These days, you can find an Android app for just about anything. Want to know what the weather will be like next week? No problem. Need to explore your device’s file system? It’s easy. Dying to waste a few hours playing high-quality games? There are thousands to choose from. But the app-for-everything nature of the store does have a notable downside: privacy. Honestly, how many of you research an app’s stance on privacy and security before you install it? The result of our collective laissez-faire approach to software installation is a growing number of apps that are a privacy nightmare....
Read the full article: 9 Privacy-Friendly Android Apps You Should Be Using
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How much of your digital life would you lose if you lost a single password? Without it, you are locked out and the cold reality of using free cloud services like Google is that you don’t have a human arbiter to help you. If you think back to earlier times where, say you lost your bank book, your local banker probably knew who you were and could help you navigate the process of getting… 
“I have FOMO for the future”, says Sam Lessin. That’s why his startup Fin is working backwards from a far-off tech utopia. One day, computers with some human help will answer our every beck and call. Today, Lessin is teaming them up. Every day, Fin gets smarter. For $1 a minute, 24/7, Fin gets your digital chores done. Message, email, or speak a request and a real person… 
CNN is giving up on its Snapchat news show, which launch only four months ago. “The Update,” as the program was called, had been designed for Snapchat’s vertical video format, but didn’t feature video produced only for Snapchat, nor did it have dedicated anchors. Instead, the news featured on “The Update” was a curated selection of CNN’s reporting from… 
Amazon has acquired Blink (via Slashgear), a startup founded in 2014 that builds connected Wi-Fi home security cameras, as well as a new video doorbell introduced earlier this week. The company got its start via a crowdfunding campaign that raised over $1 million for its totally wireless home monitoring system. Amazon has already made forays into connected home video cameras and even home… 
Molekule, a San Francisco-based startup with a sleekly designed molecular air purifier started as an immigrant dream twenty years ago and ended up being named one of Time’s top 25 inventions of 2017. The inventor Yogi Goswami came up with the idea when his baby son Dilip started having a hard time breathing the air around him. Dilip suffered from severe asthma but no air purifier at… 
Here’s an unexpected but pleasant little way tech might be able to improve a few lives: laser shoes. Yes, seriously. Shoes equipped with small laser emitters were shown in recent tests to help sufferers of Parkinson’s disease to walk normally. 
The Max sounds good. But is it $399 good? On the whole, it’s a solid offering. It isn’t a flashy speaker from a design perspective, but the audio is loud and clear, and the bass bumps like a mofo. 
A little late in the day news dump for you, ahead of the upcoming holiday. Long time Google executive Eric Schmidt announced today that he’ll be stepping down from his role as the executive chairman of Alphabet’s board of directors. Alphabet has confirmed the move with TechCrunch, offering up a statement from Schmidt. “Larry, Sergey, Sundar and I all believe that the time… 
Instagram has been steadily beefing up its Direct Messaging feature in recent months, as it has begun to toy with the idea of spinning out messaging into its own, separate app. Among its more recent tweaks was last month’s added option for photo and video message replays, and earlier enhancements like support for web links and different photo orientations. Today, it’s rolling… 
We’ve only got a few more days until Christmas, and maybe you’re starting get a little nervous about all the folks who are still on your gift-giving list. Sure, they might not be your closest friends or best-loved family members… but you can’t ignore them entirely, can you? Don’t worry, TechCrunch has you covered. Whether you’ve got a lot of last-minute… 
