Microsoft today is launching a completely revamped version of its Skype application, with a new set of features that draw obvious inspiration from messaging rivals, like Messenger and Snapchat. Yes, that means Skype now has its own Stories-like feature, which it’s calling Highlights, as well as a redesign that puts the camera only a swipe away from your chats, among other things.

The company says Skype’s makeover has been in the works for well over a year, and represents the biggest change to the platform since the introduction of video sharing back in 2006. In other words, it’s not necessarily a fast-follow cloning attempt built in response to the Snapchat threat, )and Facebook’s copying of Snapchat across its platforms), but rather something Skype has been working on for a longer period of time.

“If social networks have given you the stage on which to perform your life, the new Skype gives you the additional equivalent of the local coffeehouse or corner pub, where you meet people on a daily basis to deepen your relationships,” explains Amritansh Raghav, Corporate Vice President of Skype, about the new design’s focus on enhancing users’ real social connections. “We call that set of interactions your personal network,” he says.

The idea with the revamp is to make Skype a better tool for the sort of communication and sharing that takes place among members of Skype’s more closely connected network, which often includes family and friends. That means Skype is tacking on ephemeral sharing as part of its feature set, along with Stories, and other camera-first inspired features.

It’s also today rolling out its own set of bots and chat add-ins to rival Facebook Messenger.

Highlights – Skype’s take on Stories

In the new version of Skype’s app, you can just swipe to pull up the camera – a now familiar interaction, thanks to the camera-first design found in today’s social apps.

You can then snap a photo or video – which you can then of course decorate with typed or handwritten text, as well as with Skype’s own set of stickers – very much like on other apps.

In the new version of Skype, your snapped photos and videos can be shared with individuals, in group chats, or can be posted to a new feature called Highlights.

The camera is available when you swipe right from the main screen, while Highlights are found when swipe left.

Highlights are Skype’s own take on Stories – something the company readily admits.

“It’s like Facebook has said,” says Raghav, referencing remarks made by Facebook’s VP of messaging David Marcus, who recently argued that Stories “is definitely a format, the same way the feed is a format.”

Raghav agrees. The feed is now commonly used in a range of apps – even those that aren’t personal social networks, like Microsoft’s business communications service Yammer.

“There’s a new medium that has risen,” he says of Stories. “When you think about this new way of interacting, [we want that to be] available also in this application.”

However, Skype has tweaked the Stories format a bit.

For starters, its Highlights are available for a week, not a day. (Though you can view your own content for 24 months, if you choose). Highlights are also not broadcast to your entire Skype network. Instead, they use a Twitter-like following/followers model – meaning only those who follow your Highlights can see these posts.

However, you can choose to “share” your Highlights with individual contacts or groups you manually select – a move which nudges the recipients to follow your Highlights if they don’t already, but doesn’t allow you to spam them with updates.

Followers can also react to Highlights posts, as they can to any Skype post, with an emoji. Here, Skype has copied from Facebook’s reactions – you can thumbs up (like), heart (favorite), or post emoji faces for reactions like sad, surprised, laughing, and angry. You can also type a response that’s then shared privately in a chat.

Bots & Add-ins

The other major feature rolling out today is an expanded selection of Skype’s bots and add-ins. Microsoft envisions how you’ll be able to chat directly with its virtual assistant Cortana, or its newer assistant Scoop, which pulls in news from MSN.com.

When a bot gets integrated in a chat, it’s called an add-in. That means you can call on the bot directly from your chat, like “Scoop, what’s up with X?” (where X is a current news item you want to know about).

In chats, Cortana will be able to make suggestions, including quick responses like “LOL” or “can’t wait,” or others related to your conversations. Scoop, meanwhile, offers a one-on-one chat with personalized news story suggestions and summaries, but can also live in a group chat to share stories relevant to that group’s conversations.

Microsoft’s demo showed a number bots and add-ins, like Cortana, Scoop, Gfycat, Giphy, MSN Weather, Search (Bing), Polls, Expedia, Stubhub, BigOven (cooking), YouTube, and Upworthy, to name a few. However, Cortana will not launch until June in the U.S.

Group Chats and more

Though Highlights and add-ins are the standout new features, there’s a lot that’s different in the revamped Skype.

For example, you can now personalize the app’s theme by picking your favorite colors, react to anything in a chat with an emoticon, or even react using emoticons in video calls – a move that will temporarily overlay a big emoticon and colored background in your window for other callers to see.

