WhatsApp Launches Voice Messaging Known as Push-To-Talk Service in its latest Update

With all the texting that people do these days, it’s naturally taken a messaging app to re-introduce the act of using our voices to communicate.
WhatsApp, the increasingly ubiquitous global messaging app, has launched “voice messaging,” a new feature that will let users record and send audio files with one tap on their smartphones. UPDATE: WhatsApp has announced the feature on its blog; the post includes a video demo, also embedded below.
The messaging company, which has 45 employees and is based in Mountain View, Calif., confirmed a report in AllThingsD that the service would allow users to press and hold the microphone on their keyboard to send a voice message, a bit like using a walkie-talkie.
Said to be a brainchild of the US-based company’s co-founder and CEO Jan Koum, the new feature allows users to just hold to record a message and release to send it.
There is also a blue blinker notification that lets users know when the message is received. In case the user decides not to send the message, a swipe to the left and the recording is deleted. All this is built into a single tap. There is also no time-length limit for the recorded messages. Also, the volume automatically switches from speaker when held at arm’s length to soft when held next to an ear.
WhatsApp also announced that it now has 300 million global monthly active users, surpassing 20 million monthly active users in four countries: Germany, Spain, Mexico and India.
With the introduction of voice messaging feature, the company hopes further strengthen its user base globally.
WhatsApp was founded by Koum and Brian Acton, both ex-staffers at Yahoo and has become one of the world’s largest messaging apps by active users. It may only surpassed by Tencent’s WeChat (or Weixin), the popular Chinese messaging app that was estimated by researchers at Portio to have 300 million active monthly users in April 2013. Following behind, according to Portio’s research, was texting and calling app Viber with 175 million users, and LINE, of Japan, with 100 million users in January 2013.
WhatsApp has remained independent in spite of widely-reported rumors that Google and Facebook were both interested in buying the company. It also refuses to show ads, instead making money by charging users 99 cents (in the United States) after the first year of use. It used to charge the fee once, upfront for new iOS users, but recently switched them to the “freemium” business model it was using for Android devices.

JPSays.com is on FACEBOOK and TWITTER now

Hi Readers !

JPSays.com has got its official pages on Facebook and Twitter now. All the posts of the blogs will be available on Facebook page and Twitter.

So, All of you should have a look and suggest what else can be done it spread my this effort JPSays.com

Facebook Address

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www.twitter.com.JPSaysDotCom

Smart TV Users — Get ready to be HACKED…….

Attackers can use embedded features, such as microphones, cameras, and lots of storage, to spy on people and steal their sensitive data.
Just like with mobile phones, the more advanced the common television gets, the more likely it can be turned against its users by attackers who can use embedded features, such as microphones, cameras, and lots of storage, to spy on people and steal their sensitive data. At Black Hat USA, two different presentations offered research on how these activities can be carried out against the current generations of Smart TVs
It’s a troubling development for consumers because, as researcher Seungjin Lee with Korea University put it, when a home computer is hacked there is usually just one main victim. But if a home television is hacked and the camera trained on its watchers, that affects the whole family and invades the most private areas of the home. However, remote attacks against smart TVs aren’t just a consumer concern.
“I know some big companies like Google or Microsoft, they use smart TVs in their offices,” he said. “It is not just about personal stuff or home privacy stuff. It is also about companies that administrate some sensitive data.”
Lee demonstrated some rootkit technology he developed in order to gain complete control over a range of smart TVs for the purpose of spying on their owners. As he explained, the stationary nature of smart TVs actually make them much better for attackers to photograph or videotape victims than a similarly hacked smart phone. In his research on mobile devices, he has found that usually only about 1 percent of photos snapped are anything but a blurry mess. Additionally, unlike mobile devices, smart TV have persistent power, so a battery drain is not likely to alert a user about potential unwanted activity on the device.
Similar to Lee’s talk, two researchers with iSEC Partners, Aaron Grattafiori and Josh Yavor, more specifically trained their exploratory research on Samsung TVs. They also found these televisions to be excellent spy platforms. In particular, they showed how these TVs’ advanced functions were essentially being run as Web apps, with the same potential for vulnerabilities as Web apps in any other context. In particular, due to its use of the device’s camera and microphone, Skype was a particularly juicy target.
“Skype was a mess on a smart TV,” Grattafiori said. “Anything that could be entered by the user, you could inject JavaScript, and that would execute in the context of the application.”
Other social media applications also made for great remote compromise targets, as well.
“Anyplace where we can get remote content injected, we can install a rootkit and have full system control anytime we boot up,” he said. “And because it’s a social media platform, we can distribute our code to smart TV users — which means that we have created potential for a TV worm.”
Even the TV’s browser was ready to be compromised, with the researchers reporting that not only could they execute cross-site scripting on sites running on the browser, but also the browser itself.
“We can change your home page to be our attacker site so that before you even do anything at all, the next time you load the browser it hooks our code. We can start doing whatever we want at that point,” Grattafiori said. “That’s a cheap persistence trick.”
As he puts it, this is a wake-up call for manufacturers to develop some cross-platform security for their smart TV products, and for their developers to remember the basics of Web app secure coding, especially sanitizing input and not trusting storage.
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Apple Offers Trade-In Program for Third-Party iPhone, iPad Adapters

