For some time now, WhatsApp users have had disappearing messages at their disposal. These do what they say on the tin, making chats disappear after a set amount of time to erase the record of conversations that should be kept private. WhatsApp today is giving users more control over how they use disappearing messages, giving users the option of turning them on by default.
The latest update to WhatsApp gives every user the ability to hide or show status information on a per-user basis. Before now, users were only able to show their status to everyone, nobody at all, or all of their contacts. Now there's a "my contacts except..." option - for those people who you want on your contacts list, but with whom you do not want to share all your at all times.
When Facebook announced it would be called Meta forevermore (or at least until the next rebranding), it wasn't just renaming the company. It was also broadcasting its bigger and somewhat more worrying ambitions to take over the world through a metaverse platform. It did also announce that it would unify some of its brands, especially those revolving around its money-related services under Novi. Now the effects of those changes might be coming soon to WhatsApp, and it could have some repercussions for the messaging service's users.
There are many reasons why people frequently get anxious when it comes to moving to a new smartphone. While new smartphones offer improved performance and new features, getting all your data from your old devices to the new device can be a daunting task. For those who make heavy use of WhatsApp for business and in their personal life, the thought of not having their chat history can be a dealbreaker.
The first reviews of Facebook's Portal Go are out, and while the social network's push into video calling gadgets may have met with confusion initially, amidst a pandemic and an improving product range it turns out this portable version is actually unexpectedly good. Of course, anybody who has been following the tech world - or, heck, the real world - even tangentially recently will already probably be able to predict the Portal Go's big problem.
WhatsApp is now rolling out end-to-end encrypted chat cloud backups, enabling users to keep a copy of their messaging history without compromising their privacy. The feature is rolling out to users gradually while the company monitors the experience, ensuring any potential issues can be addressed before everyone has access to the backup option.
The previous week has been a rough one for Facebook, which experienced a widespread outage across its product family that left many people scrambling for alternative platforms. October 4 brought a massive outage that spanned from Facebook to Oculus, though the company resolved it after several hours. A few days later, the company was hit by another outage.
For the past few years, Facebook has not only been criticized but also sued for this or that improper behavior, ranging from privacy missteps to monopolistic business practices to harmful work cultures. There have been repeated calls to boycott Facebook and its properties Instagram and WhatsApp, and there has even been some mass exodus of users over the years. Despite all that negative publicity, Facebook still has a firm hold over people's lives today, something that was confirmed by the hours-long outage that affected not just users but even businesses worldwide.
Most of you already know this, but Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp have been down for most of the day. What might be even more surprising than those three services being down for more than a few minutes at a time is the fact that this outage is having a noticeable knock-on effect on the rest of the internet. In fact, many other social media websites are buckling under the strain of Facebook and Instagram users who are flocking to other services.
Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp are experiencing a widespread outage, with the social networks and instant messaging platform all offline for users in multiple locations. The outage comes amid renewed criticism of Facebook, after a whistleblower came forward with the company's own internal research that suggests it could have a negative impact on users.
Early peeks at software in development with WhatsApp showed info on Disappearing Messages and new chat bubbles this week. The bit with Disappearing Messages appear to be coming to iOS next, with message timer choices aplenty. This update in testing shows message timers at 24 hours, 7 days, 90 days, and (off).
![WhatsApp transcription for voice message audio tipped to work with Apple [Updated]](https://www.slashgear.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/whatsapp-1-1278x720.jpg)
An ability to transcribe messages was leaked as a potential upcoming feature in WhatsApp. Information about the feature has not yet been confirmed by WhatsApp or Facebook, but details leaked this week suggest the "Transcription" system will work with Apple (and likely Google) to transcribe text and improve speech recognition. The first bit of this leak appeared in an iOS build of the app - so we'll likely see other angles soon.