Apps

WhatsApp is working on 32-people voice chats

Available in beta

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A multi-person voice call can become chaotic. When more than a dozen people with different pings speak over each other, you can hardly hear yourself think. However, if the situation calls for it, there is a new option for users. WhatsApp is developing a way for 32 people to share a call simultaneously.

Over the past months, the messaging app worked on ways to make the platform more viable for communities. The current state of WhatsApp allows users to gather together as a group for shared interests.

As spotted by WABetaInfo, WhatsApp is actively working on a way for voice chats that include up to 32 users at a time. This is different from a group call, though. Using the new feature will not ping all members of a group. If the feature is enabled, anyone can just join the voice chat and talk with one another. You don’t have to worry about getting endless pings from a single community.

On a more technical side, WhatsApp will keep a voice chat open up to an hour after everyone leaves the chat. The chats themselves are end-to-end encrypted, much like the app’s other features.

Now, the feature is still in beta. Meta has not announced if and when the voice chat feature will drop through a wider release.

SEE ALSO: WhatsApp is adding a way to use more accounts on one device

Apps

X glitch misplaces most photos from 2014 and beyond

Only a few were restored

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Archiving social media is a real problem today. Because most of public discourse happens through social media platforms, a single break in infrastructure can easily wipe out entire conversations and milestones in the modern era. Over the weekend, that exact scenario happened. A glitch on X reportedly erased most images and links from 2014 and beyond.

As spotted by Tom Coates on the platform, images from before December 2014 disappeared from the site. Likewise, links from the same period are also broken and lead nowhere. Among those that disappeared, one of the most notorious losses was a photo taken by Ellen DeGeneres at the Oscars — a tweet that garnered an enormous amount of retweets at the time.

X has not publicly commented on the supposed glitch. However, after the deletion was noticed, the platform restored the iconic Ellen DeGeneres photo to its full glory. It’s not a complete restoration, though. A lot of content are still missing.

The single photo’s restoration suggests that the content wasn’t outright deleted but rather misplaced. As some have pointed out, a few instances are still directly available from the servers. Users have also speculated that the glitch was intentionally done to free up valuable server space.

Regardless, the glitch — intentional or accidental — opens up an important issue on how the world can archive content on social media platforms. Despite how inane our conversations can be from day to day, losing a section of social media also means losing entire swaths of public discourse to the ether.

SEE ALSO: Twitter is rebranding to 𝕏

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Apps

WhatsApp now lets users share photos in HD

Video coming soon

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Quickly sharing smartphone photography can be a chore. Not every messaging platform allows lossless media sharing. Often, a platform will sacrifice image quality for speed. Finally, WhatsApp is getting with the program and allowing users to send HD photos on the app.

Today, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg officially announced a new feature coming to WhatsApp. Starting now, the messaging platform is rolling out an update to enable HD image sharing.

According to WABetaInfo, the feature will bump up image quality to 4096 x 2692 resolution. Now, an upper limit naturally implies that there’s still compression going on, especially for photos taken at much higher resolutions. WhatsApp has not explained how compression will work under the new HD feature. However, it’s still a good improvement.

Alternatively, if users don’t want to handle the increase in storage or bandwidth use, they can continue to send images in standard quality. The option, once the app is updated, can be accessed by an HD icon when sending images.

Besides image sharing, WhatsApp is also working on adding HD sharing for videos. However, Zuckerberg did not share a timeframe for the improved version of the feature. The update should be rolling out now for WhatsApp users.

SEE ALSO: WhatsApp is working on 32-people voice chats

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X is working on adding video chat to the app

Confirmed by the CEO

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X is continuing its arduous trek to become an all-in-one app. This time, after reintroducing native livestreaming, the platform is moving towards the next natural evolution: video chat. X CEO Linda Yaccarino has officially announced that the feature will come to the platform soon.

In an interview with CNBC, Yaccarino, who took the reins from Elon Musk earlier this year, announced that “soon, you’ll be able to make video chat calls without having to give your phone number to anyone on the platform.” As if that’s not enough, Andrea Conway, a designer at the company, also posted that she “just called someone on X.”

Given Conway’s post, the feature should be in a relatively stable part of the development process. However, it’s not clear when and how the platform plans to launch video chats for the public. It’s also unclear whether the feature will be available to all users or only to those who pay for X Premium, formerly known as Twitter Blue.

With the evolution of all social media platforms (and not just X), it’s not a surprising development for the company. The industry is dedicated to creating the next “everything” app or a hub where users can find everything they’ll need for their digital world: social media, communication, commerce, and other functionalities. TikTok, for instance, recently started tests to support podcasts.

SEE ALSO: X is bringing back livestreaming

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