Signal has emerged as the messaging app of choice for millions of people who are protesting against racism and police brutality across the United States. Protesters have rushed to the encrypted chat app to ensure their communications can’t be tapped or accessed if they’re taken in custody by law enforcement agencies — propelling Signal to the top of the Android and iOS app stores.
To further buttress its utility and support protesters, Signal has rolled out a tool inside its instant messaging app that lets anyone blur out faces in pictures with a click of a button before sending them. The addition is designed for people who are actively employing Signal to share images of large-scale protests and want to continue to do so without compromising identities of the people in the photos.
Signal’s new blurring tool is fairly straightforward to use:
You don’t have to limit this tool to faces either. You can take advantage of it to conceal, for instance, a piece of sensitive information in a document or an identifiable landmark to prevent disclosing your location. Hit the tick at the top right once when you’re done and press send to forward it to the contact.
Signal doesn’t save these edited files in your local gallery by default for privacy reasons. But if you want to share the blurred photo on other platforms, you can long-press sent media in the chat and tap the download button present on the row of options at the top.
Signal says the new blur tool relies on your phone’s existing system libraries, which means it doesn’t upload them to a server and all of the processing happens locally on your own device.
Wondering if Signal is better than other encrypted chat apps? Check out our Signal starter guide.
Two new highly requested iCloud plugins just got added to ChatGPT, giving people who rely on Apple’s Mail and Calendar services a way to search emails, check appointments, and manage their schedules directly through the chatbot.
The integration is rolling out to all ChatGPT plans, including the free tier. You can access it on the web, desktop, and iOS.
Google Play is borrowing one of the Nintendo Switch’s most useful little tricks. A new Sidekick tool called Playbacks captures a short clip after something interesting has already happened, sparing players from running a screen recorder throughout an entire game.
Playbacks is part of Google Play Store v53.8 and keeps saved clips on the phone. Google first announced it earlier this month, but the new Play Store update marks its arrival for players. Anyone who has watched a perfect win vanish because the record button came too late already understands the appeal.
Samsung’s scandal over its Game Optimizing Service, or GOS, has returned with a bill attached. South Korea’s Fair Trade Commission has tentatively fined the company 20.1 billion won, or about $15.1 million, over gaming claims made for the Galaxy S21, Galaxy S22, and Tab S8.
The regulator says Samsung promoted the devices as gaming powerhouses without disclosing that GOS placed preset CPU and GPU limits on certain demanding games. Samsung disputes that conclusion, calling GOS a legitimate way to manage heat.