Snapchat Steps Up Its Game With Sophisticated New Messaging Features

Snapchat rolled out its biggest update yet Thursday, in a move that added text messaging and video chatting to its photo and video sharing app.

The latest version of the app focuses on helping its users have conversations, rather than just one-off picture and video messages.

"Until today, we felt that Snapchat was missing an important part of conversation: presence," the company wrote in a blog post. "There’s nothing like knowing you have the full attention of your friend while you’re chatting."

Following a slight delay in the app's rollout, the new Snapchat is now available to all iOS and Android users. Here's our first impression of how the new features stack up.

A new look

Before you even dive into the new chat and video features, it's obvious Snapchat has given much of the app a facelift.

Many of the app's icons and buttons have been redesigned and and the entire user interface has been given some much-needed polish. The menus, which you still navigate via swipes, are cleaner and less cluttered. The font has also been changed to a smaller, more subtle typeface.

Snapchat's latest app has redesigned menus that are cleaner and less cluttered.

IMAGE: SNAPCHAT

While Snapchat couldn't be reached to confirm this feature, the camera itself also appears to have been improved — likely to accommodate the new video chatting features — which would be somewhat of a departure from previous versions of the apps, which were intentionally lower quality.

"The images might be a little grainy, and you may not look your best, but that's the point. It's about the moment, a connection between friends in the present, and not just a pretty picture," Snapchat's previous App Store description read.

Text messaging

One of the biggest changes to the app is the addition of text messaging. Previously, users could add short, 45-character notes to individual snaps, but that was the only chat-like aspect of Snapchat.

With the latest update, users can now have full-fledged conversations through the app. Simply swipe right over a contact's name from your inbox to pull up a conversation view.

Notably, the chat feature can only be accessed via the app's inbox, so text messaging only works with contacts you have exchanged snaps with in the recent past. If you want to begin messaging with someone not in your inbox, you will need to send them a normal photo or video message.

Snapchat's new test messaging feature includes a gesture-based camera.

IMAGE: SNAPCHAT

Photos can also be exchanged within messaging via the capture button that appears next to the text window. Single tap the button and the app takes you to the normal capture screen that will look familiar to most Snapchat users — with one major change.

The bottom left corner now includes a button that allows users to upload images from their camera roll. 

This is the first time Snapchat has given users the ability to share photos not taken within the app and it's only an option within text messages.

Should you hold down the yellow capture button, the app again directs you to the app's camera but one that uses gesture-based controls. Swipe up or down to switch between the device's front and rear-facing cameras and let go to capture your image.

If you want to send a photo with text overlaid, the limit is still 45 characters. As soon as you go over the character limit, the yellow capture button disappears, forcing you to either trim your message or send your message independently of the photo.

Messages disappear as soon as both users view and navigate away from the message, but individual messages can be saved by tapping on the screen.

Video chatting

The newest version of Snapchat also adds live video chatting to the app. This feature is triggered only when both users have the app open and are in the same conversation. When this occurs, the yellow capture button turns into a blue button the company is calling "here."

Hold down the here button and the app begins to record video that immediately appears on the other user's screen. As with sending photo messages in text chats, you can toggle between your device's front and rear-facing cameras by swiping up or down on the screen.

Snapchat's new live video chatting features allows users to share videos of what's going on around them in real time.

IMAGE: SNAPCHAT

Unlike FaceTime or other video calling apps, the phone doesn't ring and there is no "answer" button when someone initiates a video call. The video simply appears and the other user can choose whether or not to activate it on their end as well.

In keeping with the ephemeral theme Snapchat is known for, let go of the button and the video immediately disappears from the screen.

As far as video quality, the video the other user receives isn't exactly the HD quality of other apps like FaceTime, for example, but it's pretty good — especially considering it's in real time — and, as with the overall camera quality for still images, appears to be an improvement over the previous versions of the app.

