It seems hard to believe, but when telephones were first introduced in the 19th century they only worked in pairs. For every person you wished to talk to, you needed a separate phone.
Fortunately, a network was eventually built that allowed global communication to flourish, but in the world of instant messaging, walled gardens still inhibit free and easy communication. Services such as Apple’s iMessage, Microsoft’s Skype and Google’s Hangouts work strictly independently of one another. WhatsApp, the world’s biggest messaging app, bought by Facebook for $19 billion in 2014, can’t even send messages to Facebook’s own Messenger application, or indeed to users of Instagram, Facebook’s photo-sharing app.
But change is afoot. By the year 2020, Facebook aims to merge the messaging facilities of all three services, while keeping the apps themselves separate. "Fast, simple, reliable," said a company spokesman. "We want to build the best messaging experiences we can." But Facebook rarely makes decisions for purely altruistic reasons, so what's in it for them? And is it as beneficial to users as it's making out?
Facebook's reputation has taken a pummelling of late. The Cambridge Analytica scandal, in which the data of 87 million Facebook users was harvested by a political consultancy firm, caused confidence in the company's security to fall, according to one study, from 80 per cent of users to just 27 per cent.
In addition, growing awareness of how Facebook mines personal data to serve relevant advertisements has led to growing disquiet. It’s rare to stumble across any positive Facebook news these days; even last week, a class-action lawsuit against the firm revealed that the company had, over a number of years, allowed and encouraged children to unwittingly spend their parents’ money in online games.
In response to the ongoing public relations disaster, founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg penned a piece for the Wall Street Journal last week in an attempt to defend the company. "Billions of people get a free service to stay connected to the people they care about and to express themselves," he wrote. "Small businesses around the world get access to tools to grow and create jobs."
Zuckerberg’s decision to merge his empire’s messaging services certainly fulfils his often-stated dream of connecting the world, but many employees of Instagram and WhatsApp are unhappy with the move – not least because Zuckerberg promised them independence.
“We need to [build] on Instagram’s strengths and features, rather than just trying to integrate everything into Facebook," he said when Instagram was purchased in 2012. WhatsApp’s co-founders, Brian Acton and Jan Koum, were reassured that their strict no-advertisement policy would be respected by Facebook, but last year it was announced that adverts would be introduced to extract revenue from a platform that makes very little money. In response, Koum and Acton left the company. So did Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger, co-founders of Instagram.
The merger makes sense in the context of Facebook’s waning popularity. Zuckerberg sees messaging as critical to the company’s future, and by letting people send messages to WhatsApp and Instagram contacts from within Facebook, they will be kept on the platform for longer. But the differing stances on privacy between the services create a number of technical and moral difficulties.
WhatsApp is proud of the end-to-end encryption that prevents its messages from being read by anyone except the sender and the recipient. Instagram and Messenger currently have no such protection, and while Facebook has vowed to give them end-to-end encryption as part of the merger, other critical differences remain.
Instagram and WhatsApp can be used anonymously, but Facebook requires you to use your real name. WhatsApp requires a functioning mobile phone number to operate, while the others do not. Authorities in Europe have long expressed concern over Facebook’s attempts to pool data across its services, but the likely merging of names, pseudonyms, phone numbers, Facebook profile information and other metadata (such as location) is of great value to Facebook. It doesn’t need to be able to read your messages to serve relevant adverts to you across all three platforms. Such information can be gleaned in many other ways.
People consistently tell us that if they're going to see ads, they want them to be relevant. That means we need to understand what they're interested in.
But many WhatsApp users who are accustomed to an advert-free experience will resent adverts following them across from Facebook. They may also resent the inevitable cross-platform deluge of spam, misinformation and unwanted communication; it is, after all, possible to be too connected to each other. Some may protest by leaving the platform for other apps such as Signal or Telegram – but if one’s friends aren’t using them, what use are they? The sheer number of people using these platforms makes them a captive audience.
“Ultimately, the business model of Facebook and other social networks depends on trust,” said Germany's Minister of Justice, Katarina Barley, at the weekend. “Lately, that is a commodity that has been in short supply.” Calls were made last week by a number of American advocacy groups to split Facebook from WhatsApp and Instagram based on what they believe is an abuse of its position in the market. This view may well be shared by the nominee for US Attorney General, William Barr, based on comments he made in recent testimony before Congress. “I think a lot of people wonder [how] these big behemoths have taken shape in Silicon Valley,” he said.
But that’s perhaps the most cunning part of Facebook’s move: by merging its messaging services, it makes itself harder to break apart. Facebook is, in some ways, so large that it can do what it wants. The 2.6 billion people who use its services to communicate are likely to continue to dance to its tune.
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
Ain Issa camp:
- Established in 2016
- Houses 13,309 people, 2,092 families, 62 per cent children
- Of the adult population, 49 per cent men, 51 per cent women (not including foreigners annexe)
- Most from Deir Ezzor and Raqqa
- 950 foreigners linked to ISIS and their families
- NGO Blumont runs camp management for the UN
- One of the nine official (UN recognised) camps in the region
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Best Academy: Ajax and Benfica
Best Agent: Jorge Mendes
Best Club : Liverpool
Best Coach: Jurgen Klopp (Liverpool)
Best Goalkeeper: Alisson Becker
Best Men’s Player: Cristiano Ronaldo
Best Partnership of the Year Award by SportBusiness: Manchester City and SAP
Best Referee: Stephanie Frappart
Best Revelation Player: Joao Felix (Atletico Madrid and Portugal)
Best Sporting Director: Andrea Berta (Atletico Madrid)
Best Women's Player: Lucy Bronze
Best Young Arab Player: Achraf Hakimi
Kooora – Best Arab Club: Al Hilal (Saudi Arabia)
Kooora – Best Arab Player: Abderrazak Hamdallah (Al-Nassr FC, Saudi Arabia)
Player Career Award: Miralem Pjanic and Ryan Giggs
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
The Library: A Catalogue of Wonders
Stuart Kells, Counterpoint Press
The biog
Name: Atheja Ali Busaibah
Date of birth: 15 November, 1951
Favourite books: Ihsan Abdel Quddous books, such as “The Sun will Never Set”
Hobbies: Reading and writing poetry
Rashid & Rajab
Director: Mohammed Saeed Harib
Stars: Shadi Alfons, Marwan Abdullah, Doaa Mostafa Ragab
Two stars out of five
Our family matters legal consultant
Name: Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.
