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New app seeks to end iPhone-Android text color bubble divide
The ongoing divide between iPhone‘s blue text bubbles and Android‘s green ones has long been a source of frustration and humor among users.
In Silicon Valley, entrepreneur Eric Migicovsky co-founded “Beeper Mini” in a converted garage, aiming to bridge the technological and social gaps between iPhone and Android users. The app allows Android users to join iMessage group chats in blue, appearing the same as iPhone users.
“What we’re trying to do is give people the freedom of choice. You should be able to download any software you want and be able to talk to any of your friends or family that you’d like,” said Migicovsky.
It also promises encrypted messaging, a difference compared to the typical unencrypted texts exchanged between Androids and iPhones.
“An unencrypted message is basically like a postcard. It means that anyone can read it. With Beeper Mini, though, all of your messages are encrypted. That means that Beeper can’t read your messages, Apple can’t read your messages, no one can,” he said.
The creation of Beeper Mini wasn’t without its challenges. Deciphering Apple’s secretive code took years, finally cracked with the help of 16-year-old high schooler James Gill. The app’s launch saw over 100,000 Android users signing up within two days, eager to turn their green bubbles blue.
Apple disabled the app 72 hours post-launch, citing significant risks to user security and privacy. The tech giant took measures to block techniques that exploit fake credentials for iMessage access.
“So no one on earth had done what we’ve done and we’re not exactly sure why Apple hasn’t built an iMessage app for Android, because I think what we’ve shown is that it’s totally possible and you can do this but it’s definitely something that needed to exist.,” said Migicovsky.
Despite Apple’s intervention, Beeper Mini has been operational, albeit with intermittent issues attributed to Apple’s actions.
Apple responded in a statement, telling CBS News: “These techniques posed a significant risk to user security and privacy. We took steps to protect our users by blocking techniques that exploit fake credentials in order to gain access to iMessage.”
The situation escalated when a bipartisan group of lawmakers asked the Justice Department to investigate the matter. Senators Amy Klobuchar and Mike Lee, and Representatives Jerrold Nadler and Ken Buck are involved, but both Apple and the DOJ have yet to comment on the letter.
Workers removing tree branches near a historic cathedral in Chelm, Poland, unearthed something unexpected when they came upon two children’s skeletons in a shallow burial pit where no gravesites are marked, the government’s Culture Ministry said.
Neither skeleton was buried in a coffin and one of the children was buried with the characteristics of an anti-vampire burial, Dr. Stanisława Gołuba, the archaeologist leading the research, said in a Facebook post. The child’s head was separated from its body, the post said, and the skull was facing down into the ground arranged on a stone. This, plus the way the skeletons were oriented, appears to be consistent with ancient burial methods used to prevent a person thought to be a demonic entity from exiting the grave, Gołuba said.
The skeletons appeared to be from the Early Middle Ages.
The children’s skeletons were removed from their graves, documented and waiting for further analysis, the statement said.
It’s the most recent in a series of findings in Poland of remains buried in ways that suggest people at the time believed they were dealing with vampires or other supernatural entities.
In 2022, Polish researchers found the remains of a woman at a gravesite in the village of Pień with a sickle around her neck and a triangular padlock on her foot. According to ancient beliefs, the padlock was supposed to prevent a deceased person thought to be a vampire from returning from the dead. The sickle was thought to cut the neck if the corpse tried to rise from the grave.
Professor Dariusz Polinski of the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Torun said this type of practice became common throughout Poland in the 17th century in response to a reported vampire epidemic. In addition to practices with a sickle, sometimes corpses were burned, smashed with stones or had their heads and legs cut off.
Six so-called “vampire skeletons” were also found at a cemetery in northwest Poland in 2013. Each was buried with either a sickle laid across their necks or stones placed beneath their jaws said Lesley Gregoricka of the University of South Alabama who led the research team.
contributed to this report.
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