I’m a relentless browser of discounted e-books. I peek at Kindle Daily Deals each day, and I get BookBub emailed to me (a nice way to check for sale books, FYI). Amazon’s biggest Kindle e-book sale of the year tends to be right now, and the sale books offered today are numerous. I bought a …
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Signal is getting a strong signal of its popularity. The encrypted messaging app, made by Open Whisper Systems, has seen a 400 percent increase in installations since last week’s presidential election, co-founder Moxie Marlinspike told American Public Radio’s Marketplace program. Marlinspike didn’t specify how many users the messaging app had, but said “millions of people” used it before the November …
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FaceTime and Skype have a new rival in the video-chat market: WhatsApp. The maker of the hugely popular messaging and voice app said Monday it will soon add the ability to place free video calls from within the app. The feature, which is expected to be available in the coming days, will allow the app’s more than 1 billion users …
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The creators of WhatsApp say they’re staying true to their formula of simply letting people connect with each other and now with businesses, all with privacy in mind. Co-founders Jan Koum and Brian Acton explained Tuesday during the Wall Street Journal’s WSJ.D Live global technology conference in Laguna Beach, California, that the instant messaging app’s plans to help its one …
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Now playing: Watch this: Google Pixel unboxing 2:38 Google‘s first smartphone designed by the company inside and out is now available, and it looks very promising. Naturally, before you can begin using Google Assistant or shooting pictures, there’s some setup you’ll need to take care of. Most of the process is standard procedure: Tap here to connect to Wi-Fi, tap …
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Now playing: Watch this: Time to quit Yahoo? Site reportedly spied on emails for… 2:17 Enlarge Image Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer reportedly chose to obey the government’s demand. ChrisFarina, Corbis via Getty Images Yahoo built surveillance tools last year after the National Security Agency or the FBI issued a secret directive to scan all customers’ incoming emails, according to a …
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Facebook is making your messages more secure with today’s introduction of end-to-end encryption within Messenger. The rollout started with a major encryption update of Facebook-ownedWhatsApp in April 2016, but Facebook didn’t begin trials until July. Now it is available to all 1 billion users. End-to-end encryption means that your conversations are encrypted from one device to another so the conversation …
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You never know if the government is secretly compelling your favorite internet company to hand over its data on users. Well, sometimes you do. On Tuesday, the ACLU announced it succeeded in getting a gag order (PDF) lifted for its client Open Whisper Systems, creator of the Signal messaging service. That’s the service favored by antisurveillance activists like Edward Snowden. …
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Still shocked by Apple killing off the headphone jack in the iPhone 7? The beloved HDMI port on your laptop and TV may be next on the chopping block. That’s because starting in 2017, the new USB Type-C will have the ability to work like an HDMI port, which up to now has been the lifeline for getting what’s displayed …
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Google’s Allo gives users a messaging app with Google Assistant built in, offering automatically generated responses called Smart Replies and other computer-generated suggestions for your everyday life. To make those features as useful as possible, Google made a trade-off with your privacy, the company confirmed Wednesday. Instead of keeping your messages on company servers for a short period of time, …
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