Instagram's Instants app lets you send disappearing photos--and it's probably where your horny friends will post spicy pics. Meta launched a new app on Wednesday, called Instants, that integrates with existing Instagram accounts and allows users to send unedited, disappearing photos. Instants leans into the popularity of Instagram's Stories feature and Close Friends lists, where users can selectively share images with a smaller audience. Instants is available as a stand-alone app on iOS and Android in select countries, and it's accessible through Instagram's direct messaging tab. The core of Instants, from its name to the bare-bones layout, is designed to evoke a sense of ephemerality.

It's pretty obvious that just about everyone uses a smartphone to help assist with their day to day activities. Smartphones have evolved from being just a communication tool to a highly effective business tool over the years. The importance of Mobile Apps in Business has grown significantly in the past few years. More specifically, the younger generation has more capability to interact with e-business. Mobile apps have made it easier for users to get any business's information with the touch of a finger and stay connected to their favorite brands.

Yeah, it's only March, but phone season has begun for 2018. Dozens of new handsets were unveiled at Mobile World Congress, the largest smartphone show on Earth, (here are the highlights) and Samsung's Galaxy S9 is already on its way to early birds. Also, Google is now circulating a developer preview of the next Android version, currently codenamed Android P. With all this action, we're beginning to get a picture of what smartphones in 2018 will look like. Here are some of the more interesting trends you may see on your next phone. It's been years since smartphones didn't all look mostly the same.

For many years, the idea of delivering robust personalization and relevance was aspirational, causing some marketers to pause. The recent Google I/O conference told us that it's time for those who hesitated to take another look. Google focused on artificial intelligence (AI), moving on from the mobile-first mentality. Whether it be through text, voice, or visual input, Google's strategy hinges on knowing everything it can at that exact moment for providing maximum context to the user. Simply put, enabling marketers to meet users where they are and with context to most accurately provide value.

Google served up a bevy of announcements, technologies and goodies for developers, but it also highlighted a much larger strategy where the search giant still organizes the world's information, but also begins creating systems that'll add context, delight you and potentially provide more insights. Artificial intelligence and machine learning is Google's competitive advantage and will be embedded everywhere. Google CEO Sundar Pichai talked AI non-stop during his Google I/O keynote and he's rearchitecting the company to be "AI-first." The extent of Google's AI reach is everywhere from Google Photos to Google Assistant to Google Cloud Platform to damn near every other product or service the search giant has. Google's AI efforts will even tap into human resources as it pivots to target job searches.

For the second year running, Google's massive I/O developer event will take place at the storied Shoreline Amphitheater, right around the corner from the company's Mountain View headquarters. Last year's conference had a host of major announcements worthy of such a high-profile venue -- it's where Google Home, the Google Assistant and the Daydream VR headset were all introduced. But this year, things seem like they'll be a little quieter, at least in terms of big consumer-facing hardware. It'll probably be a year of refinement, where big initiatives continue to be polished. We'll be there all three days this year, bringing you breaking news, analysis, interviews, videos and more.

I believe "less is more" will become the mantra for companies that need to consolidate their various service-driven mobile apps into one enterprise app. The goal will be to integrate data, analytics and insights into a single platform to create a more seamless customer experience. We helped one of our clients do this by deconstructing its old digital presence and revamping its mobile offering. After assessing its needs and analyzing user behavior, we helped them create a mobile app that integrated web functionality with mobile. Meanwhile, Google is reimagining apps with the introduction of Instant Apps.

Daydream, meanwhile, is the company's true VR ambitions revealed. Cardboard was how it got its feet wet; Daydream is how it'll really make an impact. By leveraging the combined forces of Google's hardware partners, the flexibility and power of Android and the company's army of developers, Google could be looking to mimic the strategy that made Android so successful in the first place. The news that Google is rethinking messaging apps yet again was met with less enthusiasm, but the most important part of the Allo isn't smart replies -- it's the integration with the Google Assistant. That's how Google is referring to the bot that lives inside the app, letting you ask questions with natural language.

Google wants to play an even bigger role in managing people's daily lives, while also nudging them into an alternate reality, as the Internet company responds to competitive threats posed by Facebook, Amazon and Apple. As part of an onslaught of upcoming products, Google will implant a more personable form of artificial intelligence into an Internet-connected device called Home, which echoes the Echo, Amazon.com's Meanwhile, Google will also delve deeper into the still-nascent realm of virtual reality with a system called Daydream that's meant to challenge Facebook-owned Oculus's early lead in fabricating artificial worlds. In an attempt to outshine Apple, Google is also adding features to its Android operating system, including the ability to run apps without actually installing them on a device. That feature, called Instant Apps, might have been the biggest breakthrough that Google announced Wednesday at its annual developers conference held in an amphitheater located a few blocks from its Mountain View, California, headquarters.

Google is launching a messaging app, and it's going to start butting into your conversations. Allo, as the app has been named, was unveiled at the opening event of the company's I/O developer conference in San Francisco. It works similarly to most other messaging apps, but also has a built-in AI assistant. Google's assistant scans your incoming messages, so it can suggest good responses. It can do this for regular texts or picture messages, and seemed impressively smart in on-stage demonstrations.