Messenger Day is Facebook’s answer to Snapchat: Here’s how it works
Facebook has announced a new feature in Messenger in the form of Messenger Day. It gives you the potential to instantly share pictures and videos as a daily record with friends, family and even the wider world, but at the end of 24 hours it all disappears.
In that sense, it is much like Snapchat, although the latter service has a much faster turnaround before content is removed.
It works through the Messenger app, added as part of the update that is rolling out now. From within the app, you can choose clips or pics from a chat, or shoot a brand new picture or video and add them to your “Day”. They will be shared with whoever you want.
- What’s the point of Snapchat and how does it work?
- Facebook Messenger: Here’s how to use those new Snapchat-like lenses
Here’s how to do it:
- Update the Messenger app on iOS or Android if you don’t have it already.
- Open it and tap on the camera.
- Take a selfie, photo or video of something you want to share.
- Add any art effects you like through the smiley face icon in the top right.
- Add any text or draw on the picture.
- When complete, tap on the arrow in the bottom right-hand corner and it will ask you if you want to save it to your Day, save it to your phone’s camera roll, or send it to a specific person or group.
- It will be viewable for 24 hours.
You can also select a video or picture placed in a conversation. After sending the content, you will see an option to “Add to your Day”.
Ghost Recon: Wildlands explored: How Ubisoft is pushing the envelope of online mutliplayer
Ubisoft’s Ghost Recon: Wildlands is not just one of 2017’s most-anticipated games. It’s also one of the most complex games ever made.
This is thanks primarily to a vast, startlingly realistic map depicting a thoroughly believable near-future Bolivia in the grip of narco-wars, populated by a huge array of AI-controlled virtual humans going about their (often nefarious) daily business.
Top that with the ability to play the entire game solo or co-operatively with up to three other people, and it looks very much as though developer Ubisoft Paris deliberately went out of its way to make Ghost Recon: Wildlands’ development as tricky a task as possible.
Handily, we managed to grab an interview with Dominic Butler, Wildlands’ lead game designer, on a rare visit to London to find out why.
Meeting with us the day after the premiere of Wildlands, the documentary film about narco-wars and Bolivia which Ubisoft commissioned as a companion-piece to the game, he provided great insight into the techniques and attention to detail that are required to make such a complicated videogame.
Still a Ghost Recon game
Ghost Recon: Wildlands is indisputably a departure for the franchise – a mini-reboot if you like. Which extends to the gameplay: it feels more like a Far Cry game with added military rigour than past Ghost Recon games. They were tightly scripted, pretty linear and involved maintaining tight control over AI-powered team-mates. This is not.
Butler, however, argues strongly that it marks a progression from the existing franchise: “It’s still very much Ghost Recon, made by Ghost Recon teams,” he said.
So, how would he characterise it?
“It’s a military shooter, set in a massive and dangerous open world that you can play entirely from beginning to end in solo or in co-op.”
Ubisoft
That’s a good jump-in point for us to ask: “Why is that different?”
“It’s different because we’ve got that 360-degree approach, because it sets up an interesting narrative and backdrop against this cartel that has moved in and turned the country into a narco-state. It puts the power into the players’ hands, to tell their own stories and to express themselves through the gameplay,” Butler added.
Playing the environment
There’s no doubt that Ghost Recon: Wildlands’ open-world environment is a key element in the game. The map is huge – the biggest Ubisoft has ever made – but Butler maintains its size isn’t its most appealing attribute: “Something we were really happy about, having Bolivia specifically, is that it’s so varied in terms of the different environment types and biomes. You have lush jungle rainforests, riverbeds and swamplands, and you’ve got farmlands, mountains, snowy peaks, mining areas and everything in between.
Ubisoft
“So while we try to keep the missions open and goal-based, to let players experience them the way they want, that environment adds to the challenge. It’s a secondary layer, because you can’t play the same way in a snowy peak or in a flat desert as you will in a river jungle basin.
“That’s because the line of sight is different and the area of effect is different, so it’s forcing you to mix it up and try new tactics, to try new vehicles, to try new weapons, to try new tools. And play in different ways with your friends. That’s something that’s more interesting than just saying it’s the biggest.”
Scripting strictly prohibited: Time to build world systems
Perhaps the most radical decision Butler and his colleagues took was to eschew scripting – a mainstay of all previous Ghost Recon games – in which specific player-actions trigger specific AI movements and events. It meant, Butler says, that instead, Ubisoft Paris had to craft a number of systems that determine how the world reacts to what you do in Wildlands as a player: “We wanted from the very beginning to ensure that the players were going to have total freedom of choice to do whatever they wanted, and to complete the missions how they wanted in terms of order within a bigger narrative.