You can also now type a message when on video calls which is shown in much the same way – something that could be helpful for when you’re on a group call, but don’t want to talk.

Video chats are also going to be upgraded in the future to support other types of interactions, including the ability to play games with friends or watch videos from streaming services together. Co-watching in groups is an area where a number of social apps are trying to gain traction – including Cabana from Tumblr, Uptime from YouTube, Fam, and others.

YouTube will be among the first services added for co-watching, we’re told, but Skype is having discussions with other streaming services about integrations. Meanwhile, gaming will initially leverage existing Microsoft assets like Minecraft, Solitaire, Mah Jongg and others.

The new Skype is available on Android today, and will hit iOS in a month’s time. (The delay is due to iOS’s inability to support staged rollouts, we understand.)

Desktop platforms, including Windows, Mac, Linux, and web, will get the new features this summer, along with Xbox.

Plenty dismissed modularity (the concept of making a phone’s innards swappable and upgradeable) the first time around. And for good reason. Like just about every other gimmick in smartphoneland, the idea has been tried and abandoned more times than anyone cares to mention. With the announcement of the second generation Moto Z, however, the Motorola is not only committed to the idea of modular smartphones – it’s making the line its flagship.

It’s a pretty gutsy stance from the company. The idea of the first one was laughed off by some on arrival, but Motorola changed minds with what turned out to be a really good phone, Mods or no. I reviewed it a while back, and I liked it. A lot more than I thought I would.

The device’s hardware was solid and the execution was there. The super-thin phone, coupled with the magnetic backing that powered the devices. If there was any major downside on that first generation Z, it was the lack of Mods at launch. The promise was there, but the execution was limited. But after LG’s badly fumbled execution with the G5, the phone was breath of fresh air.

The company added a few more in the intervening months and announced plans to release an average four a quarter this year – a commitment it tells me it plans to keep. It’s also opened up prototypes to third-parties and had a handful of hackathons across the globe in hopes of getting developers more interested in creating for the platform. Here’s one with a breathalyzer and a baby monitor.

The Moto Z2 Play ups the ante, but only slightly. In addition to a better looking, cloth-covered version of the SoundBoost kickstand speaker, the phone will be launching alongside a fast charging battery pack , shells with wireless charging built-in and a GamePad.

All were present at a briefing I attended, but I can’t show you a picture of the GamePad, since it wasn’t a final version. And, of course, the mods and phones are backward compatible, so users can mix and match with last year’s hardware.

By way of explanation, the old Ion iCade controller should give you a pretty good idea of what Motorola’s working on. The case positions gaming controls on either side of the screen, making for a really, really long phone. Not groundbreaking and honestly, pretty clunky, but a nice addition to the overall ecosystem. Still, the company is going to need at least double its current Mod offering to make the system a success.

That said, Motorola apparently hasn’t had a problem moving product. The company doesn’t break out phone sales for the Z, but it says it’s sold “millions” of the device – admittedly broad, but definitely a victory for a device that really could have feasibly tanked the company’s ambitions a la the G5. And apparently high enough to warrant making this second generation product the centerpiece of its handset line.

And with this week’s Essential announcement, Andy Rubin simultaneously complimented and threw some serious shade at the Moto Z system. The Android father complimented the company’s embrace of modularity, while calling its execution flawed, pointing to its full-back system, which limits the product’s form factor moving forward. Even still, a slight vindication for the mainstreaming of modular phones.

Sales of the Mods, meanwhile, aren’t quite as impressive. Motorola’s internal research says that Mods are, no surprise, the primary driving factor in purchasing the product — but users who buy Mods are picking up between one and two per device. A Moto rep tells me that it’s closer to two than one… but when swappable backs are the device’s whole raison d’etre, that’s not exactly selling like hot cakes.

The middling numbers are probably due in part to the fact that Mod selection was pretty limited. Launching a modular phone without sufficient modules is a bit like launching a video game system with little in the way of titles – it’s an easy way to shoot yourself in the foot right out of the gate. And while speakers and battery packs are great, what functionality does the Moto Z offer that you can’t already get from basically every phone?

But the Mod selection will continue to grow – I saw a compelling one at the event that I’m not supposed to talk about yet – and the company says there are plenty more on the way, including some from winners of the hackathons, which the company will help developers make real.

