Five New Facebook Features You Should Know

1. Facebook 360 :

Facebook 360 was launched on 8th March 2017. This app is powered by Oculus and supported in Samsung Gear VR. With this latest technology, users can share breathtaking 360-degree videos as well as stills on Facebook. Right after its launch date, this feature has been accessed by millions of users and till now one million 360 videos and 25 million 360 photos have been posted on Facebook.

This type of videos can be shared and liked on Facebook the same as other regular videos. Users can easily find the trending content on Facebook, they can save favorite media files, share videos and photos of followers or manage their favorite collection on a separate tab.

If you want to download this recently updated Facebook 360 app for your Gear VR then simply open Oculus app on your device and initiate the search for Facebook 360 app. You can also visit the official site of Oculus to get started.

2. Messenger Day – The Snapchat Way:

This app was also launched in the month of March and surprisingly it appeared like the biggest competitor against Instagram Stories and Snapchat. However, a few features like stickers, filters, and posts disappearing within 24 hours, etc are also the same as that of other competing platforms.

You can find Messenger Day feature directly in already existing Facebook Messenger and it will help you to check people that are active for real-time chats. Reviews about Messenger Day reveal that this tool boosts thought sharing on a social media platform. Users can easily share what they are doing or what are their plans ahead. For example, if you have had coffee at your favorite restaurant and want to tell your friends about it then you simply need to capture a selfie, put a sticker on it and simply transfer it to your friend.

3. Facebook Live:

Earlier, Facebook users were utilizing Facebook Live API to live stream on Facebook from their smartphone or tablet. But now it is possible to start broadcasting directly from your Laptop or Personal desktop computer using Facebook Live Feature. Further, Admins can also tag others as Live Contributors during the streaming process on pages. You can also add comments to live broadcasts which were not possible earlier. So it is the right time to explore the new Facebook Live feature on your device, you will easily find it on top of the news feeds.

4. Advertising Capabilities:

If you are a publisher or use Facebook for business promotions then here is great news for you all. This recent update of Facebook has revolutionized your advertising capabilities and now your brand can avail maximum exposure within minimum time. 

5. Group Videos:

Last but not least, Group video chat is the best solution to all crazy messenger users who want to stay connected with all their friends on the go. The amazing news is that you can add about 50 users to one video group chat. Further, it will also help you to put fun filters to keep your chats interactive and full of laughter. In case if you find those Facebook chat heads annoying on your device screen then you can now easily remove them from profile settings. In simple words, Facebook has lots of things wrapped inside its platform for you all; get ready to have the real fun.

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Facebook debuts new tools to keep your profile photos from being stolen

In an effort to put an end to catfishing and other abuses of stolen profile photos, Facebook has introduced a new photo guard and photo designs to deter misuse.

In an effort to curb the theft and misuse of its users' profile photos, Facebook has introduced new image controls and tools to give people more control over their images. The program, announced in a press release on Wednesday, will initially roll out in a pilot program to users in India.

According to the release, Facebook has been working on the features for roughly a year or so. And the firm has specifically targeted the Indian market based on feedback from users.

"In our research with people and safety organizations in India, we've heard that some women choose not to share profile pictures that include their faces anywhere on the internet because they're concerned about what may happen to their photos," the release said.

The core functionality is a new set of tools that offer more granular control over how other users can interact with your photo. If certain features are enacted, other internet users won't be able to download or share your profile photo, or send it in a message, the release said.

If you aren't friends with someone on Facebook, they will not be able to tag anyone in your profile picture with the new controls either, the release said. The firm is also working on ways to prevent other users from screenshotting your profile image as well, the release said. If the new tools are in use on a given photo, it will have a blue border and shield around it.

According to the release, Facebook is also adding a new design layer that can be added to profile pictures. Based on testing the firm has conducted, the use of such a design could make others 75% less likely to copy that picture.

The new tools will help individual users fight against online behavior like catfishing, but it could also help businesses and brands better protect copyrighted images they are using in their profile.

The 3 big takeaways for TechRepublic readers

1. A new set of tools from Facebook aims to make it easier for users to protect their profile image and control how it is accessed.
2. Other users won't be able to download or share your image, or send it in a message. Non-Facebook friends won't be able to tag anyone in your profile picture either.
3. A new design layer that can be added to photos will also deter users from trying to copy that photo.

At Home With Mark Zuckerberg And Jarvis,

When new engineers join Facebook–no matter whether they’re just out of college or VP-level veterans–they spend their first six weeks in Bootcamp, an intensive program designed to help them learn the ins and outs of the company’s massive code base and the always-evolving set of programming tools at their disposal.

Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s original engineer, contributed more to that code than anyone else in the early years of its existence. But the 32-year-old CEO never went through the Bootcamp program, which was launched in 2006, two years after he founded the company in his Harvard dorm room.