“In order to do that, we couldn’t sustain something in a traditional way, where we would maybe set up certain patrols, or a helicopter that would pass just at this moment, because it was something that the designer had conceived – as we had done in previous games.
“I could set a sequence up so that it works when you come down this road, but what happens when a player drives over the hill in a 4×4, or they drop in from a plane by a parachute, or they disable all the electronics with an EMP, so suddenly all your lights don’t work anymore? We had to allow for all that: rather than fighting the scripting all the way, we opted instead to heavily invest in the world systems, so that these things would just keep turning and offering their own challenges.
Ubisoft
“Some of those systems interact directly with each other, and some are just offering other layers of challenge for the player. So you have systems like time of day, which is going to affect the NPCs’ (non-player characters’) agenda, for example.
“You’ve got the NPCs, you’ve got civilians, you’ve got guards – these guys will wake up, they’ll go and get food, they will patrol, they’ll go to market, they’ll do whatever makes sense for them. But they’ll also go to sleep at night, so if you go into a camp at night, you’ll see a bunch of guys asleep in the dormitories, you’ll see spotlights on. So the world changes with time of day.
“You’ve got things like weather and traffic that can affect things like line of sight, or the way that NPCs are going to react to you. All of those things create a kind of chorus of different systems that allow players to interject when they want. Having those systems that are always running allows us to have a world that is emergent and reactive.”
An AI challenge
Butler’s insistence on endowing Ghost Recon: Wildlands with the freedom to play however you want had implications when it came to designing and fine-tuning the game’s AI.
One key aspect, he says, was to keep the missions simple: “I think that’s where it all stems from, the idea that we have challenges set up in the world that are as simple in terms of comprehension as, say, ‘We have a target that’s in a camp and we need to get him, alive, to this rally point so that we can question him.’
“Now, the way that that camp is set up or the way that the environment is set up could be completely different, but also the way that the player approaches that could be completely different. So we have to have an AI that can react – and will react – depending on how the player comes in.
“It will also react differently if you’re playing with friends, so that we have to be able to scale up or down depending on whether you’re playing solo with AI team-mates, or with two or three friends. Obviously, friends that are communicating well, that are playing together are going to be very smart, and effective, and the AI needs to react to that as well.”
Micro-management is history
One aspect of Ghost Recon: Wildlands that is bound to lead to wildly differing opinions among those familiar with the franchise is the way in which it approaches the AI of your team-mates, should you opt not to play as part of an all-human team. Although you can opt to play with random human team-mates, life is bound to get in the way at times and dictate that you have to strip in some AI team-mates.
Ubisoft
In previous Ghost Recon games, for many players, part of the fun involved ordering your AI-controlled squad-mates around in fine detail, with complete precision. Others found that level of micro-management annoyingly fiddly – and they, at least, will be happy that Wildlands has comprehensively ditched the need to fuss over your team-mates’ actions.
Butler argues that Wildlands’ drop-in, drop-out co-operative nature is incompatible with Ghost Recon’s past approach to team-mate AI: “It’s really important that players, as much as possible, have the same experience, can experience all the same content, whether they’re playing in solo or co-op, because you don’t have a solo progression or co-op progression – you just have your progression.
“In terms of the AI, we wanted to make something that wasn’t going to get in the player’s way, but still allowed them to strategise, that still allowed them to be effective and feel like a unit.
“So our team-mate AI is watching the way that you play. It’s going to offer fire support, of course – that’s really basic – but it isn’t going to open fire or take out a camp without you being involved. It’s going to offer support, but if you’re going in loud and heavy, it will follow suit; if you’re going in stealthy and doing a lot more recon, it will help you in that. If you’re downed in a fight, it will revive you, and you’re going to have to look after AI team-mates as well.
“As well as that, we have a command wheel which allows you, with a single button-press, to give very simple orders: we wanted to make sure that you weren’t getting into a situation where you were micro-managing them.
“Micro-management in itself is not a problem: it’s something that we enjoyed and it’s something we did experiment with on this game. But we wanted to be sure that we didn’t lose the flow that the players were in, so something in which you stop to micro-manage implies that you have a more static environment, and something without autonomous systems that are moving in real time. In our world, which has things happening in real-time, you have to react.