As for the phone’s hardware (which is admittedly somewhat secondary), the phone’s specs are okay. But keep in mind, with the first gen, the Play was the low-end device, so you can probably expect a higher end flagship to be added to the second generation line soon. The company ditched the touch buttons, instead sticking all of that functionality into the elongated fingerprint reader, to save some space up front, so you can, say, swipe left to go back.

As reported previously, the headphone jack is back on the Play – that’s in part due to the company’s attempt to broaden the Z line to more users. Ditching the jack is a good way to alienate potential customers who don’t have the funds to switch all of their accessories to Bluetooth. Though the company tells me that it still sees the wired headphone getting phased out – though perhaps not as quickly as others had initially thought.

But can Motorola build upon the momentum of the Z with this second generation? The novelty of the first batch has worn off a bit, and while the company is committed to the project as its flagship line, it still has a ways to go as far churning out mods at a pace that will really drive consumption.

For now, in spite of that early success, the Z line still feels like a gamble. That goes double for parent company Lenovo, which has been struggling in the PC department. The Moto reps I spoke with told me to expect modularity on even more of its devices moving forward. If that’s the case, it’s time to really start hauling ass on developing those mods.

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It was an earthquake that forced Marie Joseph and her family to flee Haiti for the United States in 2010. Now, under President Donald Trump’s administration, another life-changing convulsion looms on the horizon.

Joseph is one of some 58,000 Haitians who benefited from a Temporary Protected Status (TPS) to live and work in the US after Haiti’s devastating temblor. Many recipients of that scheme now fear an anti-immigrant White House is about to kick them out.

“I know [Trump] campaigned for the presidency saying he didn’t like immigrant people, but he could still do something for us,” Joseph, 48, whose name has been changed, told Al Jazeera.

“We know Haiti is not secure enough for my family to go back. Too many people get killed there. There are no jobs. There’s no way to live.”

This month, Department of Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly extended Haiti’s TPS status for six months until January 22 next year – shorter than the 18-month renewals typically granted under former president Barack Obama.

He spoke of “progress” on a Caribbean nation that was ravaged by the 7.0-magnitude quake of January 2010 that killed more than 200,000 people, and has since taken a beating from Hurricane Matthew in October, and a cholera outbreak that claimed some 9,300 lives.

United Nations peacekeepers are set to leave, the economy continues to “recover and grow”, and 98 percent of the makeshift camps that sprang up around the quake-struck capital, Port-au-Prince, are now closed, said Kelly.

He urged Haitian TPS recipients to “attain travel documents” for their “ultimate departure” from US soil. On Wednesday, he flew to Haiti for a 90-minute meeting with Haitian President Jovenel Moise on the mass repatriation and other issues.

Before Haiti’s TPS expiration date, Kelly will evaluate conditions and decide whether to extend the scheme, re-designate the country, or terminate the status entirely. “It’s not meant to be an open-ended law, but a temporary law,” he said in Port-au-Prince.

Haiti has made gains these past seven years. The rubble is gone. New hotels have opened around the capital’s renovated airport and in the classy suburb of Petionville. Donna Karan, a fashion designer, opened a training centre to help Haitian artisans sell their wares.

READ MORE: Haiti earthquake: A new start in Canaan for survivors

But improvements have occurred against a backdrop of political upheavals and tragedy, including Hurricane Matthew, which claimed up to 1,000 lives, wrecked farms across southern Haiti and left some 1.4 million people needing handouts.

While TPS recipients knew of their “temporary” status in the US, many were startled by Kelly’s decision and are anxious about going home. Many used social media to share tips on changing their immigration status.

When playing to a crowd in the Miami neighbourhood known as “Little Haiti”, the Haiti-born hip hop star Wyclef Jean urged Trump to think twice. In a song, he rapped: “You need to renew that TPS; too many Haitians are feeling that stress.”

In a letter, Oxfam America and Refugees International joined dozens of charities to warn Kelly that Haiti still languishes from the quake, disease, storms and drought and “is in no position to reintegrate more than 50,000 Haitians”.

US-based Haitians sent a $1.3bn back to friends and relatives in 2015 – a much-needed 15 percent chunk of the country’s economy. According to the UN’s International Organization for Migration, some 47,000 Haitians are still displaced by the 2010 quake. 

“It takes a long time to rebuild,” Marjean Perhot, a refugee manager with Catholic Charities of Boston, which helps Haitians on TPS, told Al Jazeera.

