Check out these four Asian messaging apps that are commanding a market share rivaling Whatsapp and making their way to U.S. audiences.

There’s no shortage of messaging apps that can replace your native text messaging service in the App Stores. Apps like Imo.im, and of course Whatsapp are among the most popular, but there’s a crop of contenders from Asia that you may or may not be familiar with growing exponentially, and they’re beginning to find a solid footing with the U.S. audience. Here’s a quick look at messaging app imports that could soon become popular options for avoiding your native texting client.

Kakao Talk

Launched in 2010, Kakao Talk was founded in Korea by Beom-Soo Kim, the former CEO of Next Human Network, the company formed after a merger between South Korean companies Naver.com and Hangame Communications. Kakao Talk provides users with an interactive chatting experience, a library of emoticons, and an app-to-app calling feature that uses your data plan instead of your minutes.

One thing we’ve noticed with the app is that celebrities – primarily in Asia for now – are using it to keep fans up to date through Kakao Talk messages.

The app is primarily popular in South Korea, with half of its 60 million users coming from that country. The app reportedly hosts one billion inbound and outbound messages per day.

Kakao Talk is available on iOS, Android, Bada, Blackberry and Windows Phone devices.

LINE

There’s a stark similarity between LINE’s user interface and Kakao Talk, which makes sense given that LINE was launched by the Japanese subsidiary of Next Human Network. The app’s messaging service is extremely similar in design and user experience with Kakao Talk, but it’s easy to use and comes with similar bells and whistles — like voice-to-voice calling and in-app emoticons. Other features include group chatting and “stickers” that you can message to your friends. The one caveat is that the app’s voice-to-voice feature can be buggy and unreliable as our calls were often dropped. Where LINE differentiates itself from Kakao Talk is that it’s making a push to be a mobile social medial destination. You can publish updates to a Timeline, and it even recommends its other standalone branded apps for taking photos, painting, sending greeting cards, or gaming.

In just eight months since its launch, the app has garnered 20 million users, and claims it reached that milestone faster than Facebook (it took 38 months). Today it has over 60 million users worldwide (approximately 29 million in Japan) and is projected to reach 100 million users by the end of 2012.

The app is available for iOS, Android, and Windows Phone devices.

Nimbuzz

Nimbuzz isn’t a shoe-in for this list since it doesn’t get its beginnings in Asia. In fact the startup began in the Netherlands in 2006, but the company has since relocated its headquarters to India and replaced its key staff with Indian executives after it became hugely popular with consumers in the country. It currently has over 100 million users globally,17 percent of which reside in India and 6.5 percent in the United States. The company projects to have 400 million users by 2014.

Its interface is very reminiscent of Whatsapp. However, we have to admit when it comes to calling or chatting via video (features that Whatsapp doesn’t offer) Nimbuzz might offer a superior experience. Users can call friends who have the app downloaded for free, or talk face-to-face with its free video calling feature. A unique service that Nimbuzz also provides is the ability to chat by texting with your friend through video, but without the audio. While it might sound peculiar to you, it’s ideal for users who would prefer to see each other but are on networks that restrict access to VoIP calling services.

Nimbuzz is also making a hard sell to compete directly with Skype. The majority of its features are focused on calling services, including the ability to call landlines and cellphones for a minute-by-minute fee, similar to what Skype offers.

Nimbuzz is available on iOS, Android, Blackberry, Windows Phone, Nokia, and even Java devices.

WeChat

Tencent Holdings, a Chinese holding company that owns the wildly popular Tencent QQ (a free instant messaging service based in China) has a sizable piece of the mobile messaging market with WeChat. With 200 million users, it’s among the most popular messaging apps in the world. But WeChat is unique in its approach as the app focuses on voice messaging – it’s a feature offered in LINE, which buries its voice messaging into a secondary page. Rather than offering voice-to-voice calling, users can record a voice message and send it to their friends just you would with a regular text-based message. Of course if you prefer to send text messages, the app supports it through the same interface, along with the emoticons and “stickers” that you’ll find in other services. 

Similar to LINE, WeChat has extended its service to offer a social media component called “Moments.” On this page, which not surprisingly resembles Facebook’s Timeline, users can share content as long as you publish a photo that’s stored on your phone.

WeChat is available on iOS, Android, and Windows Phone devices.

Your one stop for all the news on Bethesda’s upcoming game, Dishonored.

The thing about Dishonored is that it took us all by surprise. Going into E3 this year, it was almost an afterthought. Bethesda had pushed back Prey 2, with the exception of the Doom 3 HD re-release id Software has been in silent running-mode following the release of Rage, and there hasn’t been any news on the Fallout front since New Vegas released. There was the recently announced The Elder Scrolls Online, but at the time that was little more than an announcement seasoned with a handful of details.