“So if you’re in the middle of planning a very meticulous setup, it can start to be frustrating because you’re doing moment-to-moment stuff and the world is going more minute-by-minute.”
Dialling back on the weaponry
Past Ghost Recon games also featured some madly futuristic weaponry, such as guns that could shoot round corners, but as far as the weaponry is concerned, although you do get some good gadgetry, it has reverted to a more true-to-life level. Butler explains why: “Ghost Recon Wildlands is set in 2019, so it’s very near future, and we looked to modern tech to see what exists and what would exist in the next few years.
Ubisoft
“We wanted to keep it quite modern: a big part of that is because of the narrative that we’re telling. But also because we have a world that players can project themselves into: if I gave you a plasma rifle or a pulse rifle, it’s a bit hard to understand which one would better for long-range shooting.”
Butler picks out the drone as his favourite component of the weapons load-out: “The drone starts out primarily as a recon tool. Every Ghost has a drone: if you’re playing with friends, two or three of you can send in drones and recon different areas. But you can also upgrade that drone. For me, this is what I still find myself doing 100 per cent of the time. I love that drone in terms of its versatility.
“You can really play with it in terms of something that’s more about offence, with an explosive charge or a noise-maker to draw enemies in a certain direction. You can also use it with an EMP, you can put thermal vision on it, you can put night-vision on it, or make it super-quiet. There are loads of different upgrades and attachments for it, to make it really not just a recon tool but more of a support system.”
One gets the impression, talking to Butler, that he and his various teams (Ubisoft Reflections in Newcastle, for example, crafted all the vehicles in Ghost Recon: Wildlands) must feel they have undergone a process akin to giving birth after several years’ gestation. But they are undoubtedly fiercely proud of their baby.
And if Wildlands lives up to the uncompromising level of ambition with which Ubisoft Paris approached its development right from the conception stage, it should be a mighty fine game indeed. It will be fascinating to see whether existing Ghost Recon fans take to it with enthusiasm – and whether it will win a new constituency for the franchise
GBoard on Android catches up to iOS with GIF, emoji suggestions
It took around seven months for Google’s GBoard to arrive on Android after its iOS debut. Following that tradition of tardiness, today’s update adds features to the Android version that’ve been available on Apple devices since launch. Most notably, emoji and GIF suggestions that appear as you’re banging out a text message to a pal — even for languages read right-to-left. While those are all well and good, there are a few other new bits as well like improved voice-to-text, custom keyboard backgrounds and quick translation. Again, this is stuff that’s been in the iOS version for awhile, but that shouldn’t stop the Android faithful from appreciating them.
Facebook apes Snapchat Stories again for Messenger
Facebook has copied Snapchat’s Stories feature not just once, twice, or thrice, but four times now its latest app. Messenger Day has launched worldwide today after a limited test. Much like other Facebook versions, you can build a slideshow with decorated videos and photos, and share it with contacts before it disappears after 24 hours. The app takes advantage of the Messenger camera that includes special effects, text, art, stickers and more.
If you’re keeping score at home, Facebook now has Stories-style features on Facebook (still in beta) Instagram, Whatsapp and now Messenger. So what makes the new app unique? Facebook says that rather than recounting what you did already, the new app is for having “more meaningful conversations” that let you show your friends what you’re up to now. While all the versions are confusing (why doesn’t Facebook just have one for all four apps?), the company perhaps felt it couldn’t neglect Messenger, since it does have over a billion users.
Eventually the social network is likely to put ads in between posts in order to generate revenue for the app, Facebook VP David Marcus told Techcrunch. After tests in Poland and Australia attracted millions of users, the feature is going live for everyone on Android and iOS, so you should see it pop up soon.
Source: Facebook
Premier League wins court order to block Kodi football streams
The Premier League has been granted stronger powers to crack down on copyright infringing streams of football matches. Under a new court order, approved by the UK’s high court, the organisation will be able to block servers powering illegal streams. It’s a method that could and should be more effective than simply blocking the sites and webpages hosting a shady video player. “For the first time this will enable the Premier League to disrupt and prevent the illegal streaming of our matches via IPTV, so-called Kodi, boxes,” a spokesperson for the Premier League said.
The order was granted under section 97a of the UK’s Copyright, Designs and Patents Act. It states that the High Court “shall have power to grant an injunction against a service provider, where that provider has actual knowledge of another person using their service to infringe copyright.”
