Category: Featured News

Code discovered in Messenger app hints at mobile commerce functionality

Facebook Messenger may soon become a hub for mobile payments. Code hidden within the application itself hints that Facebook may choose to make the app a mobile commerce tool, contrary to what the company had said in the past. Facebook has shown strong interest in mobile commerce, but had not intended to make the Messenger app into a new payment platform, opting instead to focus on other solutions. This may be changing, however, as Facebook begins to feel the need to compete with other companies in the mobile commerce space.

Facebook had been relatively disinterested in mobile payments in the past

Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook, had claimed that the company was not looking to break into the mobile commerce space in any considerable way. This is contrary to what the company has been dowing in the recent past, however, as Facebook has been making it possible for businesses to connect with consumers more dynamically and making it easier for consumers to purchase products online. Like other companies, Facebook has shown interest in the concept of social commerce, which involves consumers using social media sites to shop for and purchase products.

Social media companies are becoming more involved in mobile commerce

The company is not the only one within the social media space that is interested in mobile payments. Twitter, Pinterest, and several other companies have also begun breaking into the mobile commerce market. This market is quite competitive due to the numerous companies that have broken into the sector. Retailers are becoming very eager to embrace mobile shoppers, however, which is forcing social media companies to support mobile payments in order to better serve retailers using their services.

New features may be coming to Facebook Messenger

There are other features coming to Facebook Messenger as well, including a feature that could allow consumers to have “secret conversations.” This could operate in the same way as the “incognito” mode on web browsers, which prevents them from recording browsing history. Facebook has not yet commented on the discovery of the code within the Messenger app, but it may indicate that the company is beginning to grow more aggressive in the mobile commerce space.

Though it has long been believed that light interrupts sleep, this research focused specifically on mobile device screens.

Scientists and doctors have known for many years that exposure to light can interrupt a person’s natural sleep patterns and make it harder to obtain the rest we need, but recently the light from tablet computers was put to the test by a team of researchers from the University of Bergen.

What they found was that people who use tablets and other mobile devices causes harm even when used in the dark.

The researchers looked into the impact of using tablet computers at bedtime when compared to reading a traditional print book. What the scientists discovered was that after reading a tablet screen for only 30 minutes while in bed, a negative impact on sleep can occur. The results of this study were published within the Sleep Medicine journal. The intention of the research was to determine whether the backlighting of the screens of mobile devices actually had a meaningful impact on the quality of sleep a user would receive.

The researchers compared the use of tablet computers with the results from people reading print books.

The study involved the participation of 16 students with an average age of 25.1 years. The research participants were permitted to sleep in their own homes and beds in order to ensure that the results were not compromised by an alteration in the participant’s sleep environment. The researchers then used a polysomnography tool in order to be able to detect sleep disorders in any of the participants. Before the study, none of the participants suffered from sleep struggles.

When the participants read from print books, the problem with sleep struggles was deemed nonexistent among the participants who already did not have problems with insomnia.

On the other hand, the tablet computers appeared to have an effect on the level of sleepiness of the users. It is suspected that the light emitted from the device screen may have played a role in this impact. That said, it’s important to note that while it may have taken more time for tablet users to doze off, the duration of sleep was the same regardless of the use of a digital screen or a print book.