Apple on Monday detailed a new program where owners of third-party iPhone, iPod and iPad adapters can trade their products in for an Apple charger for $10 — roughly half the typical price of a new Apple charger.
Apple USB charger 

“Recent reports have suggested that some counterfeit and third party adapters may not be designed properly and could result in safety issues,” Apple said on a website announcing the program. “While not all third party adapters have an issue, we are announcing a USB Power Adapter Takeback Program to enable customers to acquire properly designed adapters.”


Although Apple has in the past had replacement programs when there have been issues with its own products, this appears to be the first time it has offered such a program for products made by others.
The program is a global one, kicking off Aug. 9 in China and Aug. 16 in the U.S. and elsewhere.
Customers will be able to go to any Apple retail store or authorized service provider and exchange one charger for every iPad, iPhone and iPod that they own. Users have to also bring in their iOS device to validate the serial number.
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Install any edition (Home Basic, Home Premium, Professional, Ultimate) of Windows 7 from one Windows 7 ISO / Image

Yes, you read it right. Now you can install any edition of Windows 7 from any Original ISO. You do not need to buy different DVDs for each edition of Windows 7. Every windows 7 DVD contains all the editions of the Windows 7(Home Basic, Home Premium, Professional, Ultimate).
If you have DVD of Windows 7 (any edition), you need to create of ISO of it. To prepare ISO of DVD, you can use any DVD ISO MAKER software. I generally use MINIDVDSOFT’s Free DVD ISO MAKER software to prepare ISO of DVDs. Once you have created ISO, lets move to the next step.
Now using UltraISO or MagicISO, you can edit the ISO File. You have to browse to “SOURCES” folder. Look for the file “ei.cfg”.

The contents of the file will be depending upon the edition of the Windows 7 ISO you are using.
Contents of the file will be: –
[EditionID]
Ultimate
[Channel]
Retail
[VL]
0
I am using Windows Ultimate ISO, that is why [EditionID] has the value of Ultimate.
Now you just have to change this value. Possible values are : Ultimate, Professional, HomePremium , HomeBasic.
Write any one value out of these according to your need.
Another Method is just delete the “ei.cfg”. During installation setup will ask you to select one edition out of Ultimate , Professional, HomePremium, and HomeBasic. Go ahead with your choice.

Google’s Android Device Manager is clone of Apple’s Find my Phone

It has taken a long time, but Android users will soon have a tool to help them locate misplaced phones and remotely wipe their data in case it’s lost or stolen.
Today, Google introduced Android Device Manager, which offers several different methods for dealing with a lost phone. With it, you can set off your phone’s ringer at maximum volume (even if your device is in silent mode) to help you try to locate it. 
You can also track your device in real time on a map. Finally, it gives you the ability to remotely erase all your data in case it’s truly lost or in the hands of a thief. While this type of feature has long been available on the iPhone and Windows Phone devices, Android owners have had to use third-party apps like Phone Locator and Lookout Mobile Security to get similar features.
All that is required to use Android Device Manager is a Google account. The native solution from Google is a welcome addition, especially as cellphone thefts continue to rise. According to a Consumer Reports survey, 1.6 million people had their smartphones stolen in the U.S. last year. There are numerous groups — the phone industry, law-enforcement agencies and legislators — working on ways to reduce the number of thefts. For example, last year, the FCC and a number of the country’s top wireless carriers launched a national database that tracks stolen phones and prevents them from being used again. 
 In the short term, tools like Apple’s “Find My iPhone” and Android Device Manager can be good ways to locate a missing gadget, even if it’s just stuck between your couch cushions, and can give you the power to secure your data. Android Device Manager will be available later this month, and supports devices running Android 2.2 or higher.