WASHINGTON: WhatsApp now has 500 million regular, active users around the world, the free mobile messaging service being acquired by Facebook said.

That is up from an estimated 450m as of late February, as the service’s reach expanded rapidly in countries including Brazil, India, Mexico, and Russia.

WhatsApp said Tuesday on its blog that its users are also sharing more than 700m photos and 100m videos a day.

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg announced in February that his social network is acquiring WhatsApp for $19 billion. The stock and cash purchase marries WhatsApp’s steadily growing user base with Facebook’s 1.2bn active users.

The huge price tag raised eyebrows but Zuckerberg told the Mobile World Congress in Spain days after the announcement that he believes WhatsApp is actually worth much more.

He argued that there are very few services that reach so many millions of people in the world. The acquisition would be Facebook’s largest ever.

Review: Samsung Galaxy Round (SM-G910S)

The Galaxy Round looks like the Galaxy Note III quite a lot. As said before, the handset uses a screen with a slight curve – the curve is almost not noticeable is certainly minimal. The screen type is the same as the Note 3’s, namely a 5.68-inch Full HD 1080p Super AMOLED display. What’s striking about the Round is how nice it feels when held in the hand. That’s a result of Samsung hang bent the back of the device along with the screen – oh, and the back is the same as the Galaxy Note 3’s, a plastic cover but with a leather pattern with faux stitching that makes it feel more premium than any other Samsung smartphone in recent years. Elsewhere, the Galaxy Round remains basically the same as the Note 3, but lacks S Pen functionality.
Here are some pictures of the design from the Galaxy Round plus some comparison pictures with the Galaxy Note 3.

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