Ina Fried

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Samsung Gets Its ChatON

Samsung on Wednesday launched ChatON, its answer to Apple’s iMessage and RIM’s BlackBerry Messenger.

Unlike those services, though, ChatON is designed to work across different phone operating systems. The service, announced back in August, is for now available as a download from Samsung’s app store and on the Android Market.

In addition to conventional text-based instant messages, ChatON also allows multimedia and animated messages using a combination of audio, scribbled text and a background image, Samsung said. It also supports group chat.

Samsung plans to preload the software on smartphones running its Bada operating system starting later this month, and will make it “gradually” available for other operating systems by the end of the year.

The Korean electronics giant showed off the service last month at the IFA trade show.

“Through its multi-platform and global availability, ChatON heralds a new age of mobile communication,” Samsung Senior VP Kang Min Lee said in a statement.

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Nobody was excited about paying top dollar for a movie about WikiLeaks. A film about the origins of Pets.com would have done better.

— Gitesh Pandya of BoxOfficeGuru.com comments on the dreadful opening weekend box office numbers for “The Fifth Estate.”