Snapchat boosts chat features with Chat 2.0

Screenshot courtesy of Daily Mail

Snapchat is honing in on its competitors with the new features the messaging service integrates into its app. Its new Chat 2.0 hopes to bring a more intuitive chatting experience for its users. The feature makes it easier to share videos, short audio notes, and stickers to help you communicate with friends within the app. As stated on Snapchat’s blog: “What we love about the new Chat is how easily you can transition between all these ways of communicating—just like you do in person. When that’s possible, you aren’t texting, calling, or video chatting… you’re just talking.”

The app also gets a new Auto-Advance Stories feature that lets stories from your friends play one after another. You can swipe to skip ahead in a story or pull down to exit completely.

Source: Droid Life

Snapchat acquires Bitmoji maker for US$100 million

In what looks like a way to compete with Facebook in the mobile messaging market, Snapchat has snapped up Bitmoji creator, Bitstrips Inc., for over $100 million USD in cash and stock. If you’re unfamiliar with the Bitmoji app, it lets users create cartoon avatars based on themselves that they can send via a special smartphone keyboard. This acquisition is seen to help Snapchat further its library of visual filters and lenses to its over 100 million users. Earlier this month, Facebook bought Masquerade Technologies to let users enhance their videos with filters and “swap” faces with someone else in the picture, a popular feature on Snapchat.

Source: MarketWatch

WhatsApp, Facebook, Snapchat reportedly working on boosting encryption

Following the ongoing battle between the FBI and Apple, it seems some tech companies are looking to boost their encryption. Reports claim the likes of WhatsApp, Snapchat, and Facebook are looking for ways to protect user data. WhatsApp is said to be preparing to offer encrypted voice calls. Back in 2014, WhatsApp brought end-to-end encryption to Android users. Now the reports claim the service will be bringing encrypted calls and group messaging to its over one billion users. Snapchat is said to be working on its own secure messaging platform, and Facebook is supposedly looking into boosting the security of its Messenger app.

Google is reported to be also putting its encrypted email technology to use elsewhere but a source claims this isn’t entirely a sure thing but it has been “an ongoing effort for a long time.” Google has to find the balance between securing data and maintaining its business model of targeting advertisements based on messages. It’ll get tricky when encryption comes to play.

Source: SlashGear

Android users get video rewind filter on Snapchat

Last year, Snapchat introduced some fun filters that let you play around with your video snaps. One feature missing on Android was the Rewind filter. As its name suggests, it just lets you record snaps and play these in reverse. Now, Android users finally get to play around with this filter. Just swipe right after recording a video until you stumble on the three reverse arrows to create your own reverse videos. Update your Snapchat app to the latest version to get to play around with this.

Source: Android Central | Download: Google Play Store (Free)