Compared to this reboot, the old Snapchat, with its simple design and emphasis solely on disappearing photos, seems a bit immature. With the newest update, the company has managed to build a surprisingly powerful messaging platform that manages to feel true to the app's roots.

Snapchat's newest app is available now on iOS and Android.

Review: Amazing Spider-Man 2 looks stunning, but is a tad too long

What’s there in the Spidey tale, that hasn’t already been told? Only a few years separate Mark Webb's The Amazing Spider-Man series from the Tobey Maguire starrer Spider-Man trilogy, and there isn’t much about the superhero in question that’s shrouded in mystery. Though the creators felt that the amazing Spiderman needed a new suit, the film didn’t try much else in the way of reinvention. Not a huge fan of the prequel either, I was left quite bored by most of The Amazing Spider-man 2.

The film starts off with a rather interesting narrative jump into the reasons behind Peter Parker's abandonment by his parents as a child. We see how Peter's father, a researcher at Oscorp was forced to leave his son and escape for fear of his life and how both he and his wife are mercilessly murdered on a plane.



But upon returning to present day Peter Parker, the plot suddenly drops its pace and questions about his father are shoved (quite literally) into the closet. As sub-plots compound and explode uncontrollably in all directions, the film’s entire focus shifts to the continuing teenage romance between Parker (Andrew Garfield) and Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone) – and the fact that they can’t stop their past from haunting them.

Gwen’s father, minutes before dying, had made Peter promise that he’d stay away from the daughter. And Peter’s guilt and confusion eventually leads to a series of break-ups and make-ups. But the sheer frequency of these ends up making the entire exchange a bit too hollow. To be fair, the two have unbelievable chemistry and are enchanting together. Their exchanges, which are at once goofy and charming – are quite fun to watch and they both share a wonderful sense of comic timing.

Confusion, it seems, is a part of the film’s commendable effort of harking back to the original comic book. Especially the Peter Parker–Spiderman dichotomy, which is revived brilliantly by Garfield. The prompt quips, science babble and the general friendliness of the super-arachnid is revived and Garfield even stops to help out a kid who was being bullied in an alley.

As the two teenagers quarrel, New York is left completely in the dark (literally) by Max (Jamie Foxx) an under-confident Oscorp engineer who mutates into Electro after a bizarre accident that involved him being electrocuted while simultaneously attacked by electric eels. While Electro remains the main villain in the film, the writers have thrown in a couple of other super villains into the fray, with both the Green Goblin and Rhino turning up for the party.

This overabundance was perhaps to ensure that Spidey does remain amazing, but unfortunately this isn’t the case. Peter’s former best friend, Harry Osborne returns home, jaded and dying. But eventually, he falls out with Peter and manages to convert himself to the Green Goblin. The Goblin, though an iconic Spiderman villain, is wasted in the film especially since the Sam Raimi directed trilogy had exhausted the Goblin-Osborne family of all plot possibilities. Dane DeHaan is occasionally brilliant as Harry Osborne, though his presence in the film becomes yet another subplot which is unsurprising and insufficiently explored.

Depending on who you want to believe, the film cost anywhere between $200 million to $300 million. And you can tell where the money went because the film looks absolutely stunning. The carefully choreographed action sequences don’t blow your mind because of the excess – things don’t explode unless they need to, cars don’t fly about unrealistically. Instead, the fights that Spiderman finds himself in are brilliant to watch because of its unusual restraint.

But behind the gloss, the film – which runs well over two hours – stretches its narrative limits to the very final limit. In a world where the arena of comic book films have been redefined by the exuberance of the Avengers and the broodiness of Batman, this film seems to lose itself. It tries at once to be a New York romantic comedy, an action film, a film about the lonely office employee, a film about lost and absent fathers and occasionally a comic book film.

What we have in the end is not an amazing Spiderman, but a mildly engaging, intermittently interesting and ultimately disappointing Spiderman.

Microsoft rescues under-threat Windows XP users with fix for IE flaw

Microsoft is helping the estimated hundreds of millions of customers still running Windows XP, which it stopped supporting earlier this month, by providing an emergency update to fix a critical bug in its Internet Explorer browser.

