Here’s how Sprint will market its merger with T-Mobile to customers

With the new T-Mobile/Sprint merger just being announced last Sunday, people have a lot of questions. We have exclusively obtained a document including the talking points that Sprint would like their employees to use for answering questions concerning the merger. This document also reveals some more in-depth information about the merger. You can read the talking points for yourself below (click to enlarge).

When customers ask about the merger they are supposed to say "We're very excited that Sprint and T-Mobile have agreed to merge. This is terrific news for customers." It also states that the new T-Mobile will have a "faster, more reliable network at lower prices and with better value."

These talking points are going to be used for when a customer visits the store and asks about the merger. Some people might be wondering if their prices are rising or if their service is going to get worse. They really want to reiterate that "nothing changes for now." Even though this announcement was made and forms are being filed, the United States Government still needs to approve the merger to complete it.

A different source who also has a relationship with the companies has told us the merger is set to complete in June 2019. That matches the H1 2019 estimate that both T-Mobile and Sprint had mentioned in their press releases. It could take time after that for both T-Mobile and Sprint to change customers over and port their customer databases to the new T-Mobile.

This document also gets more in-depth about the merger and what the companies will be doing to merge. It states that T-Mobile will file a registration statement on a Form S-4 that will contain a join consent solicitation statement from T-Mobile and Sprint. If you would like to view a copy you can view it on sec.gov once they are available. These are mostly for investors and security holders, but might be interesting for those who want to know more. More of this information is available in the first popup window on allfor5g.com.

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Chatbot support rolling out soon to the Samsung Galaxy S9/S9+ Messages app

Chatbot support will soon be coming to the Samsung Galaxy S9's default Messages app. So far this seems to only support AT&T devices, but it is very likely to be rolled out to more carriers and devices soon. This is a feature of RCS, which is the same technology behind Google's upcoming Chat service. We have obtained screenshots of the feature from the SamCentral Discord Server and XDA Recognized Contributor Venom0642.

Discord member KenC first noticed this last week when he updated to a leaked version of Android 8.0 with the May Security patch. What he found was that the chatbots allow you to communicate with a company to help with shopping, planning trips, receiving the news, checking into flights, and more. You can do all of this without the need for a separate app. AT&T seemed to have released this for some Samsung devices in March, but they have added more chatbots. It doesn't seem like any other carriers support this yet.

So far, this supports 1-800-Flowers Assistant, 385Scores, CNN, HereWeGo Chat, JustAnswers 24-7 Experts, SkyScanner, SnapTravel, Stye Inspire, and Walgreens. These all allow you to communicate with the companies for information or questions. All of these accounts are verified too so you don't need to worry about scammers when communicating with Chatbots.

Venom0642 was able to install the latest leaked build of Android 8.0 with the May security patch and gain access to Chatbots. He was able to talk to the CNN Chatbot and get us some screenshots below. The CNN bot allows you to request daily news on certain topics and also get messages with breaking news.

All of this seems like a great addition to RCS and we are excited to see what happens in the future. With Google's announcement of Chat, this feature could be rolling out to Google Messages soon also, though we won't know until that actually happens.

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Chatbot support rolling out soon to the Samsung Galaxy S9/S9+ Messages app

Chatbot support will soon be coming to the Samsung Galaxy S9’s default Messages app. So far this seems to only support AT&T devices, but it is very likely to be rolled out to more carriers and devices soon. This is a feature of RCS, which is the same technology behind Google’s upcoming Chat service. We have obtained screenshots of the feature from the SamCentral Discord Server and XDA Recognized Contributor Venom0642.

Discord member KenC first noticed this last week when he updated to a leaked version of Android 8.0 with the May Security patch. What he found was that the chatbots allow you to communicate with a company to help with shopping, planning trips, receiving the news, checking into flights, and more. You can do all of this without the need for a separate app. AT&T seemed to have released this for some Samsung devices in March, but they have added more chatbots. It doesn’t seem like any other carriers support this yet.

So far, this supports 1-800-Flowers Assistant, 385Scores, CNN, HereWeGo Chat, JustAnswers 24-7 Experts, SkyScanner, SnapTravel, Stye Inspire, and Walgreens. These all allow you to communicate with the companies for information or questions. All of these accounts are verified too so you don’t need to worry about scammers when communicating with Chatbots.

Venom0642 was able to install the latest leaked build of Android 8.0 with the May security patch and gain access to Chatbots. He was able to talk to the CNN Chatbot and get us some screenshots below. The CNN bot allows you to request daily news on certain topics and also get messages with breaking news.

All of this seems like a great addition to RCS and we are excited to see what happens in the future. With Google’s announcement of Chat, this feature could be rolling out to Google Messages soon also, though we won’t know until that actually happens.

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Developers can now register .app domains for their apps

For years, people thought the web was the future, but that was before smartphones and native applications surged in popularity. There are definitely benefits to both sides of the coin. Websites can be viewed on a plethora of different devices using the same code, while native applications tend to perform faster as they're built for specific platforms. Google is invested in both technologies but they have just launched a new top-level domain (TLD) specifically for applications and application developers.

You're likely already familiar with other TLDs such as .com, .net, .org, and .edu. The availability of TLDs was restricted for years but has recently been expanding. We're currently at 1,543 top-level domains as of April of this year. This list of internet top-level domains covers everything from countries to jobs and virtually everywhere in between. Google has their own TLD with the recently launched The Keyword blog at blog.google and now they have announced that .app is their latest TLD that can now be registered.

The target audience for the .app TLD is solely for applications and the developers behind those apps. With popular TLDs becoming flooded by squatters, it can be difficult to get the correct domain name for a new (or old) application. Google has other plans too though, as they're also working to make security a prominent feature with this new top-level domain. A major change here is that HTTPS is required in order to connect to all .app websites as that will help to protect against ad malware and tracking injection by ISPs.