“Our country went through the devastation of Hurricane Katrina [in 2005] and I would be surprised if there are not places in New Orleans that are still rebuilding, and we are a first-world nation with plenty of money. We’re asking Haiti to rebuild in seven years.”

She praised the industriousness of Joseph and others being helped by the charity in Massachusetts, which is home to 4,300 Haitians on TPS and constitutes their third-largest community in the US, after Florida and New York. 

Though Joseph, a care home worker who is training to be a nurse, and her husband, a school bus driver, earn basic salaries, they are vital for the local economy, said Perhot. The parents aspire for an American dream of college-educated children.

“Right now, our main concern is that TPS be extended for the full 18-month period,” said Perhot. “Down the road, if conditions don’t improve in Haiti, we would like to look at different types of legislation that could be possible.”

For Jessica Vaughan, from the Center for Immigration Studies, which argues for lower levels of immigration, this is the problem – TPS is increasingly viewed as a “side-door immigration programme”.

“It is time to change the way we think about TPS, so that it’s not just a stepping stone to some kind of amnesty or a permanent grant of legal status here” for people from turbulent countries, Vaughan told Al Jazeera.

“The government has been very fair in giving people six months’ warning that possibly TPS could be ended for Haitians, giving them time to get their affairs in order, save money, make plans, get documents and prepare for their return home.” 

OPINION: Some hope for Haiti

TPS recipients have earned first-world wages and gained valuable skills that will stand them in good stead back in Haiti, added Vaughan – echoing commonly held opinions in a country that backed Trump’s anti-immigrant platform in last year’s election.

It offers little comfort to Anne Dastine Pierre, 52, another Haitian mother-of-three with TPS status in the Boston area. Unlike Joseph, she has not learned English and struggles even to get a single shift each week cleaning the city’s convention centre.

“The way the country is today if the [US] government sends back the Haitians a lot of them will die,” Pierre told Al Jazeera.

Follow James Reinl on Twitter: @jamesreinl

Source: Al Jazeera News

Armed police stormed a Malaysia Airlines flight that was forced to return to Australia after a passenger tried to enter the cockpit claiming he had a bomb. 

“He was saying: ‘I’m going to the blow the f…ing plane up, I’m going to blow the plane up,'” passenger Andrew Leoncelli told Australian Broadcasting Corp on Thursday.

“He was agitated, is the best description, 100 percent he was agitated,” Leoncelli said.    

Passengers described fearing for their lives, but Malaysian Deputy Transport Minister Abdul Aziz Kaprawi said a Sri Lankan national, who appeared to have been drunk, was overpowered by passengers and crew and later arrested.    

“It is not a hijack. One disruptive passenger tried to enter the plane’s cockpit,” Aziz told AFP news agency.    

“The passenger… claimed to have a bomb. But it was not a bomb but a powerbank. Everyone on board is safe… He was taken out of the plane handcuffed by Australian security officers.”   

Kuala Lumpur-bound Flight MH128 left Melbourne at 11:11pm (13:11GMT) on Wednesday, but turned back shortly afterwards when the man allegedly threatened those on board, Australian police said.    

Police Superintendent Andy Langdon said the suspect appeared to have a history of mental illness.      

“We do not believe this is terrorist-related at the moment,” Langdon said.    

While officials tried to play down the incident, passengers told of some 90 minutes of onboard drama and fear after take-off.    

A business class passenger, who identified himself as Andy, told Melbourne radio station 3AW the arrested man had threatened to “blow the plane up”.    

“The staff screamed out ‘I need some help, I need some help’. So I jumped up, undid my buckle, and approached him.”    

Andy said the man ran to the back of the plane, where two other men grabbed and disarmed him of a “giant black thing” and “put hog ties on him”.    

OPINION: Malaysia Airlines: ‘This is not a normal investigation’

Langdon described the experience for passengers as “very traumatic”, adding passengers and crew were “heroic”.    

Passenger Arif Chaudery said he joined several others to subdue the man.    

“Families, kids, they were very scared, and some screaming … so three or four guys, we jumped as quickly as possible,” he told Channel Nine.    

“We just put him on the floor and finally staff brought the belt, so we handcuffed him and tied his legs and put his face on the floor.”    

Laura, who asked for her surname to be withheld, told ABC she feared for her life.    

“I thought the plane was going to go down, I thought the bomb was going to go off. I really did think I was going to die,” she said.

Source: News agencies