play app store.

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Despite the proliferation of instant messaging services, our mobile-centric culture is still dependent on good old text messages. But what if those text messages never reached their recipients or only months after they made any sense? That's the rather strange situation that many in the US just experienced when Valentine's messages they sent months ago only reached their intended targets in November in the middle of the night.

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