Gadgetory

Instagram joins the private messaging Club I'm Bridget Carey and this is your cnet update your instagrams can now be a little more intimate the photo sharing app has been updated to let users send photos privately with direct messages to one person or between several people you can access private messages in a new in box icon that appears when you scroll up and users can reply to private messages with a text or with more photos so you can keep a private message going as a threat of photos between friends if you want to send a private photo to someone that is not your friend it goes into a pending request area Instagram is trying to make sending private messages easier than the follow me back dance we play on Twitter but to address the potential abusers harassing strangers with unwanted photos you won't be able to see anything in the pending requests unless you click to accept their images so do so at your own risk twitter also just started allowing photos to be shared privately in a direct message on its App sending photos privately in apps is a big trend right now that both Instagram and Twitter are trying to take advantage of because apps like kick and whatsapp are popular with a younger crowd that rather use a messaging app for sharing instead of just texting or emailing there's one less hassle to deal with in your gmail now all images embedded in an email will automatically be displayed without you having to click that link to allow the image to be seen that link was always put there for your protection but Google found a way to make it secure if you rather not have photos appear automatically you can change it in settings the gaming company valve is on a mission to take pc games to your living room TV with its new console the steam machine and it announced that the first 300 prototype steam machine systems are now being sent to beta testers the company says it'll have more news on the future of steam machines during the consumer electronics show in January youtube has posted its list of the top 10 trending videos of 2013 and the times are changing for viral videos this year's lists are all a bunch of profession tional videos no spontaneous amateur home videos were on the list like we used to see remember the post dental surgery kid David after dentist yeah this year the top viral video was the Fox by Elvis racking up more than 275 million views for a laugh YouTube mashed up a bunch of trending songs video moments and YouTube personalities into one year in rewind video you can watch the parody and other top trending videos at youtube.com slash rewind that's your tech news update you can find more details at cnet com / update from our studios in New York I'm Bridget Carey