Microsoft rushed to create the fix after learning of the bug in the operating system over the weekend when cybersecurity firm FireEye warned that a sophisticated group of hackers had exploited the bug to launch attacks in a campaign dubbed “Operation Clandestine Fox.”

It was the first high-profile threat to emerge after Microsoft stopped providing support to its 13-year-old XP operating software on April 8.

Microsoft on Wednesday initially said it would not provide the remedy to Windows XP users because it had stopped supporting the product. But on Thursday, as Microsoft started releasing the fix for the bug through its automated Windows Update system, a company spokeswoman said the remedy also would be pushed out to XP customers.

“We decided to fix it, fix it fast, and fix it for all our customers,” spokeswoman Adrienne Hall said on Microsoft’s official blog.

She said there had not been many attacks exploiting the vulnerability, which Microsoft decided to patch in XP “based on the proximity” to its recent end of support.

“There have been a very small number of attacks based on this particular vulnerability and concerns were, frankly, overblown,” she said in the blog.

At the end of last week, FireEye initially uncovered attacks involving recent versions of Windows that are still supported by Microsoft.

Then, three days ago, it began identifying attacks on Windows XP, which users would not necessarily have been able to thwart if Microsoft had not decided to roll out the update to XP users in addition to other customers.

FireEye said in a blog published on Thursday that it had observed new groups of hackers exploiting the vulnerability to attack targets in government and energy sectors, in addition to previously identified financial and defense industries.

Microsoft was under pressure to move quickly as the U.S., UK and German governments advised computer users on Monday to consider using alternatives to Microsoft’s Explorer browser until it released a fix.

Microsoft first had warned that it was planning to end support for Windows XP in 2007, but security firms estimated that 15 to 25 percent of the world’s personal computers still run on the version of the operating system that was released in October 2001.

Amazing Spider-Man 2 - Hey, Evildoers, Here's Webbing in Your Eye

The last time Spider-Man swung into sight, it was to fight a lizard man in a lab coat and cozy up to a living doll. The lizard landed in the clink, but the doll, Gwen Stacy, is back for the good of Spider-Man (Andrew Garfield) and the franchise. As played by Emma Stone, who has the zing of a screwball heroine and the depthless eyes of an anime character, Gwen brightens The Amazing Spider-Man 2, a sequel that, until a late, lamentably foolish turn, balances blockbuster bombast with human-scale drama, child-friendly comedy and gushers of tears.

This may be the wettest superhero since Aquaman splashed through the HBO show Entourage. Then again, Spider-Man, aka Peter Parker, created at Marvel by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko in 1962, has always been an emotional guy, having entered comic-book legend as a bespectacled high school bookworm who was orphaned, shunned and generally misunderstood: He wasn't an extra-terrestrial, just an above-average, alienated adolescent. When, in an early issue, Peter tries to persuade some kids to visit a science exhibit with him (they laugh and leave), the text spells out his problem and his appeal: "For some, being a teenager has many heart breaking moments!" And while a radioactive spider bite scrambled his genetic makeup, his juvenile sensitivities remained. 

Andrew, who's making a career out of playing delicate flowers, fits the role, suit and moist sniffling fine. He's a stronger, more restrained actor, as well as a better crier, than Tobey Maguire, who had the role in the three films directed by Sam Raimi (the first one hit in 2002), before the "Amazing" sobriquet was tagged on. Resurrected just five years after Raimi's final installment, the reborn franchise did the job, "won" the opening weekend, placated the fans. 

Directed by Marc Webb, whose one other feature was (500) Days of Summer, a romance with a sting,The Amazing Spider-Man did well enough to effectively guarantee that Sony Pictures Entertainment, which has the property, would continue to pump this well until it's dry. And, indeed, two more sequels have been announced. 

