WHAT'S APP SACAM: DON'T ACCEPT THE CALLING FEATURE

WhatsApp users across the world are being targeted by cyber scammers who are circulating fake messages inviting users to test the new calling feature that fills the phone with dangerous malware.
According to the Daily Star, if users click on the link, they are taken to another website where they are asked to take a survey on behalf of the popular messaging service.
However, the survey forces people to download applications and software that might contain dangerous malware.
WhatsApp has not announced the calling feature officially. However, some users claim to have used it.
WhatsApp calling feature is one which is eagerly being looked forward to by everyone. We have read news about how WhatsApp is testing this feature in India. Also WhatsApp had activated the invite-feature for some users for a short period of time last month, so those users can still use WhatsApp calling feature. It has however, not been officially rolled out. By that limited time invite method, a person could activate their friends’ WhatsApp calling feature by giving them a call via WhatsApp. This feature has since been disabled.
It seems like WhatsApp has become a hotbed for cyber scammers. Back in January, one of our team members had got a random message with a contact card to call a certain ‘Diya’, whose number gave an Ivory Coast address. Using pictures of women and sending spam links on social media is a fairly tried and tested method of ensuring chaos on the Internet. Very often gullible users tend to fall for such scams and might even go on to add such a person on WhatsApp, which is dangerous as this person could try and get personal information such as bank account details, email passwords by trying to be friends them.
Back in 2012, another message was doing the rounds which promised lifetime free WhatsApp usage provided the user sent a message to 10 other friends and so on.

GOOGLE'S OCULUS TO TAKE FACEBOOK IN VIRTUAL REALITY

Google Inc. wants Android to be the operating system for virtual reality.
In the wake of Facebook Inc. ’s $2 billion purchase of Oculus VR, Google has assembled a team of engineers to build a version of the Android operating system to power virtual-reality applications, according to two people familiar with the project.
Those people said Google has “tens of engineers” and other staff working on the project. Google plans to freely distribute the new operating system, they said, mimicking a strategy that has made Android by far the most popular operating system for smartphones, powering more than one billion phones. A version of Android for smartwatches has been less successful so far, with devices using it registering few sales.
The project is speculative, because no virtual-reality devices are yet shipping in large numbers. But game companies, filmmakers and others see huge promise in the field.
Virtual reality was the highlight of this month’s Game Developers Conference in San Francisco. Attendees waited for two hours for a demonstration of the Oculus product, and there were similarly long lines to see virtual-reality technology from chip maker Nvidia Corp. Many other booths had VR headsets for people to test out new games.
Facebook jumped ahead of rivals by buying Oculus, which makes a headset that wearers strap over their eyes to project virtual-reality images. Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg has said that virtual reality will be the next “computing platform” after mobile devices, and he hopes Oculus will power a new generation of “immersive” experiences, from games to remote learning to virtual doctor appointments.
The Oculus deal helped spark a race to develop virtual-reality systems. Samsung Electronics Co. , the largest maker of Android smartphones, has joined with Oculus for its Gear VR headset. Sony Corp. has developed its own headset called Project Morpheus. Microsoft Corp. is working a device called “HoloLens” that projects images onto real-world settings, as are many startups.
Punctuating its rivalry with Google, Facebook last month poached a high-profile executive from Google’s advanced-projects lab, Mary Lou Jepsen, to work on Oculus. Her background is in display technology.
Oculus uses its own hardware and software for its headset, just as Apple Inc. uses its own hardware and software for the iPhone. Software developers build their applications on top of these systems.
Android is an “open” operating system available free to hardware makers. There are now four versions of Android, for smartphones, wearable devices, televisions and cars.
For its part, Google last year was the lead investor in a $542 million round of funding for Magic Leap Inc., a Florida-based startup that is developing its own eyeglasses-like device designed to project computer-generated images over a real-life setting. Separately, Google has another team testing a special tablet that uses multiple cameras to “augment reality” by projecting images onto real world objects.
The team working on Android for virtual reality is led by Clay Bavor and Jeremy Doig. Mr. Bavor’s LinkedIn describes him as a vice president of product management and Mr. Doig’s as a director of engineering. Mr. Bavor helped create the company’s low-tech virtual-reality viewer called “Google Cardboard.”
Unveiled last summer, it is a piece of cardboard with two magnets, two lenses, a rubber band and some Velcro, which fold into a crude virtual-reality viewing tool. Users place smartphones into the viewer, which render images in 3-D. The Cardboard app for Android smartphones has been downloaded more than one million times since last summer.