Facebook’s social Zoom competitor Messenger Rooms goes live globally

Zoom was never meant to be a social network, but the enterprise video chat app has become essential software for those looking to stay in touch with friends and family during the pandemic.
Today, Facebook looks to steal back the service’s social video chat growth as it globally launches Messenger Rooms, its new group video chat service, supporting video calls with up to 50 participants with no time limits on call length. The feature capitalizes on video chat’s massive spike in usage across services and hooks it up to the growth tactics Facebook used to push Facebook and Instagram Live into everyone’s feeds.
Messenger Rooms is a drop-in video chat, so when a friend using the feature creates a room, Facebook will alert users via a new section in the news feed or push a notification to certain friends. As Facebook detailed when it announced the feature, soon users will also be able to join and initiate calls from inside Instagram DMs, WhatsApp and on Portal, making this a company-wide social effort for the company.
For now users can kick off a call from Messenger or the Facebook app and send out invites to users, even ones that don’t have a Facebook account.
During the latest earnings call, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said time on group video chats had increased 1,000% in recent weeks. Given the feature’s social grounding and lack of screen sharing, the app isn’t likely to scale heavily into enterprise use cases and infringe on Zoom’s core business. With Messenger Rooms, Facebook is looking to create a scalable, free alternative and steal back some of the conversation from platforms like Zoom and TikTok, which have been awfully buzzy during recent months.
5 Android apps you shouldn’t miss this week

Joe Hindy / Android Authority
Welcome to the 470th edition of Android Apps Weekly. Here are the big headlines from the last week.
- YouTube Music has an annoying censorship bug on Nest Hubs. It doesn’t let you play music with sensitive album art. You get the same warning on the phone app, but you can usually bypass it. Unfortunately, there are limited ways to bypass it on your Nest Hub. Hit the link to learn more.
- A former Facebook employee says Facebook can intentionally kill your battery. It does so through a process termed negative testing, where the app acts out, tanks your battery, and Facebook collects the data with it. It doesn’t happen to a ton of people, but it can happen to anyone.
- Samsung updated Good Lock this week, just in time for its Samsung Galaxy S23 launch. The update added an option to update every installed plugin at once. Previously, you had to update each one individually. It’s a minor quality-of-life improvement, but it’s a welcome one.
- ChatGPT is getting more serious. You can now spend $20 per month for a more powerful version of OpenAI’s bot. It’s only available to US customers right now, but it may expand later. The bot is also causing waves at Google, causing the company to ramp up its own AI work.
- Apex Legends Mobile is shutting down after less than one year. EA made the announcement just a month after half of the Internet, including us, dubbed it the best new game of 2022. EA cites challenges with the content pipeline. It makes sense, since many of the newer updates have included a host of bugs that the developers just can’t seem to squash. Oh well, it was a nice run.
Pompom: The Great Space Rescue
Price: Free / $5.49
Pompom: The Great Space Rescue is a platformer. You play as Pompom and you progress through the game by jumping through and around obstacles, avoiding enemies, and solve puzzles to progress. It pays ode to the 16-bit era of gaming, so you’ll see a lot of elements, including graphics, from that era. There are also a bunch of weapons and tools you’ll get to help you on your way. The actual gameplay has some runner elements where you run forward automatically, and that’s not a 16-bit era style, but the game is still fun.
Memori Note
Price: Free / $2.49

Memori Note is a note-taking app with an emphasis on reminding you of things. You write down what you want in the app, ask it to remind you about it at a random time, and it’ll do just that. The app also has color coding, a tags and filters system, and we think it looks pretty nice with its muted colors. There are also some backup settings if you want to transfer notes to a new device. We’re not sure how well it’ll do long term, but it definitely has the potential.
Devil Hunter Idle
Price: Free to play
Devil Hunter Idle is an action idle game. Your character hacks and slashes its way to level-ups, loot, and resources. You use those resources to strengthen your character so they can go back out and hack and slash more bad guys. That’s the primary gameplay loop, and it plays similarly to classic games like Buff Knight. The game’s over-the-top art style makes it feel like a lot more is happening, and the player does get to control some aspects of combat. The advertising is annoying, but you can pay to remove all of them. Other than that and some early bugs, the game is decent for its genre.
Rewind: Music Time Travel
Price: Free

Rewind: Music Time Travel is an app for music rediscovery. It’s basically a big timeline that you scroll through to see what the music world looked like in any given year. It’s a neat way to rediscover old hits, and remind yourself of stuff you used to listen to. When I tested this one, I used it to help fill out my YouTube Music library a little bit since I had forgotten some of the songs I used to listen to. This isn’t something you’ll use long-term, but it’s a neat little app anyway.
Checkers Clash
Price: Free to play
Checkers Clash is an online competitive game where you play checkers. It’s not a complicated experience. You get into a game with an opponent. The two of you take turns until one of you runs out of pieces or concedes the match. You can also invite your friends and play against them as well. Some other game features include 8×8 and 10×10 board options, bots to play against to improve your skill, and a rewards system where you collect various things. The matchmaking system is imperfect, as it is in almost all online games, but it’s one of the few competitive checkers apps on mobile.
If we missed any big Android apps or games releases, tell us about it in the comments.
Thank you for reading. Try these out too:
Family and friends question police theory that Nicola Bulley fell in river

