chat

Review: Make your friends pop up with Chat Heads

When Facebook Home debuted, most people yawned--until they saw the "Chat Heads" feature. This appropriately-named app adds them to your phone without taking the whole thing over the way Home would. Chat Heads brings this cool notification feature to any of the apps of your phone.

The app slides a "Chat Heads" section onto your accessibility menu that you have to turn on before you use it. It also tries to hit your phone with ads, but you can choose to decline that part of the app. Once you go through the longer setup process, Chat … Read more

How to enable the new Hangouts in Gmail

Google released Hangouts last week as a standalone app for iOS, Android, and the desktop via a Chrome extension. In addition to the apps, you can also use Hangouts from within Gmail, just like the old Google Talk.

To enable Hangouts in Gmail, click on your profile photo from the Google Talk chat list, then select Try the new Hangouts. Hangouts will immediately replace Talk, then walk you through a very brief introduction to Hangouts.

Keep in mind that it may not have rolled out to you yet, so if you don't have the Hangouts option in your Gmail … Read more

AT&T to open mobile video chat for all customers

AT&T customers should be able to use any mobile video chat app before too much longer.

Preloaded video-chat apps will work over AT&T's cellular network for all customers, regardless of device or data plan, by the end of 2013, according to a statement from AT&T.

Customers with unlimited data and an LTE device should expect to be able to use video chat apps from Apple, Samsung, and BlackBerry over the AT&T network by mid-June.

Here is the full statement from AT&T:

For video chat apps that come preloaded on … Read more

Google Hangouts launches as a standalone app

Google Hangouts (iOS|Android) brings the group video chat features you have in Google+ to your home screen with a standalone app, but it might be one too many ways to do the same thing.

Having the app on your home screen gives you immediate access to one-on-one and group video calls formerly found by going through a couple of menus in Google+. With Hangouts, you can have a video call with up to 10 people and you can choose who will be in the hangout through a list of your contacts or by using a search field. During your … Read more

Google Hangouts launches as a standalone app

Google Hangouts (iOS|Android) brings the group video chat features you have in Google+ to your home screen with a standalone app, but it might be one too many ways to do the same thing.

Google+ Hangouts gets private chats, history, and an app

Google's Hangouts group chat feature is now a little more useful, with one-on-one conversations, a way to look back at chat history, and a standalone app for people who want to use Hangouts as a general communications tool.

New in the chat service, which is a headlining feature of Google's Google+ social network, is a way to do one-on-one chats with people during a group chat. Google is calling the new feature facetoface, and hopes it will get more people to use Google+ instead of jumping to another communication service.

Google has also added a way to go … Read more

Review: Add instant messenger capabilities to Twitter with TwitChat Messenger

There are many Twitter clients and apps that promise to enhance the Twitter navigation and communication process. However, not all of them follow through, and others are lacking in key areas. TwitChat Messenger manages to not only augment the core Twitter experience, but also add additional features in a robust, easy-to-use package, all for free, making it one of the best third-party Twitter apps on the App Store today.

The premise of TwitChat Messenger is that instead of the open forum that Twitter normally is, you can use it as an instant messenger, complete with notifications and user invites via … Read more

Google adds remote desktop Hangouts to Google+

Some people are simply more tech savvy than their friends and family and often end up offering advice on the ins and outs of computer use. But, this can be difficult when people don't live in the same city.

Google is attempting to help out folks in these situations with a new Google + Hangout feature. The Web giant announced Thursday that it is rolling out a Hangouts remote desktop, which is powered by the same technology as the Chrome Remote Desktop. The feature lets users video chat while troubleshooting.

"Hangouts Remote Desktop lets you help others by controlling … Read more

Google Now gives iPhone users a taste of Android

CNET Update wants answers now:

One of the killer features of Android is now available to Apple devices. It's called Google Now, and iOS users will find it inside the Google Search app. Google Now can be thought of as a personal assistant app. It taps into your location and Google accounts to learn about you, and it displays info you might find interesting. For example, it can alert you to traffic on your commute to work or the latest score of the sports team you follow. On Android, Google Now is limited to devices with 4.1 Jelly … Read more

Chat apps now more popular than SMS worldwide

A handful of popular chat applications have already found a way to outpace SMS, according to new data.

Research firm Informa announced today that six of the most popular mobile chat applications, including WhatsApp, BlackBerry Messenger, Viber, Nimbuzz, Apple's iMessage, and KakaoTalk, averaged nearly 19 billion messages sent and received worldwide each day in 2012. The company estimates that 17.6 billion SMS messages were sent each day, as well.

According to GigaOm, which earlier reported on Informa's data, which was commissioned by the Financial Times, nearly 50 billion messages will be sent next year over mobile applications, … Read more