Facebook has announced M, its take on the virtual assistant. A part of Messenger, M is now in testing in the San Francisco Bay Area, and is powered by both artificial intelligence and human operators.
It has been reported that Facebook is currently working on the next big feature for its Messenger platform. According to a report by The Information, the social giant is working on a new personal assistant that will help you purchase stuff.
Facebook is rolling out a new set of controls that give you more options for what you see in your News Feed. The new options let you set a list of priority friends and pages, find new content easily, and more.
Facebook has a simple solution to a big problem — coding for best performance across different devices. Some folks like to call it fragmentation, others call it choice, but by any name there are certainly a lot of different Android phones. Building applications that need to work with all of them is no easy task. You have wildly different hardware configurations that make for a big...
Facebook has announced Messenger Platform for developers at their F8 developers conference. The platform allows developers to tie their apps into Facebook Messenger. While using Facebook Messenger, users will be able to find new apps to use with the service by tapping the three dots in the composer. You'll see a list of apps, either that you have already installed or that you can...
At today's Facebook F8 developers conference, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg unveiled that they're working to make sharing to their network simpler and better. The new "share sheets" that Facebook is working on will unify sharing across the primary Facebook apps, including Facebook Groups and Messenger. The idea is to bring "the best sharing experience" to all of Facebook's apps instead...
Facebook has revamped the social network's community standards and guidelines to show what registered accounts can (and more importantly, cannot) share on the service. Changes made to the guidelines also clarify the company's position on bullying, threats of violence and even hate speech. In a new blog post, Facebook's Monika Bickert, Head of Global Policy Management, and Chris...
After acquiring virtual reality headset maker Oculus for $2 billion last year, Facebook is looking to cater to the medium by making virtual reality versions of its apps. Facebook's head of Product Chris Cox revealed plans regarding the social network's efforts in this segment in an interview at the Code/Media conference being held at Laguna Niguel, California. Cox stated that virtual...
Facebook has introduced a new feature today that allows users to select a legacy contact, who will be able to manage their account after they pass away. Once Facebook has been notified of a user passing away, the social network will 'memorialize' the account and enable access to the legacy contact who can manage the profile. Once everything is configured, this contact will be able to...
Facebook changes a lot of things on us automatically, whether it's on the web or on your phone, and one of the more annoying "features" turned on automatically is auto-play videos. From Facebook's perspective auto-play videos seem great — videos are loaded in the background so they play instantly, and as you scroll through your timeline they catch your eye since they're playing without...
Update: Both social networks are now functional again. If you can't access them in your region just yet, hold tight. Services are being restored. Facebook and Instagram, the popular social network and it's photo-centric sub-division, are currently experiencing a denial of service attack that's affecting access for some users. If you've been trying to check your feeds and you've been...
In August of last year, Facebook started rolling out an in-app browser that let you view links completely in the app without being thrown out to your own installed browser of choice. That's all fine and good, but if you want the additional features, bookmarking, familiarity or added security of choosing your own browser to open links, you'll need to dive into the Facebook settings and...
The ghosts of social media past return You may have noticed an app popping up in a lot of throwback posts of late called Timehop. Timehop is an app with a very specific purpose: it digs up your social media posts from years ago and presents them to you on their anniversaries. While the primary use for Timehop is to rediscover old posts and content and then reshare it, Timehop can also...
It's been another week, and another batch of awesome Android apps and games are ready for the downloading. There's a big dose of communication apps this week, and a healthy mix of action, strategy, and physics games to dig into. Grab your closest Android device and dive into our top ten new apps in the Google Play Store. As always, sound off in the comments with your favorite recent...
First there was just Facebook, and then there was Messenger, and now there is Groups. Yep, Facebook has launched a dedicated app purely for their Groups feature, and, well, it's pretty much a different user interface for the current groups that already exist in the primary Facebook app. Unlike with Messenger, which was forcibly extracted from the primary Facebook app, Facebook sees...
Today Facebook is rolling out a new feature that will give you more control over what you posts you see in your News Feed. You'll now see a list of the top people and pages in your feed, and you'll be given a one-click option to unfollow them if you chose to do so. You can also choose a filtered view for a specific person, group, or page, or hide the dialog completely if you like things...
Facebook is getting some handy new features for image uploads today. The social media giant announced that Facebook for Android will be getting an update that allows users to more easily manage the order of their photo uploads. Facebook is labeling this as a better way to "tell your story." You will now be able to select the exact order your photos will be uploaded in. Afterward, you...
During a major disaster, many people turn to social networks to check in on friends or loved ones to make sure they're safe. Facebook knows that, and today has announced Safety Check — a new way to let your friends know you're safe, and to check in on those that may be in a disaster area. With Safety Check, you'll receive a notification if you're in the area of a natural disaster...
In addition to likes and typing out your comments onto friends' posts, Facebook is now allowing you to express all your emotional glory through stickers. Previously available as a feature inside Facebook Messenger, now users can add stickers within comments to regular Facebook posts. Just tap the smiley face icon in the bottom-right of any comment field to pick a sticker to send....
Facebook has completed its $19 billion acquisition of WhatsApp. The deal was swiftly finalized following the approval by the European Union on Friday. WhatsApp co-founder and CEO Jan Koum will sit on the Facebook Board of Directors. Facebook's acquisition of the messaging company was originally announced early this year. There were some initial concerns with the purchase, especially...