If you’re just using the built-in messaging features on your smartphone, you could be missing out. These free apps offer an assortment of extra options for a better messaging experience. In spite of all the things smartphones can do, messaging remains one of the most popular activities. And although smartphones include built-in email and texting functionality, lots of apps provide richer messaging capabilities. Here are five free apps that are worth a look. Note: This article is also available as an image gallery. 1: Hike Messenger Hike Messenger (Figure A) combines the…

The next 30 years of innovation risk being wasted unless society does a better job of educating people about the potential – and downsides – of technology.  At its confidence and renown as a hotpot grows, the London start-up scene is getting more comfortable about asking – and occasionally answering – some big questions about the future of tech. This time around, as part of an event organised by Virgin Business, groups of start-ups and more established businesses were asked come up with some of the ways technology would change various…

London, 2 July 2014 –  The European Commission has approved the takeover of Germany’s fourth largest mobile network, E-Plus, by Telefónica. This move reduces the number of network operators from four to three. When the deal was first agreed between Telefónica and E-Plus’ current owners KPN, it was of course expected that the regulatory approval process would be long, and that there would be conditions upon which approval depended. These conditions are that the newly merged operator will reserve a portion of its network capacity for the use of smaller operators…

A team of German scientists has come up with a new luminescent material for LED bulbs. The phosphor improves energy efficiency and makes this artificial light almost as natural as the sun. Wolfgang Schnick knows a thing or two about light quality. Not only has the German chemist researched luminescent materials since 2001 – but shopping expeditions with his wife have taught him first-hand the difference between good and bad light. “When I go shopping with my wife, she sometimes asks me to go outside with her to look at…