The Apple Beat: OS X's disc free OS recovery is rock solid

By Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla

I recently had to rescue my wife's ageing first-generation MacBook Air from what looked like impending disk failure. We decided to move her system files to a newer machine with more updated hardware and a biggler hard drive. Then I realized I no longer had the installer disks that came with the devices.

After a brief moment of panic, I remembered that Apple hasn't been including installer disks for the past few years and that any system restoration could be done via OS X Recovery or via  the cloud. I'm old school in the sense that I've always felt the need to have backup copies of operating systems for computers I use. Specially since in the past, these have been useful to boot from in order to repair or reinstall troubled computers.

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Facebook releases Web/Mobile Chat feature

Facebook has begun rolling out around the world the feature that indicates if your online friends are using the website or mobile version of the site. The upgrade is said to be part of Facebook’s goal to improve its messaging services.

Source: Tech Crunch

Google Nexus’ wireless charger now available in Canada

Source: The Verge

Google released its wireless charger for the Nexus 4, Nexus 5, and Nexus 7 is now available in Canada and the US for $49.99. The red and yellow Bumper Case worth $34.99 and the black and white $49.99 QuickCover are also for sale.

Twitter takes out option to receive direct messages from non-followers

Twitter introduced a new feature last month that allows you to receive direct messages from any follower. Now, The Next Web reported the social network site quietly took out the feature. The attention to improving DMs supports rumors that Twitter plans to release a standalone app for messaging.

I asked Twitter why the "accept DMs from anyone" feature is gone, and all I got was a link to this post: https://t.co/HMfDnHiEn6

— Mathew Ingram (@mathewi) November 18, 2013