WhatsApp Down: People worldwide unable to connect to the app on NYE!

Update: The service seems to be back, iOS and Android users should have no issues using WhatsApp. If you’re still facing the issue try to close WhatsApp completely or restarting your phone should solve the problem. 

If you are wondering whether WhatsApp is down or you are facing issues connecting to your favourite messaging service, you are not alone. Several users across the world are reporting issues connecting to WhatsAp on New Year’s Eve, and the Facebook-owned service has acknowledged the issue.

“Some people have had trouble accessing WhatsApp for a short period today. We’re working to restore service back to 100% for everyone and we apologise for the inconvenience,”

Earlier, many users took to Twitter to complaint that WhatsApp is down, while others reported connectivity issues. The messaging and voice calling client seemed to be having issues sending and receiving messages on both Android and iOS. DownDetector, a realtime services outage monitor, also reported multiple issues.

Around 10pmIST on Thursday, several users started to note that they weren’t being able to send or receieve messages or make calls via WhatsApp. It is not known what caused the problems, though it could just be a massive spike in traffic on New Year’s Eve, traditionally a day of record traffic for the app. The WhatsApp Status Twitter handle has so far been silent on the downtime.

It is worth noting that not everyone is facing the issue, though those who’re on the receiving end aren’t too pleased about it. “I feel sorry for the other poor souls,” Khamosh Pathak.

WhatsApp announced in September that it had reached the 900 million monthly active users milestone. It is the world’s most widely used instant messaging client.

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Back to School With Google Docs New Features!

Just in time for School, Google has released some great features to it Drive Suite; Google has been spending the summer break creating new tools to help you Collaborate and Save Time!

Google Docs For Android

You can now make your research right from the Docs App on your Android device. Without leaving your work, you can directly search for quotes, images and facts and add them directly to your document. No more switching apps and multitasking!

Voice Typing Feature

Another great feature that saves you some precious time, you can now record some great ideas or even compose your entire essay without even touching your keyboard! (To activate this feature, Go to Tools and select Voice Typing) and its also available on Google Docs mobile app in 40 different languages!

Revision History has gone better!

The revision history feature is a great one already, but when you open a shared document with tons of infos, its hard to even find if there are any changes made to the document, and you’ll have to go and click to see the revision history. Now Google has made it easier to see changes made while you were away! You’ll just have to click that big blue button on the top, and that’s it!

New Templates for Docs, Sheets and Slides

A new collection of templates have been added to the Drive Suite, so you can focus on your content rather than the interface!

New Explore in Sheets

With the new Explore in Google Sheets, you now explore Charts automatically from your Desktop or Android App! Get a Glance:

 

Apple iPhone 6 leaked by Taiwanese star Jimmy Lin!

Taiwanese singer/actor/race driver Jimmy Lin posted photos of himself holding the yet-unannounced iPhone 5c last year and now he’s back with the new iPhone 6. We’ve seen plenty of leaks of the iPod Touch-inspired iPhone, but given Mr. Lin’s track record these images are some of the more credible ones.

Lin confirms the 4.7″ screen for the Apple iPhone 6 and notes that the antennas are still external. The new rounded corners improve the grip but the matte aluminum finish may be slippery.

To compensate for the taller device, the Power key has been moved on the right side. Also, it seems that Apple will be abandoning its dual-LED flash.

Unfortunately, there are no technical details about the phone so we still don’t know the resolution of the 4.7″ screen.

According to info from Foxconn there will be a 5.5″ iPhone too.

New photos of alleged iPhone 6 dummy unit show larger and slimmer device!

New photos of an alleged ‘iPhone 6‘ dummy unit surfaced this afternoon. The images depict a device that is noticeably larger and thinner than the current iPhone 5s, with rounded corners, and an overall design that matches up with previous information.

There’s no word on where the physical mockups came from, and there’s obviously no way to determine their validity. But our friends over at Nowhereelse.fr say that the snapshots were published by a long-time member of a well-known Chinese forum…

Nowhereelse.fr’s Steve Hemmerstoffer has more on the photos:

Published by a member of a well-known Chinese forum indiscretions cabbage lovers , the three photos that I propose to examine in this article are meant to introduce the physical model of one of the future iPhone rumored ad with a lot of leaks for several months already . Prototype for reference molding to prop in mobile telephony. Silicone skin cases that I presented earlier this month (read: iPhone 6: New hulls stock … ) have also been designed using a prototype of the same kind .

Again, the dummy unit matches up with many of the leaked cases, renders and other intel we’ve seen up until now. Note the elongated  volume buttons and the rounded flash on the rear of the device (below) — both of which were mentioned in previous reporting.

Unfortunately, the device’s measurements weren’t made available and there are few points of reference in the photos to try to make any sort of guess. It’s believed that Apple is building two new models: one with a 4.7-inch display, and one with a 5.5-inch.

Other alleged details we’ve heard about the handset so far include a higher resolution display panel, a faster A8 processor, 1GB of RAM and an improved 8MP camera. It’s also believed that the phone will feature new types of sensors for tracking various data.

Apple is excepted to unveil the iPhone 6 at a media event some time in September. The 4.7-inch model is said to be going into production next month, with the 5.5-inch beginning a few months later due to manufacturing delays caused by Apple’s in-cell tech.

Talking Tom Cat apps are bigger than Twitter!

Earlier this month, Twitter revealed that it now has 184m monthly active mobile users. That puts it 46m behind the antics of a cartoon cat and his animal friends.

App developer Outfit7 says its Talking Tom and Friends apps now have 230m monthly active users across iOS, Android and Windows Phone. The apps have been downloaded more than 1.5bn times since the launch of the first, Talking Tom Cat, in June 2010.

The company says its monthly active user count is up 35% in the last four months, which is likely due to the release in November 2013 of My Talking Tom, a free-to-play game starring the squeaky feline character. That game was downloaded 27m times in its first month on the app stores.

Outfit7 has released 14 of the apps, recently rebranding the series from Talking Friends to Talking Tom and Friends, to reflect the popularity of its main character. The series reached 100m downloads in April 2011,360m by March 2012, and 1bn by June 2013, at which point the apps had 170m monthly active users.

The developer has also followed a similar strategy to other character-based mobile game hits like Angry Birds and Cut the Rope by expanding into toys and online video. Outfit7 worked with Disney on a series of 12 Talking Friends videos that have been watched more than 408m times on YouTube, including 151m times alone for music video You Get Me.

“Talking Tom and Friends is one of the only global brands to achieve download billionaire status, while also being strong in both entertainment and games,” said Outfit7 chief operating officer Alessandro Traverso in a statement, following the new milestones. “The development of our TV series demonstrates the global appetite for a property that is, at its core, true interactive entertainment.”

The company’s apps have courted controversy in their rise to success, however. In October 2012, ads for payday lender Wonga were found in the Talking Ginger app, while in February 2013, an ad promoting a contest to win an iPad led users to a £4-a-week mobile content subscription service.

Meanwhile, My Talking Tom upped the ante on Outfit7’s use of in-app purchases, selling virtual coins in quantities worth up to £69.99 at a time. The Talking Tom and Friends apps aren’t just for kids, but they have a massive audience of children – the key target for the company’s video and merchandise activities.

“There are a lot of things changing from the legal perspective, in the US and EU, and our plans are to be the leaders and not the followers in terms of implementing all the changes requested by COPPA and the EU,”chief executive Samo Login told The Guardian last year.

“We will be one of the first companies that will be prepared for that, because we believe we should be an example. We have a huge user-base among kids, and we can’t afford to take that lightly.”