The European Commission said Friday that it has approved Facebook Inc.'s proposed $19-billion US acquisition of instant messaging service WhatsApp Inc. The commission said in a news release that Facebook's Messenger application and WhatsApp "are not close competitors and that consumers would continue to have a wide choice of alternative consumer communications apps after the transaction." Facebook announced its planned purchase of WhatsApp in February. A request to Facebook to clarify when it expects the transaction to close was not immediately answered....
Mobile picture-sharing service Snapchat has introduced instant messaging and video-calling capabilities to its application. Snapchat has been known for being a way to share photographs between users on Apple Inc. iPhones or devices that run on Google Inc.’s Android software which is then automatically deleted unless users save them. The company said in a blog Thursday that instant messages will also disappear by default. There will also a button one can press to start a video chat with another available user on the Snapchat service, the blog said. It’s been widely reported that...
Facebook Inc., in announcing the purchase of a pioneering virtual reality company, said this kind of immersive technology is "a strong candidate to emerge as the next social and communications...
BlackBerry Ltd. CEO John Chen said Tuesday he would consider selling BBM, the company’s messaging service, according to different media reports Tuesday. CNBC quoted Chen in an interview as saying: "If somebody comes to...
BlackBerry Ltd. said Monday that its BBM instant-messaging service would become available to users of Microsoft Corp.’s Windows Phones and Nokia Corp.’s X smartphones. BlackBerry made the...
Facebook Inc. said Wednesday has reached an agreement to pay about $19 billion US for mobile-messaging application company WhatsApp Inc. Facebook said in a press release that the purchase price includes $4 billion US in cash and...