Japanese e-commerce giant Rakuten has today announced its $900 million acquisition of Viber. The hugely popular messaging and VoIP service will help Rakuten expand its digital ecosystem even further, and it marks its first foray into voice communication.

By default, many Android notifications make the same sound, so there’s no way to distinguish between emails, messages, and other alerts without actually waking your phone up and looking at them. But it doesn’t have to be like that.

With MegaSound, you can set custom notifications for individual apps, so you’ll know exactly what’s coming in without even having to touch your handset.

BBM has been a huge success on Android and iOS, and so although they may be rival platforms, that won’t stop BlackBerry from porting over its biggest and best BBM features to keep its messaging service alive.

In 2014, the Canadian company will rollout major updates that add BBM Channels, BBM Voice, and new sharing features — and you can see them in action in the video below.

At an event in New York City today, Instagram announced Instagram Direct, a new feature that allows users to share private photos and videos with their friends and loved ones. It will be baked into the existing Instagram app for Android and iOS with an update that’s rolling out today.

Viber, the hugely popular cross-platform messaging service, now offers low-cost calls to mobile phones and landlines worldwide as part of a new service called Viber Out. It’s available on Android, iOS, and though the Viber desktop client, and it boasts call fees substantially cheaper than Skype’s.