Facebook has been planning to merge WhatsApp, Instagram, and Messenger chats into a single app for some time, but now the company has taken the first actions to make this happen. During this Friday night, Instagram was updated to offer an option that merges its chat feature with Facebook Messenger. Instagram users are now being notified to join their accounts with Facebook Messenger, which brings chats and features from Messenger to Instagram....

First, was Adele. Next, was Space Quest III: The Pirates of Pestulon. Space Quest was made by Sierra in the late 80s, but it’s set in the distant future in space. In the final chapter of the game, the hero Roger Wilco has to infiltrate the enemy base to rescue two game developers who have been imprisoned in lime Jello. Part of the plot involves foiling an access door that’s protected by a facial scanner....

The entertainment industry is messy enough as it is and navigating your way through it as a kid is no easy feat. While most actors hope that getting an early start on things might increase their chances at a lifelong career in the business, the stories that usually make the headlines have more to do with the downfall of child actors, rather than their achievements. There are certainly cases of child stars who have managed to maintain their stardom....

Disney has officially confirmed a Falcon & Winter Soldier series is in the works for Disney+ and revealed the first logo. Marvel Studios has dominated the big screen over the last eleven years, but now that they’re moving into Phase 4, they’re also expanding their reach to the small screen. Thanks to Disney’s own streaming service, Marvel Studios is set to make TV shows based around characters who haven’t received enough spotlight already....

The WSJ reports that Facebook is developing an app for the Apple TV and other set-top boxes, citing sources familiar with the matter. It appears the plan is for the videos to be ad-funded, as with existing Facebook content … The piece is very light on detail, but the sources say that while Facebook has been considering the move for several years, “it decided back in the summer ‘to make video a top strategic priority....

A long-running FaceTime patent infringement battle isn’t over yet, despite Apple paying VirnetX the full $454M awarded against it when the US Supreme Court rejected the iPhone maker’s appeal. We noted at the time that the two sides were still arguing over a recalculation of the damages, and it seems the worst case could see Apple paying more than a billion dollars in total … Background Apple’s FaceTime app was first found to have infringed VPN patents owned by VirnetX in a court ruling way back in 2012....

With Seth MacFarlane’s new deal with NBCUniversal, Family Guy runs the risk of finally being canceled. Though Family Guy is no stranger to being taken off the air, this deal is new territory for the 21-year-old series. Created by MacFarlane and David Zuckerman, Family Guy debuted on Fox in 1999, but was canceled in 2002. After the show’s DVD sales turned out to be more successful than anticipated, Fox gave it another shot, bringing the show back in 2005....

It was expected to take on apps like Flipboard, thanks to its full screen distraction-free UI with gesture based navigation. But looks like Facebook is keen to make it more than a news discovery and reader app. With proper notifications, Paper should replace the default Facebook app for many people, including yours truly. There are hardly few things it doesn’t come with, like Events & Page administration. Paper delivers human and algorithm-curated full-screen articles and photos in categories you select like Tech, LOL, and Pop Culture....

Facebook announced today it will be rolling out a new social feature to its mobile app called Nearby Friends. The feature allows Facebook users to occasionally receive notifications when common friends are in similar locations similar to features offered by Foursquare and Apple’s Find My Friends service. In its announcement, Facebook emphasizes that the location sharing feature is opt-in meaning users will have to actively decide to turn on the feature rather than the social network flipping the feature on for everyone....

Family Guy has had an interesting road to reach 17 seasons. Fox actually canceled the series until DVD sales made them realize that there were a lot of fans wanting to see more of Peter Griffin and his family. They brought it back, and it has since partnered with The Simpsons to give Fox a wildly successful animation block on Sunday nights for 17 years now. Through the years, Family Guy has both entertained and polarized fans with its unique style of humor, relying on pop culture references over all else....

A fake letter to Steve Jobs, supposedly sent by the late Sean Connery back in the 1990s, is recirculating after the sad passing of the actor over the weekend … The satirical letter was dated 1998 and widely circulated back in 2011, fooling many. It was purported to be Connery turning down repeated offers from Steve Jobs to appear in Apple ads. In fact, as was explained in debunks at the time, the letter was created by the satirical Apple-focused site, Scoopertino....

He literally hasn’t aged a day since the show began but in reality, Family Guy’s Peter Griffin should be pushing 60 years old about now. Family Guy was created by Seth MacFarlane (Ted) and follows Peter Griffin and his family, including wife Lois and children Chris, Meg, and Stewie. Peter can be extremely selfish, impulsive, and offensive, but he’s also capable of being sweet and cares deeply for his family and friends - even if he doesn’t always behave that way....

Facebook will be pulling its alternative iPhone app Paper from the App Store today, The Verge reports, before the service is totally shut down on July 29th. Paper first launched on iPhone back in January 2014 as an experimental app for consuming Facebook in new ways. The app emphasized news content organized by categories like tech and sports while also introducing new user interface elements like rotating your iPhone to pan around photos....

The Facts of Life may be the next show riding the revival wave back to TV, as Sony is reportedly considering a reboot of the 80s sitcom. The original show, a spinoff of the popular NBC series Diff’rent Strokes, chronicled the ups and downs of a group of teenagers at an all-girl boarding school in New York State. The main cast of Facts of Life included Charlotte Rae as headmother Edna Garrett, Lisa Welchel as spoiled rich girl Blair, Kim Fields as spunky Tootie, Mindy Cohn as naive Natalie, and Nancy McKeon as bad girl Jo....

A new report from The Verge details how Facebook’s Messenger Kids application has been failing at its single purpose. The report explains that by using group chats, children were able to enter conversations with unapproved strangers. The purpose of Messenger Kids is that kids are only allowed to communicate with people approved by their parents. A bug in the interface for Messenger Kids, however, allowed children to initiate conversation with anyone....

Less than a month after Apple paid $440M to settle one FaceTime patent infringement claim, it is now faced with another. Apple fought a claim from VirnetX for almost a decade before finally deciding to settle the case last month in order to end the drawn-out battle … Patently Apple reports that VoIP-Pal.com is claiming both FaceTime and iMessage infringe one of its own patents for routing messages over the Internet....

More than a thousand ‘deceptively real-looking’ fake iPhones were used to carry out an AppleCare fraud operating between Hong Kong and Switzerland. Two Chinese citizens, a mother and son, have been charged with fraud. The son faces a four-year prison sentence, as well as being expelled from Switzerland, where he has lived for almost 20 years … Swiss site SRF reports that the pair will appear in court today and tomorrow....

First available for Android users, Facebook has just released an update to its iOS app that introduces the ability to create drafts of posts, preview posts before publishing and more. With version 10.0, Facebook users can now create posts even when not connected to the internet or in airplane mode and save the drafts for posting later. As for previews of posts, Facebook notes that you can now “Review what your post will look like and choose whether to remove any suggested links before sharing what you’re reading, watching or listening to....

Facebook is preparing a pair of major updates for its most popular iPhone applications, according to a source familiar with the apps. Facebook is testing an updated version of its main iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch client that integrates the social network’s powerful Graph Search tool. Graph Search is a feature that allows Facebook users to locate fellow users that have similar interests. For example, a Graph Search user can search for all friends who “Like” a certain Facebook page, musician, or movie....

As we noted a few weeks ago, Facebook is currently in the process of developing a new Snapchat-like chat service separate from its main Messenger/Facebook inbox offering, even though it just recently removed its Poke app from the App Store. Today Facebook “accidentally” published an early version of the upcoming software, called Slingshot, to the iOS App Store in a few countries. The app allows users to share a photo (or video) with friends, but those friends are unable to view the photo until they respond with a photo of their own....