It seems axiomatic that the superhero costume is more important than the actor filling it, and that's true to an extent, although perhaps only for comic-book die-hards and movie executives. For the rest of us, talent matters, as demonstrated by the chasm separating the Dark Knight films and failed adaptations like Green Lantern. Kirsten Dunst's wistful turn as Mary Jane in Raimi's trilogy did much to humanize the series and helped put a personal touch on an industrial product. As Gwen, Peter's other historically romantic foil, Stone performs much the same duty in Webb's movies, as she effortlessly charms Peter (and you) and brings him to tears. 

In the comic book, both women have played a part in Peter's life, but apparently that's more than the franchise's male screenwriters and directors could handle. So, with Mary Jane nowhere in sight, it's just Gwen and Peter, dewy lovers discovering each other between spasms of mostly bloodless violence. Webb has some fun with the image of Spider-Man swinging through the urban canyons, and there are moments - as when the image freezes on the tucked, airborne Spider-Man, ready to spring into action like an Olympian - in which the movie taps into the giddy freedom and near-unboundedness that the character's physical transformation has brought him. Special effects have become so persuasive that it now looks as if there were a real person flying through the air, rather than computer-generated pixels. That said, somebody needs to work on that sticky pale fluid that shoots from Spidey's wrists and that at times looks distinctly X-rated. 

Once he comes down to earth, though, the movie does, too, with scenes of heavy destruction that quickly grow monotonous. Many of these involve Oscorp, the evil corporation that symbolizes dehumanizing capitalism (kidding!) and that breeds yet another unhappy employee turned monster turned Spider-Man foe, Max Dillon, aka Electro (Jamie Foxx). Their first big blowout, in the actual Times Square, arrives like clockwork at the one-hour mark, and, despite some pretty streaks of electric blue and the location's texture, is as overly long and busy as most blockbuster battles. Webb slows down the action here, too, which makes details and gestures pop; it's a nifty effect, familiar from The Matrix and commercial advertising, and it suggests how Spider-Man sees the world. 

That world, according to screenwriters Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci and Jeff Pinkner, who share story credit with James Vanderbilt, has an almost rhythmic predictability: Spider-Man fights a villain; Peter hangs with family and friends; repeat. Fans will note canonical details, like the Ravencroft Institute for the Criminally Insane, while civilians may find themselves comparing Dane DeHaan, who plays Harry Osborn, Peter's friendly nemesis, with James Franco, who had the role in Raimi's trilogy. Franco was then a near-ringer for James Dean, which dovetailed with Raimi's nods to Rebel Without a Cause; in this movie, Harry registers as more of a neurasthenic dandy with a dreamy, disquieting otherworldliness that can bring to mind the young David Bowie. 

Webb's directorial signature is most evident in Peter's intimate scenes with Gwen, Harry and Aunt May (Sally Field), which have a natural intimacy that can make this superhero movie feel unusually grounded in real life. These scenes warm up the movie, but they take a toll, because, like innumerable other male heroes, super and not, Peter has difficulty straddling the domestic sphere and the world beyond. In some action movies, that can be a source of humor, if often at the expense of the little lady impatiently tapping her foot while her guy saves the world. Such is the case in a scene in which Peter answers a call from Gwen while in the midst of a melee. 

It's an amusing moment but disappointing. Gwen deserves better: She's too appealing and crucial to the series to be the subject of mockery, including her boyfriend's. It isn't necessarily Webb's fault, but the scene serves as a brief, irksome reminder that most women in the big comic-book movies continue to be consigned to supporting roles, and especially antediluvian ones, good for ogling and saving and not much more. Gwen is actually more interesting. That's because, unlike some other superhero stories in which godlike heroes live and love among ordinary folk, Peter remains a strongly human presence. As a superhero, he carries impossible weight on his slim shoulders, but it's life itself that presses down on him with its burdening guilt, regret and sorrow. 

