SMS

iMessage is one of those things that Apple users have long lorded over their Android counterparts. Various alternatives on Android have popped up but none have really had any staying power. That could change with RCS or Rich Communication Services, especially now that the four major US carriers are promoting their own RCS-based system. Android users might not have to wait for all those pieces to fall in place and can enable RCS on their phones, provided they are willing to jump through some hoops to do it.

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While it may seem that most of the world has moved away from SMS and towards instant messaging, the fact is that the world still revolves around good old simple and insecure text messages. It may still be limited in length compared to email but, just like email, the volume of text messages one can receive in a day can be quite harrowing for some people. That's why Microsoft introduced the SMS Organizer app to bring the same features email apps and services provide to keep those text messages from overwhelming users.

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If you think robocalls were nothing more than annoyances, the fact that a Google Voice feature is being killed because of them might change some people's minds. These unsolicited calls that could also be used to phish important personal data has been a scourge of consumers, regulators, and especially carriers for years and efforts to block and penalize them have ramped up in recent months. Unfortunately, Google sees no workaround for one feature and will instead be shutting down Google Voice's voicemail transcript forwarding because of it.

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Microsoft has announced that Skype will lose support for SMS Connect, the feature that enables users to view and send text messages from their computer instead of their phone. The feature is very convenient for those who use SMS messaging, but who are on their computer during work and don't want to separately handle their handset. Though the loss is disappointing, Microsoft says there is an alternative option.

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The revelation of Google’s Titan security key has put the spotlight on a long-existing but not widely adopted technology: physical keys that open the doors to your digital life. FIDO-compatible security keys, strange as they may seem, is just the latest attempt to solve one of the biggest threats to digital security: passwords. But while two-factor authentication is finally gaining a bit of traction, thanks to services enforcing it, they are unfortunately using the least secure medium of all: text messages.

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Facebook's call records, SMS, and contacts collecting are the headline of the day - but that's old news to you. You knew a long time ago that Facebook was harvesting your data, and you don't care. What would anyone want with your info anyway? You're just an everyday average person, after all, surely there's no reason to worry that Facebook workers would take the time to read your boring old communications and contact list, right?

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There are just some inventions that are so disruptive and so pioneering that it changed history forever. Inventions like the wheel, electricity, the Internet, and, of course, text messaging. Nowadays, most markets take for granted this almost ancient way of communicating with text using mobile phones, but the first text message, which was sent 25 years ago to date, started the ball rolling that would influence many of the trends we also take for granted today.

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Is every new Samsung flagship cursed to have a major fiasco? While not as explosive, pun totally intended, as the Galaxy Note 7, it seems that something is amiss with the otherwise commendable Galaxy S8 and S8+. Owners across different carriers in the US are reporting cases of "missing" text messages. On the one hand, it's unlikely to cause physical harm (unless you violently hurl the phone at someone). But, on the other hand, the bug is a serious issue for concern, especially when emergency cases are involved.

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And so the Google messaging circus continues. Google has quite a few messaging apps, and some of them overlap with each other and the biggest offender is probably Hangouts. What would have been Google's main, or only, messaging platform supports chat, voice, video, and SMS, but soon it will have one less feature. According to a post on Reddit, Google will be removing carrier SMS support in May, forcing users, at least on Android, to migrate to another app, maybe Google's newly renamed "Android Messages" app.

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Google announced today that they were one step closer to "delivering RCS messaging to Android users worldwide." To this end, they've tapped into partnerships with Orange, Deutsche Telekom (parent company of T-Mobile), and Globe. These companies are officially "committed to launching RCS messaging powered by the Jibe RCS cloud from Google and will be preloading Android Messages as the standard native messaging app for their subscribers."

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The rise of high-profile hacking of Internet services, like the iCloudgate of recent memory, has put an emphasis on stronger security measures, like, for example, two-factor or two-step authentication. It seems, however, that not all two-factor systems are considered equal. A draft of an upcoming Digital Authentication Guideline to be published by the US National Institute for Standards and Technology or NIST may very well declare two-factor authentication that uses SMS as the second factor to be inherently insecure and, therefore, obsolete.

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Google just can't make it up its mind when it comes to its messaging services. It adds apps, removes features, merges, apps, removes features, and introduces duplicate features and apps. The latest example of that flip-flopping is with the Hangouts app on Android. Starting version 11, the app, which was initially a purely instant messaging app, will no longer show SMS and Hangouts messages in a single conversation. Before you sound the alarm, though, you can still send SMS from the app. They just won't take up the same space as Hangouts messages.

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