Brief:

• Snapchat, the image-messaging application with 166 million users, added two new features this week that lets users record longer videos and enhance images, TechCrunch reported. Now, users can record and string together up to six 10-second videos to make minute-long clips. Multi-Snap recording is available on iOS and will be ready for Android in the coming weeks.
• The new "tint brush" feature lets users highlight parts of a picture and fill it in with different colors. It uses machine learning to help trace edges of an object in an image with greater precision. The tint brush is available now on iOS and Android.
• The company also started selling its Snapchat Spectacles on Amazon for $130, the Next Web reported. These video-recording sunglasses were originally available only at special yellow kiosks or on Snap's website. Amazon offers delivery within a day or two, faster than Snap's five to 10 days. The news comes as Google Glass tries for a comeback. 

Insight:

Snap faces pressure to boost its audience and ad revenue after recent disappointments and fierce competition with Instagram, which reaches a larger audience of 700 million people and continuously adds features that closely resemble Snapchat. Just last week, Morgan Stanley wrote that the bank was wrong about Snap's ability to improve the scalability, targeting and measurability of its ad product and user monetization this year, per Business Insider.

Multi-Snap recording is a significant change to the way the app works, providing a greater range of video-creation and editing capabilities. In May, the company removed the 10-second limit on timers that count down before an image disappears and also allowed videos to run in a loop. It's only a matter of time before Instagram introduces more editing tools in response.

As Snapchat offers its Spectacles on Amazon to reach a wider audience and turn around the lack of popularity surrounding the product, Alphabet makes a comeback with its Google Glass to focus on commercial applications for augmented reality, Variety magazine reported. Alphabet subsidiary X has been testing an enterprise version of Glass with a number of companies including GE, DHL and Sutter Health and is now making the product more widely available through a network of partners.

The new enterprise version of Glass has a camera and a red LED that notifies others when they're being recorded. A major complaint about the earlier consumer version was that people could be recorded without their knowledge. The enterprise version is being sold with customized software with a focus on job productivity. DHL workers use Glass to sort packages, GE is trying it for work-site instructions, and Sutter Health is using the device to help doctors during patient visits.