That's part of what keeps The Amazing Spider-Man 2 moving nicely, at least until a late, badly handled turn for the grim. This blunt, uncharacteristically violent development is true to the source material, but it's a bummer and a blown opportunity, both narratively and in terms of how the male and female characters work. Filmmakers who adapt beloved texts are invariably criticized, no matter what they do, and that's particularly true of superhero movies, because the fans exert such claims on the material. There's something amusing about the corporate owner of a superhero brand being held near-hostage by the love of the comic-book true believer, yet it's hard not to think that this fanatical love can be as creatively inhibiting as the company bottom line. 

Visionary filmmakers like Christopher Nolan take their movies where they want, and if the results are strong enough, please buffs and agnostics. Webb seems to have been hired mostly to keep Sony'sSpider machine going, a tricky task, given that the character doesn't have the mythic grandeur and gravity that make Batman and Superman seem endlessly exploitable. Peter is a superhero, but he's also another mopey teenager. Rhys Ifans, who appeared in The Amazing Spider-Man, has compared Spidey to another grade-A moper,Hamlet. It goes without saying that Hamlet isn't only a character; it's also a bulletproof literary classic with a lot of good lines. It also goes without saying that while some superheroes are born great, others need to have greatness thrust upon them.

Mark Zuckerberg announces Anonymous login, more granular controls and audience network

Mark Zuckerberg, like Facebook, is maturing. The soon-to-be 30-year-old chief executive of the decade-old social networking company grew reflective as he stood before hundreds of app developers to announce a host of mobile features designed to put “people first.”

“We used to have this famous mantra, ‘move fast and break things,’” Zuckerberg said at Facebook’s f8 developer conference in San Francisco.

But moving quickly was sometimes so important that Facebook’s engineers would tolerate a few bugs, or push out products that were not always fully baked. Fixing the bugs, Zuckerberg said, “was slowing us down.” Backpedaling on features that didn’t work — or that users didn’t like — slowed things, too, though Zuckerberg did not mention that.

Facebook’s new mantra may not be as sexy. Zuckerberg pointed to a new sign that read “Move fast with stable infra,” as in infrastructure, and the audience laughed. Stability, it turns out, is the new maxim, and the era of breaking things is over.

In a rare bit of onstage rumination reflecting on the past decade, Zuckerberg said he and other Facebook employees realized they had created a culture of quick-witted, fast-moving engineers who took pride in being “hackers” who consistently put the company’s best interests ahead of what users wanted.

Now, Zuckerberg says, the goal is “to build a culture of loving the people we serve that is as strong if not stronger than our culture of hacking at Facebook. I hope you can see the seeds of some of this today in what we are talking about.”

The last time Facebook held a conference for app developers was in 2011. That was before the company attracted 1.28 billion users, before it went public, before it began showing mobile advertisements and before it paid eye-popping amounts of money to acquire popular apps like Instagram and WhatsApp.

In the tech world, three years can be a lifetime. Facebook’s focus is now squarely on the mobile space, not just its own applications but those built by outside developers.

“As you get older you do gain perspective, and Facebook has,” said David Kirkpatrick, author of “The Facebook Effect,” a chronicle of the company’s early years.

“It’s astonishing that a 10-year-old company should be in a position to have as much influence in so many things in society as they do,” he said. “And I think they are starting to take a much more serious approach to the opportunity and responsibility that goes along with their scale.”

As part of its mobile, people-first focus, Facebook says it will let users log in to apps anonymously, without sharing their identities and personal information with mobile applications they don’t trust.

Facebook’s users can already use a “log in with Facebook” button to sign up for apps that let them listen to music, play games, read the news and monitor fitness activities. But using the button allows apps to access information related to the Facebook user’s identity.

With the anonymous login, Facebook will have information about users but the apps won’t. Zuckerberg said the feature will let more people to try out new apps that they may not trust yet with their personal information. App developers have the option of including the anonymous login as a feature, but they won’t have to.

The company is also launching more granular controls that let people determine the types of information they share with apps when they want to use their Facebook identity to log in. Previously, apps could decide what information they wanted to access on people’s Facebook pages — such as people’s birthday, friends list or email address. Now, people can uncheck each, or all of these things.

