app

New rules have come into force for Brits this week across a number of European holiday hotspots, but there’s an app that could help you swerve potentially long queues

Brits heading to the likes of France, Spain, Portugal and Greece will face new entry requirements as Europe’s new Entry/Exit System (EES) has come into force. Airports across the EU are braced for potential travel chaos as non-EU visitors, including Brits, will need to have biometric information such as facial images and fingerprints taken when they enter the EU.

Personal data from your passport will also be collected when you enter an EU border, and the system will record entry and exit dates to allow overstays to be easily flagged. EES is set to replace passport stamps in the long run.

However, getting to grips with the new technology has proven tricky at some airports, with many Brits reporting longer queues on arrival and when departing the EU. While EU passport holders have their own lanes, Brits must queue with other non-EU nationalities and go through the new system.

An official app could potentially speed up the process for Brits and other non-EU citizens, although many travellers are unaware of its existence.

The Travel to Europe app is available on Apple’s App Store or Google Play and claims it can “speed up your border check”. Holidaymakers heading to the EU first need to download the app and register. At the moment, the app is only available at selected border crossing points, including Sweden and Portugal, although the developers claim more will be added soon.

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Families flying together can add co-travellers to the app so their details are in one place. You simply need to add details of your journey such as the date and time you’ll arrive and depart, and can scan your passport using your phone. You then take a selfie and answer some questions. This can be done up to 72-hours before your flight.

The app then generates a QR code for each passenger which can be scanned at a self-service kiosk or by passport control staff. Simply follow the signs or directions from airport staff to the pre-registration queue. Of course, there’s no guarantee of entry and staff may still carry out additional checks, but for many passengers this could speed up the process for them.

Travellers have been warned to “expect chaos” in the coming months in popular holiday hotspots such as Tenerife. Reports of hours long queues and confusion caused by the new system have surfaced. And while the EES implementation date has avoided the busy Easter weekend, May half-term is just a few weeks away, which could potentially put more strain on the system.

Have a story you want to share? Email us at webtravel@reachplc.com

April 6 (UPI) — Samsung said on Monday that it will discontinue its messages app and told users to upgrade to Google Messages as their default method for sending texts.

The move is being billed as an upgrade, as Google Messages includes spam and scam filters, RCS-enabled messaging, artificial intelligence features because the app is integrated with Google’s Gemini, and the ability to continue chats across multiple devices without interruption.

The Samsung Messages app will not be available to download and will stop functioning in July, Samsung said in an end-of-service announcement.

Samsung Messages was the pre-installed, default texting app on all the company’s smartphones until 2021, CNET reported.

In 2024, it stopped pre-installing it and gradually started to motivate users to switch to the Google service with the release of its Galaxy Z Flip 6 and Z Fold 6 phones, and the Galaxy S26 — the newest version of its flagship smartphone — is not able to download the app.

“Once the Samsung Messages app is discontinued, sending messages via Samsung Messages on your phone will no longer be possible, except for emergency service numbers or emergency contacts defined on your device,” Samsung said in the announcement.

In the announcement, Samsung said that depending on the operating system on the device, some users may receive a notification in Samsung Messages about migrating to Google Messages, if the user opts for it.

For some users, the company said, Google Messages will not instantly be set as the default texting app and may not appear in the home screen doc, with Samsung providing instructions for accomplishing both.

It also noted in the announcement that watches launched before the Galaxy Watch4 do not support Google’s texting app, and that Samsung devices released before 2022 will require users on both ends of a text conversation to switch to Google Messages for full RCS conversations to be available.

RCS, or Rich Communication Services, is a SMS/MMS standard that has been adopted by most messaging apps, including the iMessage app on iPhones, that provides end-to-end encryption, ensuring a “more dynamic and secure conversation,” according to Google.

SARAH Beeny is revamping her failing dating app in a last-ditch attempt to turn around its fortunes.

She’s launching the “world’s first” video dating app – and is looking for singletons to find love in a bold new move.