And yet despite it all, Bethesda walked into E3 with a swagger befitting a publisher that knew it had something to show.

Beyond the name and a few scattered reveals, Arkane Studios’ first person assassin game was still something of a mystery. It was generating good buzz, but most weren’t sure what to expect. That quickly changed though, and Dishonored left E3 looking like it robbed a truck full of Best of Show awards (including ours).

You play as Corvo Attano, Lord Protector to the Empress and friend to the people of the Empire of Isles. When the Empress is betrayed, Corvo is blamed and sentenced to death. He soon escapes and begins a bloody quest for justice and revenge.

The setting is a highlight of Dishonored – an original world designed with a blend of Victorian-flair and steampunk, which plays out like a fantasy novel. But the real appeal of it is the gameplay, which combines traditional combat along with magic. As an assassin you move through massive areas, seeking the best way to your goal that meets your personal style — and your choices change the world around you as a result.

If you want to go stealth, you can use a teleport-like jump to reach hidden locations, or you can stop time to run by enemies. If you prefer to make it loud, you can attack foes with swarms of rats. If you want to go for style points, you can possess an enemy after they fired at you, freeze time, then walk the attacker into the path of their own bullet to take them out. If you prefer a more hands off approach, you can stop time near a rat, attach a grenade to them, then possess the rat and walk it into the middle of a crowd to cause a little chaos. There are a staggering amount of options, limited only by your own imagination.

Dishonored hits stores this Tuesday on PS, PS3, and Xbox 360. But until then click on the image below to catch up on all the news from one of the most intriguing games of the year.

Conflicting with previous reports that Foxconn workers halted iPhone 5 production this week, the company refuted the strike claims today.

Detailed on Reuters earlier today, representatives with Foxconn released a statement denying the recent claim that thousands of workers went on strike over working conditions at one of the plants producing Apple’s iPhone 5. The previous report indicated that workers weren’t able to keep up with the stringent quality control standards which led to physical violence between workers and quality control inspectors. The previous report also indicated that Foxconn was forcing workers to continue producing iPhones and other electronics through China’s seven-day National Day holiday. More specifically, China’s Xinhua news organization published a quote from an official with the Zhengzhou government that stated over one hundred quality inspectors abstained from work for a short time on Friday due to a physical altercation with workers.

According to officials at the Foxconn Technology Group in Taiwan, two disputes at the plant in question did take place early in the week. However, these altercations didn’t result in a complete halt in the production line at the factory.

Regarding the previous report, Foxconn’s statement said “Any reports that there has been an employee strike are inaccurate. There has been no workplace stoppage in that facility or any other Foxconn facility and production has continued on schedule.” In addition, Foxconn management claims that additional staff was added to the production lines that were involved in the disputes. 

Apple has not commented on these incidents at the Foxconn factories in China, but it’s highly possibly that customer reports of scratches and flaws on brand new models could have led to these disputes. A spokesman for the industrial area that contains the Foxconn plant in question said “The instruction to strengthen quality inspections for the iPhone 5 was given by Apple Inc. following multiple complaints from customers regarding aesthetic flaws in the phone.” Regarding the flaws in the iPhone 5 shipments, Apple VP Phil Schiller stated “Any aluminum product may scratch or chip with use, exposing its natural silver color. That is normal.”

From newcomers like DisplayPort to old standards like USB and dying breeds like FireWire, here’s a quick and dirty guide to every port on your new PC.

Almost any modern communication need can be handled with a wireless solution. File transfer, streaming video, peripheral connections – all of these can be accomplished without a physical connection. The future is now.

Yet the port persists. No, more than that: It’s alive and well. Take a gander at your home office and you’ll likely find wires of all sorts leading to various connections: USB, HDMI, DVI, Thunderbolt, the list goes on.

Physical connections are still the quickest, most reliable way to transfer data. Which means it’s still important to know what goes where, and why. Let’s clear the air and make room for some modern knowledge of old-fashioned connectivity.

USB

The Universal Serial Bus would make a good role model for super-villains everywhere. It pledged to take over the world. Then it did so. It took well over a decade, but it has happened. FireWire is basically obsolete. External SATA is nearly extinct. Only Thunderbolt may provide a serious challenge – but it’s years away from widespread adoption.

Modern USB essentially comes in two forms – USB 2.0 and USB 3.0. The ports look the same and are compatible with each other, which is great. Except it makes separating the two difficult. Manufacturers the world over have tried to resolve the standard says that USB 3.0 ports should be blue or should be identified by super-speed USB 3.0 logo (see below).

If it’s not blue or identified by this logo, it’s not USB 3.0. Or at least it shouldn’t be. We’ve yet to encounter a computer that failed to identify USB 3.0 ports by at least logo, but we have run into a couple (both laptops) that didn’t use blue.

