Technology

LogMeIn has updated its GoToMeeting video and audio conference platform with new features that include a text chat function, AI transcription service and integration with AmazonAlexa voice assistant.

LogMeIn — which also owns cloud meetings tool join.me — acquired GoTo products from Citrix for $1.8 billion in 2016. This immediately positioned the vendor as one of the largest video and web conferencing players, with millions of customers worldwide.

A range of features announced this week are aimed at enhancing the GoToMeeting platform as it faces competition from large tech firms with web conferencing capabilities, such as Google (Hangouts Chat), Amazon (Chime), Cisco (Webex) and Microsoft (Skype for Business/Teams), as well as smaller players including BlueJeans and Zoom.

&Good artists borrow great artists steal& is a phrase that Facebook seems acutely aware of.

Itcommon to speak of Instagram, the Facebook-owned photo-app-now-social-network, borrowing from Snapchat, but now FacebookWhatsApp chat app is increasingly drawing its innovation from others such as Telegram.

This week, WhatsApp outed a new feature for its groups that is essentially a replica of Telegramchannels — that is, a one-way broadcast communication stream.

Telegram channels are popular for setting up a broadcast news feed that allows people to sign up to get alerts from channel admins, who might be news agencies, companies, schools, public interest groups or more. Now WhatsApp is adding the feature to gives its message app new use cases.

Actually, as is often the case for WhatsApp, users have unofficially adopted channel-like behavior for some time. Last year, for example, there were reports of a rural journalist using the messaging app to report and broadcast local news. Doing that is suddenly a whole lot easier through this new ‘broadcast-only& feature.

&One way people use groups is to receive important announcements and information, including parents and teachers at schools, community centers, and non-profit organizations. We&ve introduced this new setting so admins can have better tools for these use cases,& WhatsApp wrote in a short blog post.

Still, the fact that WhatsApp requires users to provide a phone number to join groups — anyonenumber can be looked up by any group member — is one issue when it comes to creating or joining public groups. Telegram has introduced usernames, which mitigate that issue, but still, the app doesn&t have anything like WhatsAppscale which is a crucial consideration when deciding which app to plump for.

WhatsApp has over 1.5 billion active users, more than 200 million of which are in India, whereas Telegram recently passed 200 million active users worldwide.

While many people in this country are angry with current chairman of the FCC Ajit Pai, arguably with good reason, itunfortunate that at least one has descended to the level of sending credible death threats and, unsurprisingly, has subsequently been arrested.

Shortly after the FCC voted in December to nullify the agency2015 net neutrality rules, Norwalk resident named Markara Man contacted Pai several times threatening him and his family.

According to a Justice Department press release, Man first told Pai that he was responsible for the death of a kid who had killed herself because of the loss of net neutrality. Next he sent a list of locations around Arlington, where the chairman lives, and threatening to kill members of his family. The third apparently was just an image of a framed photo of Paifamily.

This clearly rises above the low-level — yet also deeply inappropriate — casual slurs against the chairman one sees in practically every discussion of FCC issues, including this website. As such it was investigated by the FBI, which traced the emails to Manlocation and confronted him.

He admitted to sending the emails in order to &scare& Pai, which I can only imagine it did. Hebeen charged with the incredibly wordy crime of &threatening to murder a member of the immediate family of a U.S. official with the intent to intimidate or interfere with such official while engaged in the performance of official duties, or with the intent to retaliate against such official on account of the performance of official duties.& If convicted he could face up to 10 years, but thatall up in the air still.

Listen: as you may be able to tell from TechCrunchown coverage of FCC issues and net neutrality (mostly by myself), I&m no fan of Chairman Pai&s, though I try my best to stick to the facts — which, helpfully, are also largely anti-Pai. But threatening the family of the man is, I hardly need say, taking it much too far. Not only is it reprehensible on its face, but it feeds a narrative of spite and ignorance that works counter to the very goals the threat-maker evidently espouses.

Net neutrality is a serious issue and the current administrationelimination of the 2015 rules is a perfectly good reason to protest and, indeed, take Pai personally to task, since he is the foremost architect of our present situation. By all means call your elected officials, make net neutrality an issue in the 2018 midterms, and make your voice heard. But for everyonesake keep it civil.