MATCH INFO
Uefa Champions League semi-final, second leg result:
Ajax 2-3 Tottenham
Tottenham advance on away goals rule after tie ends 3-3 on aggregate
Final: June 1, Madrid
What are the GCSE grade equivalents?
- Grade 9 = above an A*
- Grade 8 = between grades A* and A
- Grade 7 = grade A
- Grade 6 = just above a grade B
- Grade 5 = between grades B and C
- Grade 4 = grade C
- Grade 3 = between grades D and E
- Grade 2 = between grades E and F
- Grade 1 = between grades F and G
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Company Profile
Name: Thndr
Started: 2019
Co-founders: Ahmad Hammouda and Seif Amr
Sector: FinTech
Headquarters: Egypt
UAE base: Hub71, Abu Dhabi
Current number of staff: More than 150
Funds raised: $22 million
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Killing of Qassem Suleimani
Temple numbers
Expected completion: 2022
Height: 24 meters
Ground floor banquet hall: 370 square metres to accommodate about 750 people
Ground floor multipurpose hall: 92 square metres for up to 200 people
First floor main Prayer Hall: 465 square metres to hold 1,500 people at a time
First floor terrace areas: 2,30 square metres
Temple will be spread over 6,900 square metres
Structure includes two basements, ground and first floor
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
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What can you do?
Document everything immediately; including dates, times, locations and witnesses
Seek professional advice from a legal expert
You can report an incident to HR or an immediate supervisor
You can use the Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation’s dedicated hotline
In criminal cases, you can contact the police for additional support
So what is Spicy Chickenjoy?
Just as McDonald’s has the Big Mac, Jollibee has Spicy Chickenjoy – a piece of fried chicken that’s crispy and spicy on the outside and comes with a side of spaghetti, all covered in tomato sauce and topped with sausage slices and ground beef. It sounds like a recipe that a child would come up with, but perhaps that’s the point – a flavourbomb combination of cheap comfort foods. Chickenjoy is Jollibee’s best-selling product in every country in which it has a presence.
NBA Finals so far
(Toronto lead 3-1 in best-of-seven series_
Game 1 Raptors 118 Warriors 109
Game 2 Raptors 104 Warriors 109
Game 3 Warriors 109 Raptors 123
Game 4 Warriors 92 Raptors 105
ABU DHABI CARD
5pm: UAE Martyrs Cup (TB) Conditions; Dh90,000; 2,200m
5.30pm: Wathba Stallions Cup (PA) Handicap; Dh70,000; 1,400m
6pm: UAE Matyrs Trophy (PA) Maiden; Dh80,000; 1,600m
6.30pm: Sheikha Fatima bint Mubarak (IFAHR) Apprentice Championship (PA) Prestige; Dh100,000; 1,600m
7pm: Sheikha Fatima bint Mubarak (IFAHR) Ladies World Championship (PA) Prestige; Dh125,000; 1,600m
8pm: Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan Jewel Crown (PA) Group 1; Dh5,000,000; 1,600m
Series information
Pakistan v Dubai
First Test, Dubai International Stadium
Sun Oct 6 to Thu Oct 11
Second Test, Zayed Stadium, Abu Dhabi
Tue Oct 16 to Sat Oct 20
Play starts at 10am each day
Teams
Pakistan
1 Mohammed Hafeez, 2 Imam-ul-Haq, 3 Azhar Ali, 4 Asad Shafiq, 5 Haris Sohail, 6 Babar Azam, 7 Sarfraz Ahmed, 8 Bilal Asif, 9 Yasir Shah, 10, Mohammed Abbas, 11 Wahab Riaz or Mir Hamza
Australia
1 Usman Khawaja, 2 Aaron Finch, 3 Shaun Marsh, 4 Mitchell Marsh, 5 Travis Head, 6 Marnus Labuschagne, 7 Tim Paine, 8 Mitchell Starc, 9 Peter Siddle, 10 Nathan Lyon, 11 Jon Holland
FOOTBALL TEST
Team X 1 Team Y 0
Scorers
Red card
Man of the Match
Real estate tokenisation project
Dubai launched the pilot phase of its real estate tokenisation project last month.
The initiative focuses on converting real estate assets into digital tokens recorded on blockchain technology and helps in streamlining the process of buying, selling and investing, the Dubai Land Department said.
Dubai’s real estate tokenisation market is projected to reach Dh60 billion ($16.33 billion) by 2033, representing 7 per cent of the emirate’s total property transactions, according to the DLD.
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Six large-scale objects on show
- Concrete wall and windows from the now demolished Robin Hood Gardens housing estate in Poplar
- The 17th Century Agra Colonnade, from the bathhouse of the fort of Agra in India
- A stagecloth for The Ballet Russes that is 10m high – the largest Picasso in the world
- Frank Lloyd Wright’s 1930s Kaufmann Office
- A full-scale Frankfurt Kitchen designed by Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky, which transformed kitchen design in the 20th century
- Torrijos Palace dome