The main difference between the standards is speed. The maximum bandwidth of 3.0 is over 10 times higher than 2.0. This doesn’t mean transfer speeds are ten times better in the real world, but there is a huge difference. You’ll see much quicker file transfers with a USB 3.0 drive plugged in to a 3.0 port. Transfer speeds are not better if you plug a 3.0 drive into a 2.0 port. Data can still be transferred, but only at 2.0 speeds.

FireWire

FireWire was developed by Apple to solve the lack of high-speed connections available to peripherals during the early 90s. Speed was given high priority, and it showed in the resulting standard. FireWire which went through several revisions, and each was consistently quicker than USB.

Until now. USB 3.0 has upped the ante, and instead of calling, FireWire’s supporters have chosen to fold. It was probably a wise move. FireWire never gained the widespread appeal of USB. Losing its performance advantage made it nearly obsolete.

Still, many people have an older camera or peripheral which must be connected via FireWire. If you’re among this crowd you will need to plan on using adapters in the future. FireWire support is near extinction in the laptop space and nearly dead among desktops as well.

eSATA

This standard related to the common SATA standard that’s used by nearly all modern hard drives, but designed for external peripherals. It takes advantage of SATA’s excellent bandwidth to provide fast transfer speeds.

Sounds great, right? But there are a couple problems. One is a lack of support for power in the standard. USB and FireWire are both capable of powering devices, which is why most USB peripherals and storage devices don’t need external power. There’s no support for that in eSATA. A work-around port called eSATAp fixes that, but this port is rare and not part of the official SATA standard.

Another issue is the standard’s maximum cable length. SATA was built for use in computers, so the cables only had to work short distances. This means the maximum length of cable is six feet, six inches. Larger cables can be made, of course — it wouldn’t cause the space-time continuum to collapse — but they also wouldn’t be guaranteed to work.

Thunderbolt

Thunderbolt is a new type of connection developed by Intel under the codename Light Peak. As that name suggests, Thunderbolt was initially intended to be a fiber-optic connection capable of 10 Gbit/s (nearly twice the bandwidth of USB 3.0) but Intel engineers figured out how to accomplish this goal using only copper wire. This made Thunderbolt less expensive and gave it the ability to deliver power, a critical trait for any connection that dreams of widespread adoption. In fact, Thunderbolt can deliver a whopping 10 watts, which is over twice as much as USB 3.0.

This connection also doubles as a DisplayPort 1.2-compatible A/V connection. It’s possible to daisy-chain up to seven different devices (both displays and peripherals) off one Thunderbolt port, though there are limitations based on the types of devices connected.

Thunderbolt seems set to one day replace USB 3.0, but for now it remains expensive and only a handful of companies have adopted it. Apple was first to include it on production PCs. Other manufacturers are beginning to follow this lead, but only on high-end products. Even if you do have the port, there’s not much to connect to it besides DisplayPort-compatible monitors and a small (but growing) selection of external hard drives.

If you plan to buy a computer in 2014, consider this a must-have. For now it’s a great technology that needs to gain market acceptance.

DVI

Now it’s time to jump away from the general-purpose connections and start talking about those dedicated only to audio and video. DVI seems like a good place to start.

DVI is the old man of modern video connections. Its bloodline dates all the way back to 1999 and it didn’t see widespread acceptance until 2002 and 2003. Since then, it has resisted several different attempts to completely replace it, though its strength does seem to be fading.

Because it was developed as a successor to VGA, this connection can handle analog signals. That’s not going to be a factor for most readers but it may be worth noting if you still have an old VGA monitor kicking around. DVI also can output audio when paired with an appropriate video card and a DVI-to-HDMI adapter.

DisplayPort

DisplayPort was one of two A/V connections (the other being HDMI) developed in the middle of last decade. This connection was developed specifically with computer monitors in mind and is meant to be the full-digital replacement for DVI.

On paper, DisplayPort is a technical masterpiece. It has a maximum data rate of up to 18 Gbp/s in best fighting form. Like its sibling, Thunderbolt, DisplayPort allows for daisy-chain configurations. It’s possible to run up to four 1080p displays with a single DisplayPort connection. Another nice advantage is cable length: The spec supports up to three meters in copper and fifteen with fiber-optic – but be warned, those cables are expensive.

This connection is very good, but only if you have a monitor that supports it. Many inexpensive monitors don’t. The consumer television market is the culprit. Consumers usually know of HDMI, but few know of DisplayPort, which makes it hard to sell. Even so, this connection’s compatibility with Thunderbolt may make it the video standard of the future.

HDMI

The High Definition Multimedia Interface began production in 2003 as a replacement to all earlier A/V connections. It was built to be a do-it-all cable combining uncompressed audio and video for maximum picture quality.