icola Bulley’s family and friends have questioned a police theory that the missing dog walker fell in a river.
In a Facebook post, Ms Bulley’s sister, Louise Cunningham, urged people to “keep an open mind” as there is “no evidence whatsoever” that the dog walker fell in the river.
“Off the back of the latest Police media update, please can I add there is no evidence whatsoever that she has gone into the river, it’s just a theory,” she said.
“Everyone needs to keep an open mind as not all CCTV and leads have been investigated fully, the police confirmed the case is far from over.”
Search teams from Lancashire Constabulary are continuing to trawl the River Wyre near St Michael’s, working on the hypothesis that the missing mother-of-two, from nearby Inskip, could have fallen in when she disappeared on January 27.
Ms Bulley’s friend, Emma White, also cast doubt on the police theory, telling Sky News it was based on “limited information”.
“When we are talking about a life we can’t base it on a hypothesis – surely we need this factual evidence,” she said.
“That’s what the family and all of us are holding on to – that we are sadly no further on than last Friday.
“We still have no evidence, and that’s why we’re out together in force.
“You don’t base life on a hypothesis.”
Police believe the 45-year-old mortgage adviser went missing in just “a 10-minute window” while she was walking her dog, Willow, close to the River Wyre, after dropping off her daughters – aged six and nine – at school.
Ms Bulley had logged in to a Microsoft Teams call at 9.01am, which ended at 9.30am with her phone still connected to the call.
She was seen by another dog walker at 9.10am – the last known sighting – and police traced telephony records of her mobile phone as it remained on a bench overlooking the river at 9.20am.
The device was found by a dog walker at around 9.35am, with Willow nearby.
The police search has been aided by specialists and divers from HM Coastguard, mountain rescue, and Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service – with sniffer dogs, drones and police helicopters deployed.
Detectives are also working behind the scenes to analyse CCTV and dashcam videos, and members of the public with footage which could be useful have been urged to come forward.
The Strange Reason I Facebook-Stalk My Ex’s New Girlfriend

I think we can all agree that the internet has made it much, much harder to get over a breakup.
Sure, you may have successfully erased his number from your phone, used his junior high football T-shirt as a rag, put away all your couple photos, ordered him never to call again, and cursed him to hell, but all of that effort is almost a waste considering he’s just a click of the mouse away.
After a while, though, watching how he’s growing in the midriff via Facebook photos loses its luster. You already know almost everything about him anyway, after all that time you spent/wasted. But what about his new girlfriend? She’s someone to be curious about.
I’m not proud of this—as I am not proud of oh-so-many things I’ve admitted to but I am kind of obsessed with my ex’s new girlfriend.
Not in an Alicia Silverstone in The Crush sort of way—I am not going to trap the chick in a shed and set a hive of bees on her to attack. That would be crazy!
No, I just like to look at her Facebook page sometimes. It’s been set to private ever since the day I told my ex that I suspected he was lying to me about his relationship with her. He must have told her I was onto them because suddenly I didn’t have as much access to this mysterious girl I’d only ever met twice, who slipped in and changed my life without me noticing.
I don’t blame her entirely, or even mostly. I blame him and, to a certain degree, I blame myself. But, I mean, I kind of blame her. We met! Twice! My ex made a point of telling me I would like her! (Red flag, FYI, ladies!) She seemed enthused to meet me! She seemed nice.
Two weeks before my ex pulled the plug on our relationship—and coincidentally the day before the two of them went on a business trip together—she even had drinks with us and his mom. It never occurred to me that something was amiss.
I’ve never been the type to mistrust other women around a boyfriend.
For one, it takes two to tango, and, ultimately, his behavior is what I should be concerned with. But I also don’t believe that “she doesn’t owe” me anything nonsense. People owe other people kindness and consideration, whether they know them personally or not.
When I finally found out that my suspicions were correct—that my ex had likely cheated on me with his female coworker, was dating her while he kept me on a string, and was lying about it—I was, of course, disgusted and furious at him. We have not spoken or exchanged words, even written ones, since. I don’t know that we ever will. But I was also so furious and disgusted by her because what she did was so incomprehensible to me.
Over the last nine months, a lot of my anger towards both of them has faded as I’ve come to realize that our breakup was necessary, if poorly, poorly executed. The shock, betrayal, and devastation of it have had a lasting impact.
But while most of my rage has dissipated, my curiosity has only grown. Who is this person who now occupies the place in my ex’s heart that used to belong to me?
The other day I looked at her Facebook page for the first time in a little while. She had a new picture up, closely cropped so it was mostly her face, but I recognized the edge of the face of the person next to her in the original image. It was him. Smiling. Happy seeming. The same expression on countless photos I’ve now got tucked away in a box.
What is she like? She has a nose piercing. I used to have one, but my ex didn’t like it, so when the stud fell out I never replaced it.
She’s younger than I am, so she’s probably not thinking about marriage and kids yet.
But does she want to get married? Does she want kids? Does she know he told me that he doesn’t want them? Is that OK with her? Does she, did she, ever think about me? Has she met his parents, the people who almost became my own, in a way?
Does she make him happy? How? Does she mind the things about him that I minded? Do they have nicknames for each other, as we did? And the biggest question of all—are they in love?
Unfortunately, the internet doesn’t have the answers.
The Frisky is dedicated to sharing relationship tips, celebrity gossip, and sexy fun.
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