danie10

The Android developer just published an updated landing page for Google Messages, showing off key features ranging from customization, privacy and security, and, of course, AI.

On this landing page, there are different sections for each feature set, including one for RCS. As spotted by 9to5Google, if you expand this list of RCS features and scroll to the bottom, you see a section on "Coming soon on iOS: Better messaging for all." That's no surprise: We've known Apple was adopting RCS since November. However, it's the next line that brings the news: "Apple has announced it will be adopting RCS in the fall of 2024."

Of course, this does not say a lot as it is "in the fall" which is anywhere over a couple of months, and Google has tried to embarrass Apple into making moves before. I suppose, though, there is the looming court case against Apple which is anyway keeping pressure on Apple. If it were not for the US court case, I would have guessed Apple may have pulled out after the EU had ruled Apple was not a dominant player in the market (although the EU case was looking more at interoperability with WhatsApp and others in Apple Messages).

Of course, with Apple actually including RCS now, they can probably argue that there is interoperability via RCS between their platform and Android too. It must be remembered that in many countries, like mine, SMS's are paid for so are very expensive to use for any form of chatting, and the costs go up exponentially when you text an international number.

I personally have quite a few issues with interoperability with Apple:

• I still have AirTags from when I had an iPhone and I daily get the audio beeps warning me the AirTags are not connected (I use an Android phone and alternate between an iPad and an Android tablet)
• I can't wait to sell my AirTags and get the new one's Google was working on that will interoperate with Apple, but supposedly Apple has been delaying building in that support into their devices (which Google already built into Android for AirTags in 2023)
• Because I was on Apple Messages and my iPad still sometimes connects, I find a message on my iPad that arrived a week ago which I had not seen (I had Beeper which was solving this problem)

Apple is not at all dominant outside the USA, but it makes interacting with Apple users quite a pain, as Apple has gone out of their way to try to keep their users inside the walled garden.

See https://lifehacker.com/tech/google-just-revealed-when-apple-will-officially-adopt-rcs

#technology #RCS #Apple #interoperability

Passkeys are an easy and secure alternative to traditional passwords that can help prevent phishing attacks and make your online experience smoother and safer.

Unfortunately, Big Tech’s rollout of this technology prioritized using passkeys to lock people into their walled gardens over providing universal security for everyone (you have to use their platform, which often does not work across all platforms). And many password managers only support passkeys on specific platforms or provide them with paid plans, meaning you only get to reap passkeys’ security benefits if you can afford them.

They’ve reimagined passkeys, helping them reach their full potential as free, universal, and open-source tech. They have made online privacy and security accessible to everyone, regardless of what device you use or your ability to pay.

I'm still a paying customer of Bitwarden as Proton Pass was up to now still not doing everything, but this may make me re-evaluate using Proton Pass as I'm also a paying customer of Proton Pass. It certainly looks like Proton Pass is advancing at quite a pace, and Proton has already built up a good reputation for private e-mail and an excellent VPN client.

Proton is also the ONLY passkey provider that I've seen allowing you to store, share, and export passkeys just like you can with passwords!

See https://proton.me/blog/proton-pass-passkeys

#technology #passkeys #security #ProtonPass #opensource

Mbin is a decentralized content aggregator, voting, discussion and microblogging platform running on the fediverse network. It can communicate with many other ActivityPub services, including Kbin, Mastodon, Lemmy, Pleroma, Peertube. It is an open source alternative to other link aggregator services like Reddit. The initiative aims to promote a free and open internet.

Mbin is focused on what the community wants, pull requests can be merged by any repo owner (with merge rights in GitHub). Discussions take place on Matrix then consensus has to be reached by the community. If approved by the community, only one approval on the PR is required by one of the Mbin maintainers. It's built entirely on trust.

It seems it's claim to fame is being more open and accepting of community changes and improvements. It can install as either bare metal/VM or as a Docker container.

Although anyone can install it and self-host it, their project page also contains a link to various instances that already exist and which anyone can register on.

See https://github.com/MbinOrg/mbin

#technology #opensource #Fediverse #linkaggregator #decentralised

Many of us Linux users may have been using Timothy Crosley's excellent app for Linux. But with the Pillow library causing a problem after it was updated, we realised Timothy seems to have disappeared. Within a week or so of that realisation, the project was now forked to https://github.com/streamdeck-linux-gui/streamdeck-linux-gui and even the AUR package has now updated from the new fork The bug was fixed and the Linux support is again fully working.

The project has a coordinator, and a few people looking at issues, but it would be great to see if there are more devs who are interested in assisting, especially with adding of any new features. For example, users would like to see hold for repeat key presses, buttons showing dynamic display information, etc. So right now we can't expect too much to happen, but if any of you know any devs who may be able to assist, that would be greatly appreciated.