Analysts suspect Facebook’s evolution isn’t as much an epiphany about privacy as it is about Zuckerberg’ realization that the company has to take steps to ensure it holds on to its users and grapples with more competition.

“If Facebook has some sense that they are going to walk away because they don’t feel like they are being put first, then they have a real problem on their hands. So, they are giving users some new features that they have been looking for a long time,” said Gartner analyst Brian Blau.

Facebook also took the wraps off its long-awaited mobile advertising network, called “Audience Network,” a product that enables Facebook to sell ads in mobile applications besides its own. For example, Coca Cola can show ads on a mobile game that a Facebook user has downloaded on his or her phone.

The service will increase its competition with Google, which dominates the mobile advertising market and has its own ad network. Twitter is expected to announce its own, too.

“Everything is going mobile right now, so in order to compete with companies like Google, it needs to have a strong mobile app, which it already does, and a strong way of delivering mobile advertising — not just within Facebook but across a network of mobile apps,” said Debra Aho Williamson, an analyst with research firm eMarketer.

Williamson believes Facebook’s ad network will help improve the health of the overall advertising business. Many mobile apps will likely be eager to work with Facebook because its social network already has relationships with more than 1 million advertisers and has accumulated valuable insights into people’s interests.

“It’s going to make it so that advertisers don’t have to reinvent the wheel every time that they advertise,” she said. “They will be able to go to just one source, one network and distribute it widely.”

Facebook’s share of the $9.7 billion U.S. mobile advertising market was 16 percent last year, according to eMarketer, compared with 41 percent for Google. This year, Google’s share is expected to slide to under 38 percent, while Facebook’s should increase to nearly 18 percent, according to the research firm.

Acer introduces its first smartwatch Liquid Leap and 5-inch Liquid Jade phablet

Jumping on to the fitness-focussed smartwatch bandwagon, Acer has announced the all new Liquid Leap. The device will be bundled with company’s 5-inch Liquid Jade. In terms of specs, Acer hasn’t disclosed much except the 17mm width of the device. Acer is expected to launch the Liquid Leap and Jade in late July or early August.

The fitness band reportedly won’t be a comprehensive smartwatch and is likely to feature a simple display that shows alerts and notifications. Reports circulating the web reveal that it won’t be running Android Weareither.

Though at a nascent stage, the wearable market appears to have a lot of potential. Samsung has already launched Tizen-based Gear 2 and Gear 2 Neo smartwatches while Apple is rumoured to showcase its iWatch at the upcoming WWDC. Apple is working on a complete heath app called Healthbook for the iWatch that would work in tandem with the iPhone 6.

Google has also announced the Android Wear, a project open to software makers to create apps for the watches, putting the company at the forefront of efforts to jumpstart the nascent wearable computing market. The first smartwatches to come powered with the new wearable mobile OS are the LG G Watch and the Motorola Moto 360.

Acer is expected to launch the Liquid Leap and Jade in late July or early August.

Microsoft fixes hacking problem for Internet Explorer

Microsoft released a security update for its Internet Explorer browser Thursday to fix a bug that allowed hackers to take over a computer.

The tech company said it will be releasing a similar update for Windows XP, even though it dropped support for the 12-year-old operating system last month. Users who have automatic updates enabled should not have to take any action, Microsoft said.

Microsoft notified users over the weekend about the bug, which affects those using IE versions 6 through 11. Hackers could exploit the bug to trick users into opening an infected link or file attachment. Cybersecurity firm FireEye said about a quarter of worldwide Internet users were potentially affected by the bug.

In an advisory posted to its Security TechCenter, Microsoft acknowledged that it was aware of “limited, targeted attacks that attempt to exploit” the bug. The Department of Homeland Security issued a rare warning about the security flaw Monday, recommending that users apply Microsoft’s mitigation tool kit or try another Web browser until the problem was fixed.