However, to safeguard against spying on open WiFi networks Google has said that .app will be the first TLD with enforced security made available for general registration. From now until May 7th the .app TLD is available for those who want to pay extra and secure the domain name they want. Then on the 8th of this month registrations will be available to the general public through the registrar of your choice.

Google has also created the get.app website for you to see who's already on .app and to help choose a registrar partner to begin registering your domain.

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Source: The Keyword

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Developers can now register .app domains for their apps

For years, people thought the web was the future, but that was before smartphones and native applications surged in popularity. There are definitely benefits to both sides of the coin. Websites can be viewed on a plethora of different devices using the same code, while native applications tend to perform faster as they’re built for specific platforms. Google is invested in both technologies but they have just launched a new top-level domain (TLD) specifically for applications and application developers.

You’re likely already familiar with other TLDs such as .com, .net, .org, and .edu. The availability of TLDs was restricted for years but has recently been expanding. We’re currently at 1,543 top-level domains as of April of this year. This list of internet top-level domains covers everything from countries to jobs and virtually everywhere in between. Google has their own TLD with the recently launched The Keyword blog at blog.google and now they have announced that .app is their latest TLD that can now be registered.

The target audience for the .app TLD is solely for applications and the developers behind those apps. With popular TLDs becoming flooded by squatters, it can be difficult to get the correct domain name for a new (or old) application. Google has other plans too though, as they’re also working to make security a prominent feature with this new top-level domain. A major change here is that HTTPS is required in order to connect to all .app websites as that will help to protect against ad malware and tracking injection by ISPs.

However, to safeguard against spying on open WiFi networks Google has said that .app will be the first TLD with enforced security made available for general registration. From now until May 7th the .app TLD is available for those who want to pay extra and secure the domain name they want. Then on the 8th of this month registrations will be available to the general public through the registrar of your choice.

Google has also created the get.app website for you to see who’s already on .app and to help choose a registrar partner to begin registering your domain.

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Source: The Keyword

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WhatsApp founder leaves company amidst privacy disputes with Facebook

Facebook shocked the world when they ended up acquiring the popular messaging service WhatsApp for a whopping $19 billion back in 2014. This spawned a lot of speculation about why the social network would spend so much to own a free messaging service. The leading concern was about owning, using and/or selling user data. As pressure mounted, Facebook came through and announced they would be protecting this data by partnering with Open Whisper Systems and enabling end-to-end encryption. However, it's now become known that the co-founder of WhatsApp, Jan Koum, will be parting ways with Facebook as they attempt to use WhatsApp's personal data and weaken its encryption.

Even with the threat that Facebook would eventually start to use data from WhatsApp users, the messaging service continued to grow. In February 2016 it was revealed that WhatsApp had surpassed 1 billion monthly active users and then in July of 2017 it was announced the service now has over 1 billion daily active users. It was around this time when the company pushed out an updated privacy policy that revealed Facebook had plans on how it could leverage the vast amount of data that it could collect with the service.

During this transition, Facebook got rid of its $0.99 per year fee while the co-founders of WhatsApp continued to protest against an advertising model to bring in revenue. Instead, the company thought a good compromise would be to let businesses create a profile and send messages to their customers. This is the goal of the newly launched WhatsApp Business service, but WhatsApp executives believe doing so would require some weakening of its encryption. However, it seems that Koum has been worn down with clashing opinions and also plans to step down from Facebook's board of directors.

It's also being reported that a number of WhatsApp employees are also feeling demoralized in their work environment and currently plan to leave the company in November. That will be the moment the employees will be able to exercise all their stock options under the terms of the Facebook deal. Koum says it's time for him to move on and focus on other pursuits, "such as collecting rare air-cooled Porsches, working on my cars and playing ultimate frisbee."

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Source: The Washington Post

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WhatsApp founder leaves company amidst privacy disputes with Facebook

Facebook shocked the world when they ended up acquiring the popular messaging service WhatsApp for a whopping $19 billion back in 2014. This spawned a lot of speculation about why the social network would spend so much to own a free messaging service. The leading concern was about owning, using and/or selling user data. As pressure mounted, Facebook came through and announced they would be protecting this data by partnering with Open Whisper Systems and enabling end-to-end encryption. However, it’s now become known that the co-founder of WhatsApp, Jan Koum, will be parting ways with Facebook as they attempt to use WhatsApp’s personal data and weaken its encryption.

Even with the threat that Facebook would eventually start to use data from WhatsApp users, the messaging service continued to grow. In February 2016 it was revealed that WhatsApp had surpassed 1 billion monthly active users and then in July of 2017 it was announced the service now has over 1 billion daily active users. It was around this time when the company pushed out an updated privacy policy that revealed Facebook had plans on how it could leverage the vast amount of data that it could collect with the service.

During this transition, Facebook got rid of its $0.99 per year fee while the co-founders of WhatsApp continued to protest against an advertising model to bring in revenue. Instead, the company thought a good compromise would be to let businesses create a profile and send messages to their customers. This is the goal of the newly launched WhatsApp Business service, but WhatsApp executives believe doing so would require some weakening of its encryption. However, it seems that Koum has been worn down with clashing opinions and also plans to step down from Facebook’s board of directors.

It’s also being reported that a number of WhatsApp employees are also feeling demoralized in their work environment and currently plan to leave the company in November. That will be the moment the employees will be able to exercise all their stock options under the terms of the Facebook deal. Koum says it’s time for him to move on and focus on other pursuits, “such as collecting rare air-cooled Porsches, working on my cars and playing ultimate frisbee.”

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Source: The Washington Post

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