Sarah might have the Midas touch when it comes to flogging houses, but didn’t have quite so much luck wielding Cupid’s bow and arrow.

The telly star and property guru runs a dating website called My Single Friend and it is heavily in debt.

Now she’s revealed that the site will be overhauled.

She said on Instagram: “I have to admit, I’m so excited because I’m going to relaunch My Single Friend as the world’s first video dating app and it’s coming next week and I can’t wait.

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“But as we are launching completely empty, I’m looking for the first 50 people who would like to be on the app when we launch, so if you have a single friend you’d like to pop on or are single yourself, send me a DM.”

The most recent figures show it didn’t make a penny in a year, plus singletons looking for love have been less than kind in online reviews of the firm.

Books posted on Companies House showed that for 2023 the firm had zero equity and it didn’t pay a penny in Corporation Tax, meaning it didn’t make enough cash on which to be taxed. It also owed £1.5m.

The firm was founded in 2004.

A review on Trustpilot read: “The matches they offer up have nothing to do with my search criteria, I suspect there aren’t many people signed up on my area. Customer service good though.”

Another person added: “Most profiles are inactive. Some profiles appear twice under different IDS The quality of the individuals is questionable… most guys over 50 look like bald spuds and send d**k pics.”

My Single Friend told would-be members: “Our clever two-way matching system can help you find your perfect match; our highly-rated and super-lovely customer service team is on-hand every day.

“Fall in love with love again. We can’t wait to help you take the first step.”

Household name Sarah — who beatbreast cancer in 2023 — shot to fame fronting Property Ladder in 2001 before going on to front a host of property shows on TV.

This is first big step by the ChatGPT maker to focus its business on potentially more lucrative areas, such as coding tools.

OpenAI is shutting down its social media app Sora, which went viral towards the end of last year as a place to share short-form videos generated by artificial intelligence but also raised alarms in Hollywood and elsewhere.

OpenAI said in a brief social media message on Tuesday that it was “saying goodbye to the Sora app” and that it would share more soon about how to preserve what users had already created on the app.

“What you made with Sora mattered, and we know this news is disappointing,” it said.

The company behind ChatGPT released Sora in September as an attempt to capture the attention, and potentially advertising dollars, that follow short-form videos on TikTok, YouTube or Meta-owned Instagram and Facebook.

But a growing chorus of advocacy groups, academics and experts expressed concerns about the dangers of letting people create AI videos on just about anything they can type into a prompt, leading to the proliferation of nonconsensual images and realistic deepfakes in a sea of less harmful “AI slop”.

OpenAI was forced to crack down on AI creations of public figures – among them, Michael Jackson, Martin Luther King Jr and Mister Rogers – doing outlandish things, but only after an outcry from family estates and an actors’ union.

Disney, which made a deal with OpenAI last year to bring its characters to Sora, said in a statement on Tuesday that it respects “OpenAI’s decision to exit the video generation business and to shift its priorities elsewhere”.

But Disney did not see the move coming, the Reuters news agency reported.

On Monday evening, Walt Disney and OpenAI teams were working together on a project linked to Sora. Just 30 minutes after the meeting, the Disney team was blindsided with word that OpenAI was dropping the tool altogether, a person familiar with the matter said.

OpenAI announced the move publicly on Tuesday.

“It was a big rug-pull,” according to the person, who requested anonymity to discuss the matter.

Messy process

The move is the first big step by the ChatGPT maker to focus its business on potentially more lucrative areas, such as coding tools and corporate customers.

But the abrupt cancellation of Sora illustrates how messy the streamlining process may become as OpenAI prepares for a stock market debut that could come as early as later this year.

The Sora decision means the end of a blockbuster $1bn deal between Disney and the ChatGPT maker that was announced a little more than three months ago. As part of the three-year deal, Disney said it would invest $1bn in OpenAI and lend more than 200 of its iconic characters to be used in short, AI-generated videos.

But the transaction between the companies never closed, two other people familiar with the matter said, and no money changed hands.