40 Issue 1404
WhatsApp Drops
BlackBerry
Supp ort
D
oubtless before the media furore
surrounding this particular news
story EDF Energy would have been
delighted at promoting its Pretty
Curious programme, aimed at attracting teenage
girls into the giddy worlds of science, technology,
engineering and mathematics – that would be
STEM, for acronym anoraks.
Said media furore occurred becausea
teenage boy, and not a teenage girl, actually
won a competition at the heart of the
programme. In defence of its decision, EDF
Energy said that, while the aim of the initiativewas indeed to inspire teenage girls, the
competition was actually always open to all
11-to-16-year-olds to enter.
The winning entry, which was selected by
public vote, was a project for a games controller
using kinetic energy to power it, while the
runners-up included both girls and boys who
submitted ideas including smart curtains, smarts
fridges and sleep monitors.
The problem for EDF Energy is that, while it has
defended its position, social media ire against it
was plentiful and vocal. In the end, probably not
the best PR for the energy firm after all.EDFCo mpetition For
GirlsWonBy...ABoy
40 Issue 1404 QUICK BITS...Rare paintingPortrait of a Dead WITCH, which portrays the Harwell Dekatron/WITCH
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girls
eng
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wo
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EneQU
Snippets!
Android Pay OnWay
TheTe legraphhas reported
that Android Pay, Google’s
own mobile payment
system, is going to be
launched in the UK by the
end of the month. The
system has already been
live in America for months
and a UK launch is due–
especially given that Apple
Pay and Barclays’ own bPay
services have, it would
seem, beenrelatively well-
received among consumers.
To use Android Pay, you’ll
need an NFC-enabled
Android smartphone, which
will store yourVisa or
Mastercard details.Reactions Roll Out
So they’re here. No longer
do you simply have to
merely ‘Like’ a post you see
on Facebook. Now, thanks
to the five new ‘Emotions’
that have been live since the
end of February, you can
‘Love’, ‘Wow’, or be ‘Angry’
or ‘Sad’ or evenreact witha
‘HaHa’ should you see fit.
There is still no place
for the much-requested
‘Dislike’ button, however.
Facebook, at the end of the
day, thought that was too
negative to offer.MK’s Hidden Menu
Thanks toYouTube channel
YourMKArcadeSource,
hidden menus to the
classicMortal Kombat
arcade machines have been
revealed. The EJB menus,
named after the creator
Ed J. Boon, are quite the
find as they give those
privvy to them instant
access to diagnostic tests,
character endings and the
ability to enter your initials
directly on to the player
leaderboard. This last
feature is clearly cheating
the system, but it’s always
a thrill to see your name in
lights, right?40 Issue 1404
Windows Phone and Nokia devices affected, too
Cue a whole lot of criticism
M
obile messaging app WhatsApp
has announced that it’s going
to cease its support for the
BlackBerry OS come the end of
the year. Along with BlackBerry, older Nokia,
Android andWindows Phone devices will also
not be supported by WhatsApp (affecting
Nokia’s Symbian S40 and S60 operating systems,
Android 2.1 and 2.2 andWindows Phone 7.1)
as the chaps behind the app have, quite sensibly,
decided to stop supporting the platforms in which
therereally isn’t an awful lot of interest. The
company also noted that those operating systemsdon’t provide the kind of capabilitiesrequired for
the app to develop in the future.
This is such a telling comment on the state of
BlackBerry in the mobile market. In its blog post,
WhatsApp stated that
when it was firstreleased
seven years ago “About
70% of smartphones sold
at the time had operating
systems offered by
BlackBerry and Nokia.”
How times have
changed, eh?