Last January, Zuckerberg announced that he planned to build an AI system to run his home using Facebook tools, in the latest of the personal-growth challenges he gives himself each year. An exciting exploration of the state of the art of AI–a technology field essential to Facebook’s future–the project also forced him to refresh his command of the company’s programming tools and processes. That in turn has reconnected him to the daily experience of the thousands of engineers he manages and the engineering culture that’s at the heart of one of the world’s most important technology companies.

But being CEO of Facebook is not the kind of job you can abandon for six weeks in the interest of continuing education. “I didn’t go through a formal Bootcamp,” Zuckerberg told me last week in the spacious living room of his classic 113-year-old wood-frame Palo Alto, California, home, where I’ve come for a Jarvis demo and the first interview he has given about this year’s personal-challenge project. “But when I ask people questions, you can imagine that they respond pretty quickly.”

Mark Zuckerberg turns the lights off with Jarvis, his personal AI system.

Zuckerberg has always enjoyed what he calls the “deterministic” nature of engineering–the element of being able to sit down and build something that does exactly what you want it to do. For all the wildly ambitious things he can accomplish as the head of a company of more than 15,000 people that has billions of users across Messenger, WhatsApp, Instagram, and Facebook itself, he missed that pleasurable certainty.

That’s why he has continued to work on small programming projects in his rare spare time, and why his personal challenge back in 2012 was to code every day. He has participated in several company hackathons over the years and, as an exercise, once wrote a system that paired Facebook’s org chart and the internal social graph to see which groups within the company were most socially connected.

Often, Zuckerberg told me, he emerges from a coding session feeling much like he does when he studies Mandarin, the language he learned as his 2010 challenge. He feels like his brain is activated, on fire.

Facebook’s engineering culture, though, mandates that if your work breaks, you have to stop what you’re doing and fix it. That’s just not practical for the hyper-busy, globetrotting CEO. “I’m either going to get pulled out of meetings, or someone is going to have to fix my code, which is kind of a big no-no,” he says. So it’s been quite some time since he actually checked in any code at work.

Over the last year, though, Zuckerberg has spent between 100 and 150 hours on his home project. Though it’s named for Tony Stark’s futuristic Jarvis AI in the Iron Man movies, it’s more akin to a homemade, highly personal version of something like Amazon’s Alexa service, letting him and his wife Priscilla Chan use a custom iPhone app or a Facebook Messenger bot to turn lights on and off, play music based on personal tastes, open the front gate for friends, make toast, and even wake up their one-year-old daughter Max with Mandarin lessons.

Morgan Freeman is the voice of Jarvis.

Facebook’s new disaster maps aim to improve how organizations respond to crises

Facebook’s new disaster maps aim to improve how organizations respond to crises

Image via Facebook

Facebook is working with three organizations — UNICEF, the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, and the World Food Programme — on a new maps initiative that aims to improve how communities are helped after disasters.

Called disaster maps, the resource uses “aggregated, de-identified” Facebook data to provide key information organizations said would be most helpful in improving how they respond and provide relief in the immediate hours after a crisis.

Three types of maps are available. Location-density maps show where people are physically located before, during, and after a crisis, and are compared to historical records (like population estimates). Movement maps show patterns of movement over a period of hours so organizations can better predict where to direct resources. Finally, Safety Check maps display where people check in safely following a disaster, showing where help may be needed.

This data could crucially change the way relief is provided in the immediate aftermath of a crisis. Dale Kunce, global lead for information communication technology and analytics for the American Red Cross, tells VOA News that after a disaster, “We might know where the house is, but we don't know where the people are. Our first reaction may be to go to where the devastation happened, but maybe most people are 10 miles away, staying with families when they reported they were safe. So the place to go may be where they are.”

In the past, disaster response professionals relied on Facebook Live and other video tools to gather immediate information to help inform how and where to allocate resources. On the user side, Facebook currently offers Community Help in conjunction with Safety Check, a feature that lets users find or offer food, shelter, transportation, and other forms of aid.

The company intends to roll out disaster maps for use by governments and additional organizations in the future, promising that “all applications will be reviewed carefully by people at Facebook, including those with local expertise.”

It’s clear that Facebook has a wealth of data on users who agree to use the service, and while the announcement of sharing more user information can raise hackles for some, for now we have to take its word that the data is being shared as stated, and will help those at their most vulnerable.

Facebook shakes up Live with new social chat features

Facebook Live might be about bringing the entire community together around events, but sometimes you just want to know the reactions of your buddies.

Facebook has already announced that its AR camera effects platform will be coming to Live, an announcement today brings a couple of other changes to the platform surrounding social interactions in Live: Live Chat with Friends and Live With.

Comment streams on popular Live videos are a bit overwhelming at the moment, there’s a pretty torrential outpour of similar reactions to when something happens on video. Facebook says that there are actually ten times as many comments on Live vides as there are on regular recorded videos.

