Instagram joins the private messaging club.
I'm Bridget Carey and this is your CNET Update.
Your Instagram 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 inbox 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 thread 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 setting private messages easier than the following back dance we play on Twitter but to address the potential of users harassing strangers with unwanted photos.
You won't be able to see anything in the pending request unless you click to accept their
images.
So, do so at your own risk.
Twitter also just start allowing photos to be shared privately in a direct message on its app.
Sending photos privately in app is a big trend right now that both the Instagram and Twitter are trying to take advantage of because apps like Kik and WhatsApp are popular with a younger crowd that rather use messaging app for sharing instead of just texting or e-mailing.
There's one less hassle to deal with in your Gmail now all images embedded in an e-mail 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 was 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 not 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 revival videos.
This year's lists are all a bunch of professional videos, no spontaneous amateur home videos were on the list like we us to see.
Remember the post-dental surgery kid David After Dentist.
Yeah, this year, the top viral video was The Fox by Ylvis, 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, another top trending videos at youtube.com/rewind.
That is your tech news update but you can find more details at cnet.com/update.
From our studios in New York, I'm Bridget Carey.
