In early 2014, Facebook acquired WhatsApp for $19 billion (yes, billion with a вЂњbвЂќ). By the time WhatsApp added voice calling and video chatting, it was the de facto standard for keeping in touch across borders. It also globalizing end-to-end encryption by rolling out the privacy feature to its legion of users. While a lot of non-SMS-based messaging apps required you to own an iPhone, WhatsApp ran on just about any modern mobile device, where it gave people an SMS-like experience without all those SMS fees. The whole debacle looks to have cost Samsung over $6bn but having the products named and shamed, all over the world, every single day is a level of humiliation weвЂ™ve not really seen for a deviceвЂ¦ wellвЂ¦ ever - so at least it excelled at something.In the early years co-founders Jan Koum and Brian Acton charged a $1 annual fee to use the service, but that didnвЂ™t stop WhatsApp from spreading, particularly in developing nations like Brazil, Indonesia, and South Africa. Meanwhile, anyone who has been to an airport in recent months will have seen signs at check-in and security saying that the phones are banned and Samsung constantly has to suffer the indignity of announcements on planes before they take off telling people that they're not allowed. There are still many in the wild and Samsung is still in negotiations to brick them all to stop them working. Samsung even had to invent a fireproof bag for the recall.

An expensive recall and вЂfixвЂ™ still led to serious issues including and not limited to, fires on crowded aeroplanes.

There was much to like about the Note 7 despite itвЂ™s silly, curved, bezel-less screen but after obtaining a reputation akin to unexploded ordinance things just didnвЂ™t stop getting worse for the shiny, slippery sucker. We could have tried to be cool and find something else to beat the well-tipped Samsung Galaxy Note 7 to number one, but this device is still getting so badly hammered that we almost feel sorry for it. Worst Tech Product of 2016: Samsung Galaxy Note 7 So maybe it's better to be safe than sorry and embrace the quackery, eh?ДЎ. The only issue? Science canвЂ™t actually demonstrate that this isnвЂ™t all real, and much of the human race could yet die out in a generation. If you want to go the whole hog, you can even buy these RF-proof underpants with silver strands turning them into a Faraday cage. Nonetheless, there are people who feel that they might be affected by invisible waves and this can act as some sort of safe-space for them to feel a bit better вЂ“ like homeopathic pain-relief pills. But the pseudo-science ignores the fact that most mobile device usage is done when looking at the screen and not when pressed against heads, that we live in a world of ubiquitous ionizing and non-ionizing radiation saturation and that isolating mobile phone emissions over 40 years in order to draw conclusions of cancer-causing effects is as ridiculous as it is impossible. Even Ricky PontingвЂ™s Foundation cheerfully endorsed this device as potentially-saving young Australians. It plays on fears that non-ionizing radiation causes cancer despite a lack of compelling scientific evidence.

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