Parmy Olson's Blog, page 65

Meet The American Dealer Of Swiss Data Secrecy

The Swiss reputation for low taxation and secrecy is well known when it comes to money, but it's also becoming a popular place to store data, thanks to the country's strict, data-protection laws that are at odds with those of the European Union.

Life After Siri: Nuance's Uphill Climb To Being Your Digital Assistant

In the gleaming Silicon Valley branch office of speech-recognition firm , a small room has been made to look like a homey den.

BlackBerry Has Put Up The 'For Sale' Sign, But Who Would Buy It?

Seven months after BlackBerry launched a new operating system, Christened itself with a new name and renewed its fight in the smartphone wars, the company is looking for a possible way out.

Katy Perry's Emoji-Filled Video Highlights Rise Of Messaging Apps

They say a picture paints a thousand words, and that's increasingly the case in mobile messaging with emojis -- the graphically superior successors to emoticons -- and digital stickers. Now singer Katy Perry has driven the point home with her latest lyric video for the song Roar, told almost entirely though the mobile messaging service WhatsApp and ping-pong style conversations with text and emojis on a white iPhone.

E-mail's Big Privacy Problem: Q&A With Silent Circle Co-Founder Phil Zimmermann

Customers of Silent Circle's encrypted mail service got an unfortunate surprise on Friday: all their messages had been deleted.

Encryption App Silent Circle Shuts Down E-Mail Service 'To Prevent Spying'

The business of protecting consumers from prying, government eyes has suddenly become a pre-emptive one for Silent Circle. The communications encryptions firm said Friday that it was shutting down its e-mail service to prevent spying, a day after competitor Lavabit shut down its core email service. Lavabit's founder had suggested in a letter to customers that he had been the subject of a U.S. government investigation and gag order.

Are You Ready For Video Messaging?

In the coming months, you may hear smatterings of hype about mobile apps that allow video messaging, or even get a video message yourself. This doesn't mean face-to-face discussions in real time a la Skype, or the looping videos you see on social networks like Vine and Instagram. It's short videos you record and send to a single person or a small group of contacts, quickly and seamlessly, instead of a text.

Tools To Hack Android Phones Are Getting Easier To Use

Security researchers have long maintained that malware is a problem on Android, the Google operating system that's on 80% of the world's smartphones. In extreme cases, hackers with malicious intent can do more than send premium text messages - they can turn a phone into a spying tool too. The scenario was recently demonstrated at hacker conference Black Hat, and in one real-life incident, an unnamed company executive unwittingly became a conduit to short-sellers who were listening in on a board meeting he attended -- all possible thanks to the smartphone in his pocket.

Messaging App Pinger Launches Snapchat-Like GIF Chat

Hot on the heels of WhatsApp's launch on Monday of its new voice feature, messaging rival Pinger has announced it is also spicing up its communications toolset by letting users record and send GIFs to one another. The GIFs will last for up to six seconds and continue as a loop, and in a nod to the growing popularity of Snapchat, users will also have the option to make them self destruct after a certain amount of time.

WhatsApp Launches Voice Messaging, Hits 300M Monthly Active Users

With all the texting that people do these days, it's naturally taken a messaging app to re-introduce the act of using our voices to communicate.