With the latest news of Saudi Arabia shutting down BIS service to their population, and the other countries threatening to cut off BIS access to devices in their respective countries, I found this little tidbit to be interesting. Tobias from Nimbuzz fired me an email this morning, letting me know that he has seen a massive increase in registrations for the free multi-platform instant messaging client. Over the past week, registrations have gone from a few hundred a week, to 8,000 on Wednesday and a whopping 35,000 new users yesterday alone! Users facing loss of their BBM capabilities are scrambling to find an alternative, and it seems that the number one solution for them is Nimbuzz.
The main thrust of the ban in this region is against the BlackBerry encryption methods, and Nimbuzz runs off a different format, allowing it to remain legal. With other countries in the region threatening the same type of action, it will be very interesting to see what happens in the coming weeks for this company. Rumor has it that UAE, Lebanon, Indonesia, India and China are considering the same measures, and registrations from users in those countries are mirroring that, beginning to climb steadily as their governments continue to move towards their goals.
Google will pay you a measly $1.50 a week to track EVERYTHING on your phone
Google already tracks a lot of your data, whether you want them to or not. But for a mere pittance they'll track even more of it! Why? All so they can better sell ads to put in front of your face. Cooooooool.
ChatGPT's totally predictable disruption of education
The moment ChatGPT was unveiled the outcome for education was obvious: students were absolutely going to use it. But does it count as cheating?
Big Oil is coming for EVs (in a good way?)
Some of the biggest oil companies in the world have acknowledged that the future of surface transportation will largely be electric, and they don't want to miss out on that rapidly expanding pie.