messager

Thanks to Dan the Mantern's two-week-long extended vacation, we're left helpless and alone. Luckily for us, the Intern Formerly Known as Mark (IFKM is a bad acronym) saves the day, helping us scrutinize stories like Microsoft entering the T-shirt market, the Knight Rider show cancellation, the first Vietnamese House Representative, and other kooky, borderline-tabloid stories we found on the World Wide Den of Filth.

In today's episode of What's Happening With Those Asians, we discuss an important milestone in Asian American history: Louisiana has elected the United States' very first Vietnamese-American House Representative. It's an … Read more

Nokia has released new versions of its mapping and navigation service along with a new messaging service in an effort to build out its mobile services.

The upgraded Nokia Maps offers new features, such as high-resolution aerial images and 3D landmarks. The new software also allows users to share their location using GPS. Nokia has also tied the latest version of Nokia Maps more closely with its PC-based service Ovi. And the new Nokia Maps allows users to plan their journey ahead of time on their PCs and sync the information with their mobile phones for when they're on … Read more

Web-based chat company Meebo has partnered with Universal Music Group to bring ad-supported music videos to the service.

As a kickoff, Universal artists Kanye West, Ludacris, and the Killers will be featured on the Meebo home page. In return, Meebo chat rooms will be embedded on Universal artists' sites.

I'm still not quite sure why a chat start-up needs Kanye videos when Mr. West and his many pairs of sunglasses are already plastered all over the rest of the Internet, but I'll let that rest for now.

In the past year, Meebo has launched an application programming interface, … Read more

Although text messaging is still one of the favorite pastimes for children and adults alike, software firm Geodesic believes that mobile instant messaging will cannibalize SMS and become the de facto form of communication through cell phones, going forward.

The company offers a tool called Mundu IM, which recently entered its fourth iteration. The software provides users with an IM service that works with AIM, Google Talk, ICQ, MSN, Yahoo, and Jabber accounts, with collaboration across the Web and wireless devices.

Mundu IM is currently supported on most mobile phones running Symbian, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, Palm OS, and Java platforms. … Read more

Worldwide mobile messaging grew nearly 10 percent in the third quarter compared to the second quarter of the year, fueled by new trends in the messaging market, according to VeriSign, which provides Internet infrastructure services and delivers messages on behalf of carriers and content providers.

The company reported Tuesday that VeriSign enabled more than 58.3 billion messages per day during the third quarter of 2008. This was up from about 52 billion messages sent during the second quarter of 2008.

On average, this means that VeriSign facilitated the delivery of about 634 million messages per day during the third … Read more

Those among the digerati tend to heap scorn and derision upon most digital picture frames because of their perceived lack of value. They would be mostly right to do so. When it comes down to it, they are just LCD screens surrounded by some polished wood with an inflated price tag.

The Audiovox Homebase hopes to change that perception. Masquerading as a digital picture frame, the Homebase is actually a message center, calendar, and timer all rolled up into one package. It can be attached to the fridge or placed upright in a table or counter. An erasable white board … Read more

Microsoft has offered an explanation as to why it took the company seven years to issue a patch for a known vulnerability.

The flaw, which lies in the Microsoft Server Message Block (SMB) protocol, was addressed Tuesday in Microsoft security bulletin MS08-068. The flaw could enable an SMB Relay attack, which would allow an attacker to install programs; view, change or delete data; or create new accounts with full user rights.

Christopher Budd, a security program manager in the Microsoft Security Response Center, said in a blog post Thursday that while Microsoft had been aware of the vulnerability, fixing it … Read more

FriendFeed introduced a new feature on Friday, giving members the option to get updates from the social network as soon as they happen through standard instant-messaging protocols.

Each IM contains the first few hundred characters of the post, along with a small permalink that takes you straight to it. Like the recently introduced live feed, the idea is that you can quickly track and respond to the activity of your friends while they're still around.

To help turn down the fire-hose of information, users can whittle down whether they want to see everyone's interactions, or just those from … Read more

Microsoft says it has joined an industry effort, initiated by several of its competitors, to establish a specification defining a standard way for business software to communicate.

The specification, called the Advanced Message Queuing Protocol (AMQP), was initiated through software developed by JPMorgan Chase. Red Hat acquired the software, and has worked with Cisco Systems and others to establish AMQP as an industry standard.

The AMQP specification seeks to do what the industry has been unable--or unwilling--to do for years: establish a common way to send messages between software packages from rival companies.

Messaging has for years been a standard … Read more