It's a long shot, but maybe even someone from Elgato wants to unofficially assist as well, after all even though we use Linux, we have bought and support the Elgato Stream Deck. The more features we can use of it, means we are less likely to migrate off onto some other brand.

** Now in Android and iOS app stores **

No Face, No Name, No Number, No SIM card, No Internet! Berty is a messenger that doesn’t require any of your personal data or network connection (using Bluetooth Low Energy BLE). All conversations are encrypted with end-to-end encryption, in a fully distributed network.

It is a peer-to-peer messenger with no servers, no cloud - your data is only stored on the device where Berty is installed and used. No one would be able to access the data or shut the app down, not even the developers.

Being P2P, it means the IP address needs to be available to route messaging, but their site explains a bit about how they've tried to mask this. Whilst Briar is an excellent alternative, it is still Android only. The closest alternative is maybe Jami, but it lacks a non-Internet Bluetooth alternative if I recall correctly. Interestingly, Berty also can use Airdrop (iOS to iOS) and Android's Nearby as alternative protocols.

You can share your details and add contacts via a QR code, public key, or an invite link. It is currently available on both iOS and Android, with desktop clients to follow.

See https://berty.tech/

#technology #messenger #berty #P2P #IPFS #privacy

I only see posts dating up to Sep '21 and nothing more. I've cleared my profile, reinstalled a new profile, etc, but still Sep '21.

I also noticed neither the blog, the community nor their Twitter account shows anything past Sep '21.

Now I'm starting to think maybe it's not me.... But how does a P2P network just stop working, if so?

Friendica is a decentralized open-source social network which federates with many other social networks including diaspora*, Hubzilla, and the Fediverse of social networks. It can mirror too with Twitter and IFTTT, or export posts to Discourse, libertree, Tumblr, Wordpress and e-mail.

It is a good candidate for being an alternative to Facebook, and you can either join a public server, or self-host your own instance.

In this video I give an overview of Friendica's functionality and features, a comparison with Hubzilla, a look at it's interface, and a tour through the settings menu. I also make the case for it being a cleaner way to use Twitter.

Watch https://youtu.be/nS6oAy7ibqc

#technology #opensource #friendica #decentralized #selfhosted

Matrix is an open source project that publishes the Matrix open standard for secure, decentralised, real-time communication. You can self-host and federate, or join existing servers, to enable instant messaging, text chat in chatrooms, voice and video chat, file transfer, and even bridging between many other networks such as IRC, XMPP, Signal, Telegram, WhatsApp, RSS, Facebook Messenger, Discord, Slack, and many more.

End-to-End-Encryption, device verification and trust, replication of chatrooms for redundancy, are all hallmarks of Matrix. It can serve as a secure communications platform for governments with roving diplomats, or for end users be an alternative to Signal, Telegram and WhatsApp.

It is the opposite of a walled garden, with its vision of acting as a generic HTTP messaging and data synchronisation system for the whole web - allowing people, services and devices to easily communicate with each other, empowering users to own and control their data, and select the services and vendors they want to use.

Watch at https://youtu.be/3AVsNqH_-9M or at https://odysee.com/@GadgeteerZA:4/matrix-an-open-network-for-secure%2C-2:b

#technology #opensource #security #privacy #instantmessaging #matrix #alternativeto #selfhosting #federated #decentralised

Internet Relay Chat (IRC) is a real-time text chat social network that was created in 1988 in Finland, and is still in active use today.

In this video I talk about what it is and how it differs from other social networks, how to connect to it, I show what the user interface looks like, and end off with some tips on how to secure your nick ID.

It is often used for direct contact with technology project developers and other tech support, but there are also numerous social chat channels, or you can create your own channel in a few seconds if it does not already exist.

Watch at https://youtu.be/PDRzuVHFWLQ or on Odysee at https://odysee.com/@GadgeteerZA:4/overview-of-the-irc-real-time-chat:2?r=515TnKdvdv3jk94hmbJ2443NXHia7iQP

#technology #socialnetworks #alternativeto #IRC #social

This open source and privacy focussed social network offers a lot more functionality than most other social networks especially in the P2P space. In this video I explain how to get connected to other peers, I give an overview of all the functions it can perform, and end off touring around the interface and showing how it works.

Functions include Chatrooms, Mail, Channels, Forums, Boards with more to come in the next version.

My RetroShare Link of the video at retroshare://file?name=My+Overview+Overview+of+RetroShare+Social+Network.mp4&size=581508519&hash=9633d48565b60031310ad9ce447b7de076524dd6

Watch at https://youtu.be/A-qkix_R6Hs

#technology #opensource #socialnetwork #retroshare