The Apple Beat: Apple Pay now an option for donating to causes and non-profits, MacBook Pros in the wild

 

By Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla

Apple Pay has been touted as the next generation mobile payments platform and Apple’s done a great job of securing global banks and partners, making ApplePay an option in major retailers and restaurants and even tuning their hardware so Apple Pay is one fingerprint or password away from enabling a quick and secure sale, even the new MacBook Pros feature a Touch ID button to make this easy.

According to their newsroom, Apple Pay now ‘makes it easier and more security to donate to nonprofit organizations.’ This is a great and safe option not just for responding to emergencies such as earthquakes, floods and other catastrophes but also for sending funds to causes, nonprofits and other charities. The list of nonprofits and charities is up on Apple’s website, it’s mostly from International and American organizations, I hope Canadian nonprofits can be included soon, specially as we’re headed into the season of giving.

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Facebook brings back chatroom feature in Messenger

Sometimes you need someone to talk to about your still growing stamp collection, your young niece or even your closest cousin might not be the proper audience for that. You might soon find people from your “tribe” with the revival of a Facebook featured called Rooms. It lets you enter a group chat with people who share a specific interest, and they don’t necessarily have to be your friend or acquaintance on Facebook. It was a standalone app back in 2014 but Facebook had to pull the plug when social-networking app Room claimed the social media giant stole the idea.

Facebook resurrects the idea for Canadian and Australian users but now has it within Facebook Messenger. It’ll allow you to create public rooms to chat about anything you fancy. You can opt to start a private room as well.

Source: PCMag

WhatsApp to finally get video calling feature

A long-awaited feature is finally coming to WhatsApp: free video calls. The ability to make one-on-one video calls is coming to the app in the coming days. It can be accessed in the same location you access voice calls, under the phone icon in one-on-one chat windows. For now there won’t be group video calls as WhatsApp wanted to make sure the feature can work on older devices or those who have slower connections.

Source: Mashable

Marvel ‘Inhumans’ to get a TV series

While Marvel Inhumans doesn’t look like it’s getting its movie back, there is a TV show in the works. Marvel Television, ABC, and IMAX are partnering for The Inhumans TV show. Of course, the show will be based on the comic book characters made by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. It’ll tell the tale of Inhuman king Black Bolt and members of his royal family. It hasn’t been announced if the Inhuman characters introduced in Marvel and ABC’s Agents of SHIELD will cross over in the series but we won’t be surprised if they do.

Under this new partnership, IMAX will exclusively premiere the first two episodes in theaters worldwide for two weeks in September 2017 before it debuts on ABC in the fall. The first two episodes will be filmed entirely with IMAX digital cameras. There is no word yet who will write and produce the new Inhumans series but we should get word at a later date. The Inhumans mark the first time a live-action TV series will debut in IMAX theaters.