Computers were never the focus. HDMI was developed for the expected surge of high-definition televisions. But the traits that make HDMI good for televisions also make it good for computers. This connection can handle audio and video with one cable. Better still, the connector is thin and flat, making HDMI great for laptops and other small systems.

All of these advantages also apply to DisplayPort, a connection that has several additional traits that make it technically superior to HDMI. Despite this, HDMI is more common. It’s often standard on inexpensive monitors and on laptops.

Despite be technically inferior in some ways, HDMI is more than adequate for most users. It’s a simple, easy plug that can handle high display resolutions. Its downsides, such as the inability to daisy-chain and shorter cable lengths, usually aren’t a concern.

Ethernet

Most computers now have wireless Internet available, yet Ethernet persists and is used in millions of homes worldwide. This simple connector, which looks a bit like a phone jack, has served the needs of networks for three decades.

Ethernet is most often used to connect to the Internet. It usually doesn’t offer any effective bandwidth advantage because the bandwidth of a strong wireless connection will almost certainly exceed the bandwidth of your Internet connection. Ethernet is more reliable, however. There’s no need to worry about signal interference, concrete walls and other obstructions.

Ethernet’s speed can be used to its full potential on a home network if appropriate routers and cables are used. Two computers networked with Gigabit Ethernet can transfer data at high speeds over relatively long distances.

Copper still rules

Ports matter, and we’ll probably be dealing with them for some time. Wireless bandwidth is now technically capable of handling HD video and can provide excellent data transfer rates, but expensive adapters are still required and reliability isn’t perfect in all environments. Cables, and the ports they plug in to, remain a cheap, reliable, simple solution. Hopefully this guide has helped you understand the galaxy of ports that are commonly used.

[Image credit: USB Connection Port, Nejron Photo/Shutterstock]

Pump your favorite jams from your iPhone 5 with these Bluetooth- and AirPlay-friendly speaker docks.

With the release of the new iPhone 5 comes the new Lightning connector. On the positive side, it is smaller, faster, reversible and has a much cooler name than “30-pin dock connector.” But it also presents some temporary problems; one of which is there are no speaker docks on the market that will work with it. Or are there?

The fact is, you don’t have to wait for speaker makers to issue new speaker docks with the Lightning connector to enjoy audio from your iPhone 5 — there are plenty of solid speaker docks you can use right now. Thanks to Apple AirPlay and Bluetooth, you can start streaming you tunes wirelessly to a sweet-sounding speaker dock as quick as…well…lightning.

Check out our list of the best iPhone 5 speaker docks and the reviews that go with them. They all offer built-in AirPlay and or Bluetooth and sound spectacular. Now go get your jam on.

Klipsch Gallery G-17 Air, $500

The Klipsch G-17 Air doesn’t even have a dock to worry about! We were wowed by its potent performance from a small, wall-mountable package. It offers a USB connection for device charging and an aux-in port for other audio devices. Its sleek, gloss-black finish and unassuming design lends itself well to a variety of décors. Read our full Klipsch Gallery G-17 Air review.

Bowers and Wilkins Zeppelin Air, $600

We’ve given the Zeppelin Air a fair amount of heat for its blimp-like design, but the fact is it sounds great and has a way of becoming a fun conversation piece. If you’re looking to impress your friends as well as enjoy superior sound, the Zeppelin Air is the ticket. Read our full B&W Zeppelin Air review.

JBL OnBeat Xtreme, $500

If you’re looking for stellar performance with a dash of portability, the JBL OnBeat Xtreme is a great pick. Plus, as a bonus, it will dock your iPad as well (for now, anyway). Check out everything this dock has to offer in our full JBL OnBeat Xtreme review.

Samsung DA-E750, $630

The Samsung DA-E750 is one of the best performing speaker docks we’ve ever hear, and it is gorgeous, to boot. It also happens to be the most versatile speaker dock we’ve come across, with a connector for Android devices and support for both AirPlay and Bluetooth wireless streaming. Plus, it’s got tubes, man! Dig our Samsung DA-E750 review.

Bang and Olufsen Beolit 12, $800

The Bang and Olufsen Beolit 12 trumps the JBL OnBeat Xtreme for portability thanks to a built-in rechargeable battery. It also gives the JBL a run for its money in the sound department. You’ll pay a little more for this Danish dynamo, but it does deliver deep bass while occupying minimum space. Be sure to read our Bang and Olufsen Beolit 12 review for the full scoop.

Etón Ruckus Solar, $150

While the Etón Rukus Solar doesn’t offer sound quality at quite the level of our previous entries, it is quite the solar-powered sensation and the most affordably priced. Take it with you anywhere and let the sun supe up your sounds. Everything else you need to know is in Eton Rukus Solar review.