Ultimately, Facebook wants to help you sift through the visual spam and have more meaningful interactions on these videos, which is why they’re adding a feature that lets you easily live chat with friends inside Live videos.

When you create a private chatroom, you’ll have the option of inviting new people or just finding out who among your friends is already watching and toss them into a private room. It’s a way for Facebook to dial-in the wide-reaching Live platform and make it more personal for users. People can still easily jump in between group feeds and friend chat.

In addition to the Live Chat with Friends feature, Facebook is launching a feature that will let you go live with another friend in a side-by-side conversation. This feature was previously available to public figures, but now it’s rolling out wide, allowing you to argue or chat with friends in a Live setting.

Live With basically allows you to FaceTime with your friends in a public setting, it’s a completely different way to capture social interaction and it definitely offers something new.

You have these conversations in landscape mode for a split-screen style or portrait for picture-in-picture mode as seen in the image.

Live With is open for all profiles and pages on iOS. Facebook is already testing Live Chat with Friends in a few countries and says they’ll be making it more widely available later this summer.

Facebook emoji Reactions now available on comments

As the social network has just added the functionality, not everyone will be able to use it quite yet

Facebook users can now react to comments with emoji.

The feature allows members of the site to react quickly to discussions under user’ posts and status updates with the Like graphic or a number of expressions Facebook calls ‘Love’, ‘Haha’, ‘Wow’, ‘Sad’ and ‘Angry’.

To reply to a comment with one of the emoji, all users need to do is hover over the Like button directly below the comment and wait for the faces to appear.

The update is predominantly targeted at the site’s younger users, though it can help everyone save a bit of time and potential embarrassment.

Previously, users could either Like a comment or reply to it with text or an image. Typing while on the move can be a pain, and Liking a sad post can seem insensitive.

The Reaction emoji are handy for putting across the right message, whether that's happy or sad, with a quick tap.

“We’ve heard from people they’d like more ways to show their reaction in conversations on Facebook, so we’re rolling out the ability to react to comments,” the company said.

However, as the social network has just introduced the functionality, not everyone will be able to use it quite yet.

Facebook first introduced its Reactions emoji a year ago, but back then, users could only use them on posts and updates, not comments.

They’ve since landed on Messenger too, where they work in the exact same manner.

A recent study found that receiving Likes on social media posts doesn't make people feel better about themselves or improve their mood if they are down.

It found that people who go out of their way to get more Likes are more likely to have lower self-esteem and trust people less.

Why 3,000 (More) People Won’t Fix Facebook’s Violent Video Problem

Facebook has a video problem. Certain clips recently posted by users have been horrifically violent, such as live videos posted last week in which a man in Thailand reportedly killed his infant daughter and then himself. And they aren’t always removed from the site quickly, either, which means many people may end up seeing them.

In an effort to get this content off Facebook faster, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a post Wednesday that the social network will make it easier for users to report inappropriate videos, and it is hiring more people to review such reports. The team, called community operations, will grow by 3,000, Zuckerberg said; it currently has 4,500 people reviewing the millions of reports that Facebook gets weekly.

Zuckerberg said the additional manpower will help Facebook remove videos with content including hate speech and exploitation of children.

The move comes as the latest attempt by the social network to fix the issue (see “Offensive Content Still Plagues Facebook”). Two months ago Facebook announced tools it hoped would prevent people from killing themselves on live videos (see “Big Questions Around Facebook’s Suicide Prevention Tools”). Since launching Facebook Live, which lets users broadcast live videos to friends on Facebook, about a year ago, several people have killed themselves via streaming video.

Such moves may not be enough to stanch the flow of violent videos—both streamed live via Facebook Live and in those that are recorded and then uploaded—that are posted to the site, though. There are nearly two billion people using Facebook at this point, and a recent tally by the Wall Street Journal found that at least 50 violent acts have been streamed just via Facebook Live since it was launched a year ago.

This number is almost certain to increase if more Facebook users gravitate to making and watching videos, and chances are they will. In the company’s last quarterly conference call, back in February, Zuckerberg called video a “megatrend,” and, more widely, a recent report from Cisco indicated that mobile video traffic now makes up 60 percent of all mobile data traffic.

The use of artificial intelligence tools could help—Facebook is already adept at using AI to do things like figure out who specific people are in the photos you upload—but even Zuckerberg believes that’s a long way off.

In a long piece he posted to the social network in February, he said the company is looking into technology that can automatically flag photos and videos that shouldn’t be on the site, and said about a third of the reports to Facebook’s content-reviewing team currently come from AI-based alerts.

“It will take many years to fully develop these systems,” he said.

For now, at least, Zuckerberg is hoping that people can do the job that technology can’t. On Wednesday, he tried to point to a bright spot, though, saying that a week earlier the company was able to help stop someone from committing suicide on live video, as the company contacted police in response to a user report.

“In other cases, we weren’t so fortunate,” he said.