Gadgetory

we'll snapchat become the hot new mobile payment app I'm Bridget Carey and this is your cnet update snapchat the app infamous for data breaches and teen sexting is expanding into finance snapchat has updated its app with snap cash it's a new feature that lets you send money to friends through chat all you have to do is type a dollar sign and number to send that amount to a friend as long as that friend is also signed up for snap cash the transaction takes about a day to process it's all powered by Square and many people trust square with their mobile transactions but it's hard to trust snapchat which has proven to be easily hackable 100,000 private user photos have been exposed online and millions of phone numbers have been leaked in a data breach earlier this year kind of makes you think twice about trusting it with your checking account it's only available for Android now it won't be long before other messaging apps get into mobile payments there's been talk of Facebook working on a similar service to send money over chats but speaking of secure messaging whatsapp just leveled up its privacy standards and now offers end-to-end encryption it's nearly impossible for hackers or government agencies to snoop on text conversations making whatsapp one of the most secure text messaging apps available the encryption is only for the Android version of the app and only for texting not photos or videos or group messages but what's app will expand encryption to other features in time as well as for apple's ios app the car pickup service uber has been criticized for unsavory business practices and it's once again in the media spotlight for bad behavior a top uber executive Emile Michael was at a dinner event boasting to guess about how he wants to spend a million dollars to dig up dirt on reporters that are critical of the uber app and to also spy on those reporters families this was said openly in front of a BuzzFeed editor the uber executive targeted his comments particularly against one journalist Sarah Lacy editor of the Silicon Valley website Pando daily who has written articles calling out uber for sexist practices after the story came out the uber executive apologized but this is yet another example of ubers leaders acting like bullies it's been reported that uber staff plays dirty by attacking competing car pickup apps like lyft and get by flooding these apps with fake orders and canceling the rides an uber continues to grow and expand new partnerships with all of this uber just made a deal with Spotify to let writers stream the music service to the car stereo that's your tech news update and there's always more at cnet com from our studios in New York I'm Bridget Carey