TechCrunch reports on Snapchat’s new feature that allows replays of its disappearing messages.

My least favorite part of Snapchat is mistakenly opening a video Snap when I can’t hear it, like in a noisy public place or when my sound is off. Snapchat tried to address that today with an experimental new Replay feature that lets you rewatch one old Snap per day. But by fixing that problem it created a much bigger one. It killed off some of its ephemerality.

Is Snapchat trying to reposition itself? I would think so. It added its Stories feature back in October to allow users to share posts that disappear after 24 hours. This latest addition is a big bet by Snapchat. Either it will turn out to be a success or it will diminish the appeal of Snapchat, just like how Facebook’s Timeline and News Feed changes caused huge uproars with its users. However, users are more likely to be less invested in Snapchat than Facebook, making it easier to ditch the service.

When the Mac Pro was unveiled, the first thing I thought about was the Power Mac G4 Cube, which in my personal opinion is one of the most beautiful machines ever designed. I think the Museum of Modern Art agrees with me.

Stephen Hackett has done a brief but good comparison of the technologies and concepts from the Power Mac G4 Cube that were brought over and implemented in the new Mac pro.

On the new Mac Pro and the Power Mac G4 Cube

If I have any gripes, it would be that I prefer a cube to a cylinder, but I do agree that the Mac Pro’s design is superior.

More than 40 million credit cards have been compromised in a major breach at Target. This comes after the company made the headlines for refusing to sell Beyoncé’s album after it was released digitally first.

Google had to restart its Android project after Apple unveiled the iPhone. Remember the outrage when people found out that Apple was gathering location data to improve location accuracy? Google has been tracking your movement by mapping your life minute-by-minute.

The first iPhone disrupted the mobile industry, so did the recent iPhone 5s. Qualcomm was caught off guard by Apple’s 64-bit A7 processor, as was the rest of the industry. Now they are clambering to catch up once again.

The RSA might have provided the NSA with easier access to data for just $10 million.

The US patent system is faulty. No surprises there.

Should you rate App Store apps when prompted? What if Apple allowed reporting of annoying prompts?

WeChat is going international with m-commerce.

A botnet has been hijacking SMS data from Android devices.

Microsoft’s CEO search is going nowhere, but its board of directors want you to know that they are pleased with the progress and will make their decision in early 2014.

Cult of Mac writes about how Apple can become the ultimate communications company.

I previously talked about my wish for a seamless experience switching between devices while on FaceTime.

The ultimate future home run, of course, is when Apple does and should auto-select how to make calls. In other words, you call someone by taping a face or phone number and your phone, tablet, laptop or desktop connects the call through FaceTime Voice or the phone system depending on whether the other person has FaceTime Voice and also depending on the speed of the data connection.

Mike Elgan takes it further with this almost futuristic ideal.

And Apple should be able to pull this off better than competitors. Within a couple of years, here’s how Apple’s telephone system should work. You walk in the house and just say to the house: “Siri, call Janet.” Apple should be able to identify that Janet is sitting in front of her iMac, and so while connecting the call, Siri asks: “Would you like to connect through FaceTime Video on iTV?” You say yes as you sit down on the couch. The call is connected, and you chat for awhile. Then you realize that you forgot to pick up your dry cleaning. So you walk out the door. Janet gets a message on-screen saying the call is switching to FaceTime Audio, and your call now happens through the Bluetooth earpiece you’re wearing. Once you get into the car, the call is automatically transferred to the car’s built-in iOS in the Car system, using the car’s speaker and the dashboard microphone. You get your shirts, drive back home and when you plunk down on the couch again, the call returns to video after both parties are notified.

After you say good-bye and hang up, you tell the house again: “Siri, tell Janet it was great catching up,” and Siri sends Janet your message, which she receives on her iWatch.

It is quite possible, especially since Apple is entering micro-location mapping with iBeacons.

There are always two sides to a coin, but at this point, the RSA’s image is definitely going to take a beating. Whether it entered into such an agreement willingly or not doesn’t take away the fact that there are vulnerabilities in some of the current encryption standards.

This is very disturbing indeed.

Exclusive: Secret contract tied NSA and security industry pioneer

Documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden show that the NSA created and promulgated a flawed formula for generating random numbers to create a “back door” in encryption products, the New York Times reported in September. Reuters later reported that RSA became the most important distributor of that formula by rolling it into a software tool called Bsafe that is used to enhance security in personal computers and many other products.

Undisclosed until now was that RSA received $10 million in a deal that set the NSA formula as the preferred, or default, method for number generation in the BSafe software, according to two sources familiar with the contract. Although that sum might seem paltry, it represented more than a third of the revenue that the relevant division at RSA had taken in during the entire previous year, securities filings show.

Business Insider writes about how online retailers have been hit hard by Facebook’s new News Feed.

It turns out the News Feed tweak did more than just highlight “high quality” news stories. It also totally buried posts from retailers on Facebook.

A source from one retailer told us that her company’s “reach” on Facebook declined 40% to 50% after the change. Another source from a different online retailer said that since Facebook’s change, her company’s posts are getting seen by an 80% smaller audience.

Not that the change in reach affected sales:

All the retailers we spoke to emphasized that their actual sales have not declined since Facebook made the change. But each said they’ve only been able to maintain sales by increasing the amount of money they spend on Facebook ads.

It seems like social media marketers are not the only one affected by Facebook’s new algorithm.

Facebook wants businesses to pay to enjoy the benefits of using it as a marketing and advertising platform. The change won’t hurt big businesses or established brands, but it will make it a lot harder for smaller start-ups to gain a foothold now.