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The social network is throwing down billions of dollars of cash and stock to buy its biggest rival. I don't use either, but in case you care (or can explain why people are freaking out), here you go
Also. $16Billion for a *chat* app? A *CHAT* app? At that rate, Microsoft could double their market cap just by bringing back all the chat apps they've killed.
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Holy cr*p! That's a lot of money. I do use WhatsApp, but only because my wife uses it and she is the only one I ever chat with on WhatsApp.
Besides the regular chat stuff (which works fine, but why wouldn't it these days), you can send voice messages back and forth and the audio quality is quite good. I really cannot explain why so many people think it's great, except that it is available on all the major phones and Facebook is just too heavy if you only need to exchange a few messages.
Soren Madsen
"When you don't know what you're doing it's best to do it quickly" - Jase #DuckDynasty
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It's nice to communicate with friends on the other side of the global via phone without paying exorbitant fees.
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Yes, but you don't even have to go that far. We save money by using WhatsApp and Skype instead of sending text messages when my wife is in Baja and I am in San Diego.
Soren Madsen
"When you don't know what you're doing it's best to do it quickly" - Jase #DuckDynasty
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The group chat are probably the major feature of WhatsApp, and the only reason I have installed it.
Got a group of friends you regularly hang out with? Group chat, invite all the guys, and discuss where and when to meet.
Even my class uses a Group, it's nice to be able to exchange thoughts on non-school days, too.
The scariest moment is always just before the Start - Stephen KingDie Frauen warten auf die Liebe, und die Männer warten auf die Frauen - Wolf Wondratschek
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I have never tried it, but it sounds cool. 
Soren Madsen
"When you don't know what you're doing it's best to do it quickly" - Jase #DuckDynasty
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Wouldn't make a lot of sense to have a group chat with your wife only, but we have dev teams here who do a part of their communication over whatsapp groups (No confidential business stuff, rather the quick-to-be-answered everyday question, chit-chat talk 'n stuff).
The scariest moment is always just before the Start - Stephen KingDie Frauen warten auf die Liebe, und die Männer warten auf die Frauen - Wolf Wondratschek
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Also very easy that it uses phone number as ID, so when I started using whatsapp, I didn't need to ask all my contacts for their chat app ID. And at the time I started using it it was free, so there was a zero threshold.
Wout
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Never heard of it (WhatsApp that is, though I wish I'd never heard of Facebook too.)
For $16B, I guess they're buying the customer base (something like 150 million users I read), not the technology.
Which goes to show, all you geeks out there, it doesn't matter how cool your tech is, what matters is, can you sign up a few hundred million people to use it? That's what puts you on the radar nowadays.
Marc
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I don't know - I would imagine there is a fairly high overlap between the users on both.
TTFN - Kent
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Among people our age perhaps; but I've seen a number of reports recently that teenagers are anathematizing farsebook in favor of rivals like whatsapp. Young users fleeing to the next big thing is what broke myspace's back a number of years back. If farsebook buys the next big thing (and manages not to kill it) this move will keep them from descending into pathetic joke status over the next few years.
Did you ever see history portrayed as an old man with a wise brow and pulseless heart, waging all things in the balance of reason?
Is not rather the genius of history like an eternal, imploring maiden, full of fire, with a burning heart and flaming soul, humanly warm and humanly beautiful?
--Zachris Topelius
Training a telescope on one’s own belly button will only reveal lint. You like that? You go right on staring at it. I prefer looking at galaxies.
-- Sarah Hoyt
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So the title says $16 Billion, but the text of the article says $19 Billion. Fine, Fine! I'll take the $3 billion difference off their hands!
If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.-John Q. Adams
You must accept one of two basic premises: Either we are alone in the universe, or we are not alone in the universe. And either way, the implications are staggering.-Wernher von Braun
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.-Albert Einstein
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Java SE 8 and a final version of OpenJDK 8, with support for lambda expressions, are expected to be released on March 18, according to Oracle, which oversees the language and platform. Remember when Java got all the cool features first?
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The major work of this meeting was to complete processing of the national body comments received in last summer’s comment ballot for the upcoming C++14 standard. For those tracking C++14 (and I thought Microsoft came up with bad product names)
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Imagine if you could go back and rebase your technical career. What pivotal moments would you change? "Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen."
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Joint Linux Foundation/Dice report claims Linux expertise remains in strong demand for 2014, commanding top pay and perks Is it just me, or do these "Study of people using technology X say that technology X is really important" studies make no sense at all?
Bonus question: does that sentence make any sense at all?
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Kent Sharkey wrote: Bonus question: does that sentence make any sense at all?
Could you include some more "X"'s in it next time??  
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The team behind Guava, Dagger, Guice, Caliper and other projects on those projects in particular, or what their day-to-day jobs inside Google are really like, team or personal history, advice... you name it
The search for the weirdest and most useless question the team actually answered begins...now.
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The creator of the Android Visual Studio extension for C/C++ apps on how the extension came to be, why it does not support C#, and how it could help bridge the platform gap.
A collective *sigh* from all the C# coders.
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We believe Exceptionless can help the development community become more in-tune with their code by making those errors more transparent, trackable, and squashable. More importantly, we want to support developers building and shipping better code for their users. But of course your code never throws exceptions, does it?
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Quote: But of course your code never throws exceptions, does it?
Nope. I found the magical super-secret code that stops all exception throwing:
Catch {}
Works every time.
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He's a witch! Burn him! 
TTFN - Kent
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The new name had already been previewed, and the product is largely the same as its predecessor, SkyDrive. New features include auto uploads from Android, adaptive personal video streaming a la Netflix and better document collaboration tools that don’t require a Microsoft account. Doesn't look like the 100GB works if you already were signed up. Now taking bets on how long before they're sued on this name.
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One.com has been making threatnening noises[^]; but their lawyers don't appear to have pulled the trigger yet...
Canonical hasn't said anything public yet. (I assume this means they're waiting until they can open an office in East Texas before filing suit.) 
Did you ever see history portrayed as an old man with a wise brow and pulseless heart, waging all things in the balance of reason?
Is not rather the genius of history like an eternal, imploring maiden, full of fire, with a burning heart and flaming soul, humanly warm and humanly beautiful?
--Zachris Topelius
Training a telescope on one’s own belly button will only reveal lint. You like that? You go right on staring at it. I prefer looking at galaxies.
-- Sarah Hoyt
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Zzzzz....
"How on earth does Microsoft continue to pour massive resources into building the same frigging synchronization platforms again and again? ... I'm so excited I might just die." -- Architecture astronauts take over, by Joel Spolsky[^]
This space intentionally left blank.
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