Snapchat is one of those odd niche services that has really exploded in popularity. To stay truly trendy it has really been branching out recently with interesting features, such as sending money and a cool new rich-media content platform, called Discover.

All of this, however, has remained inaccessible for Windows Phone users. Snapchat has really decided to distance itself from the OS, but a few third-party developers have been working hard to bring the experience to Windows users. One such effort is 6discover, an app that lets you access Snapchat’s discover media on a Lumia device. In a recent development, its creator has been under a lot of heat to take the app down, form no other than Snapchat. Read more »

Despite its modest birth WhatsApp has become a veritable force in the messaging realm and has been growing in popularity exponentially over the past few years. Yesterday, Jan Koum, CEO and co-founder of the mobile messenger, shared on his Facebook page that the product has reached yet another veritable milestone – 800 million monthly active users.

Last August, this number was around 600 million and this January – 700 million. At this rate of about 25 million new active users per month, the service could very well exceed 1 billion, by the end of the year. Needless to say, this is a huge achievement and the exponential growth of WhatsApp has become even more impressive after Facebook paid a hefty $19 billion and took the platform under its wing in February 2014. Read more »

Electronic Arts released a trailer of the upcoming Star Wars Battlefront video game. The blockbuster title will hit the shelves later this year, on November 17 for Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC.

Star Wars Battlefront blends first-person and third-person action with mind-blowing graphics. Read more »

Huawei unveiled the P8 a couple of days ago. The flagship smartphone is headed to stores soon, and it looks like the Chinese company has a surprise prepared for its customers in the UK. The leaked image you can see below is complemented by a rumor saying UK-based buyers of the P8 will get “VIP Service”.

What this means is that you’ll get same-day courier replacement if you have a faulty unit. According to a source inside Huawei, customers will be able to call a special number and speak to a customer rep who will diagnose the problem. If the issue is covered under warranty, then a new handset will be dispatched immediately, with same-day or next-day arrival (if the call happens after the cut-off time for the same-day option) at the customer’s doorstep. Read more »

The new touch-friendly Office universal apps have made their debut on the Windows 10 preview builds in February, but so far they’ve only been available for tablets, laptops, and desktops.

However, before April is over the same Word, Excel, and PowerPoint universal apps will make their way to the Windows 10 preview for phones, which itself was released a couple of months ago. Read more »

All Star Wars fans feel overwhelmed with the first official trailer of the movie Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Not only that, Star Wars teamed up with Twitter to introduce new emojis for the social network.

Japan’s All Nippon Airways has now also joined the hype train by announcing a Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner Jet Plane. Painted with Star Wars’ adorable R2-D2 droid look, it also bears a massive Star Wars logo. It would be fun if the internals are customized as well. Read more »

Samsung has been beating its chest over the strong Corning Gorilla Glass 4 panels used in the Galaxy S6 edge flagship smartphone. The metal frame around those panels appears strong too but there still appear to be some weak spots in the design.

A Greek Tech Blog pointed at a potential issue with the chrome finish around the camera of the Galaxy S6 edge. The color layer on top of the chrome-finish aluminum ring over the protruding camera easily comes off by simply rubbing it with a finger. Read more »

Looks like Facebook is staring at fresh trouble in Europe, as data protection authorities there have launched a joint probe into the way the company handles privacy.

“There is concerted collective action between five European authorities, France, Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands and Spain,” said head of France’s CNIL privacy watchdog Isabelle Falque-Pierrotin, adding that the project is being coordinated by the Netherlands. She revealed that watchdogs are also likely to look into the sharing of data between different apps such as Instagram or Whatsapp, both of which are owned by Facebook. Read more »

Zack Snyder’s upcoming Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice is one of the most anticipated superhero movies (or just movies) right now. For the first time, we will be seeing Batman and Superman duke it out in live action on the big screen.

The movie is still a year away from launch and other than a few images of the characters we haven’t seen much. Until this drops by. Somebody managed to record a video of the teaser trailer that was screened in some places and so here we are. Read more »

Just a few months after hackers breached Sony Picture Entertainment’s computer network, stealing sensitive information and effectively bringing the studio to a standstill, WikiLeaks has published the stolen data – comprising 173,132 emails and 30,287 separate documents – in a fully searchable format.

“This archive shows the inner workings of an influential multinational corporation,” said WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. “It is newsworthy and at the centre of a geo-political conflict. It belongs in the public domain. WikiLeaks will ensure it stays there.” Read more »

Chrome for iOS got a major update today that added several useful new feature. The first one is a new widget that sits in your Today view. The widget allows you to open a new Chrome tab or do a Google voice search right from the notification window. And if you happen to copy a URL from some other app, the URL will appear in the widget so one click will open it straight into Chrome.

Another addition is pull to refresh, which lets you refresh the web page by pulling down on it, which was first implemented in the Android version of the app. What wasn’t in the Android version, however, was that you can pull down and then slide your finger left to quickly open a new tab or right to close the current one, which is displayed with a neat little animation. Read more »

“Chewie…We’re home.”

Imagine the hysteria and adrenaline among the Star Wars fans when Hans Solo (Harrison Ford) and Chewbacca (Peter Mayhew) show up on the screen. These are the two beloved characters from the original Star Wars saga and are part of the official seventh movie – Star Wars: The Force Awakens. This movie is set 30 years after the events of Return of the Jedi.

Disney is hosting a fan convention Star Wars Celebration, at the Anaheim Convention Center through the weekend. The StarWars.com has been offering live stream of the fan event and also the special panel for the Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Read more »

Back in October last year, Google said that it’d keep supporting Chrome on Windows XP through at least April 2015. Now that April has arrived, the Mountain View, California-based company has announced that it is once again extending the support period for the browser on the unsupported OS.

“We will continue to provide regular updates and security patches to Chrome on XP through the end of 2015,” said Chrome’s director of engineering Mark Larson in a blog post. He also encouraged XP users to update to a supported, secure operating system. Read more »

In a truly surprising fashion Microsoft released its mobile top-down shooting game Halo: Spartan Strike for Apple iOS devices. The touch-optimized premium title is now available in the Apple App Store for $5.99.

The Redmond giant also made the game’s predecessor Halo: Spartan Assault available for iOS. Read more »

Today Amazon has unveiled yet another of its Android app deals. This time around, you can download 25 apps which normally cost money, entirely for free. There are both apps and games in the bundle, and you can take advantage of the offer until April 19. Added together, the whole thing is a $105 value.

To download the apps you’ll (obviously) need to use the Amazon Appstore for Android. The free apps are basically a way for the retailer to make sure people use its app store. Read more »