Tech News Today for July 20, 2016

Tech News Stories for July 20, 2016

Today Facebook announced that over 1 billion people use their chat app Messenger every month. That makes it the most popular app on iOS ever, except for Facebook itself which lays claim to 1.5 billion monthly users. According to TechCrunch we send 17 billion photos, 1 billion messages, 380 million stickers, 22 million GIFs, and 10 percent of all VOIP calls using Facebook Messenger. Facebook also owns Whatsapp, another member of the three comma club when it comes to monthly users. Just in the last 20 months, Messenger has doubled its user count. Read more at theverge.com.

Apple released a handful of updates this week with patches for a number of holes, including the vulnerability to a man-in-the-middle flaw discovered in FaceTime by researcher Martin Vigo. Read more at theregister.co.uk.

A few weeks ago we talked to a reporter covering the current problems with AirBNB hosts refusing to rent to African Americans. Today the company announced that they plan to get some serious help with the problem from none other than former Attorney General Eric Holder. In a blog post today AirBNB announced that in addition to a review led by Laura Murphy, the former head of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Washington D.C. Legislative Office, Eric Holder will join the AirBNB team to help craft an anti-discrimination policy. Read more at wired.com.

Japan Will Make Its Last-Ever VCR This Month. Read more at mentalfloss.com.

Jason Howell is out today, but Megan Morrone will be joined by Iain Thomson at The Register. Tech News Today streams live at 4PM Pacific, 7PM Eastern at twit.tv/live. You can subscribe to the show and get it on-demand at twit.tv/tnt.