Kodi-powered boxes can be used for entirely legal purposes. But a large number of people use them to install apps, or plugins, which provide free and legally murky access to Premier League fixtures. Some have even created businesses selling “fully loaded” Kodi boxes to other people. The Premier League, of course, is unhappy with the situation and wants to eradicate the practice, but that’s easier said than done. Five people were arrested last month in raids spearheaded by the Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT). One man from the North East was hit with a £250,000 fine for selling pre-loaded boxes to pubs. But still, more exist.
“We will continue working with ISPs, government and other sports content producers to protect consumers from illegitimate services that offer no recourse when services are removed, provide no parental controls and, in many instances, are provided by individuals involved in other criminal activity,” a Premier League spokesperson added.
Via: BBC News
VSCO Adds ‘DSCO’ GIF Creation, User Blocking, and Post Favorites
Photography app VSCO has announced a handful of new features for its users, centering around the addition of its separate GIF creating DSCO app [Direct Link] directly into the main VSCO app. Thanks to the inclusion, users can now create looping images and post them to their VSCO feeds.
Similar to the camera wheel options on Instagram and in the iOS Camera, users can tap DSCO at the bottom of the camera in VSCO to switch over to the video format, record a moment, and upload it to VSCO. The company has shared a collection of DSCO examples on its website for users to check out.
In addition to DSCO, a few new community-side features have been added into the VSCO iOS app, including the ability to block unwanted users from interacting with your content. VSCO images are public so blocked users can still view any image they want, but they can no longer follow users who have blocked them, repost, or favorite their images or DSCO videos.
To further facilitate an environment of positive feedback, VSCO has added the ability to favorite posts between users without the public at large being able to see favorites. VSCO said that this makes favorites “a private acknowledgement between two people,” and lets its users take bolder creative risks without the worry of like counts that other platforms have.
VSCO is a place to take creative risks and share what you love, not what you think others will love. This is why VSCO does not publicly show your follower count or how many people reposted your image — it’s where you can be you.
The company said that the newly announced features will be rolling out over the next couple of weeks. In December, VSCO added RAW image capturing and editing on iOS 10 devices.
VSCO is available to download for free on the iOS App Store. [Direct Link]
Tag: VSCO
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Facebook’s Snapchat Clone ‘Messenger Day’ Launches Worldwide With Plan-Making Twist
One of Facebook’s Snapchat clones is launching worldwide today within Facebook Messenger, after a previous soft launch in countries including Poland and Australia. Called “Messenger Day,” the new feature will allow Messenger users to post updates that disappear after 24 hours.
The twist with Messenger Day, according to Facebook, is that the app’s filters and features encourage users to create new plans in the moment, instead of revisiting things your friends have already done like on Snapchat.
To facilitate this, Messenger Day includes a collection of photo and video filters — like the time of day or call-outs asking to grab food — that will provide appropriate context for friends viewing posts. According to Facebook VP of messaging David Marcus, who spoke with TechCrunch, this will let Facebook Messenger users snap a quick photo, add a frame, and see if any of their friends are up for going grab a coffee or watching a movie, without having to text individual people or post on Facebook itself.
“This is about today. It’s not about yesterday. It’s not about tomorrow” Marcus tells me. “The 2 key functionalities are 1. I’m going to set context because it’s going to make for better conversations if people know where I am and what I’m doing. And 2. It’s about where I want to take my day, like ‘I’m bored and I want to go out for coffee’ or ‘I want to go see a movie’ so I’m going to use a frame, take a photo, and see which of my friends are going to engage with me to actually make that plan, because planning is one of the core capabilities of a messaging app.”
Like Instagram Stories, Messenger Day sits atop Facebook Messenger and shows the days of your friends in a row of horizontal icons that autoplay one after another when viewed. Users can interact with specific posts by sending a message to the poster, and an “Active Now” indicator will let users know who is online and available to meet up with in the moment.
All of the usual doodling options, filters, and stickers of other apps will also be found in Messenger Day. For its plan-making filters, Facebook said that there are over 5,000 of them, including invites to going for a run, grabbing drinks, and other activities. Users can even create custom filters through text.
This is where Messenger Day’s unique slant on Stories for messaging comes in. The searchable, categorized filters include calls to action like “Who’s up for grabbing coffee?”, “Road trip”, “Movie night?”, “Let’s grab drinks”, “Let’s go for a run”, and tons more. These make it easy and fun to invite friends to hang out with you offline.
And unlike posting “who wants to grab dinner?” on Facebook where a lack of responses could make you look unpopular, the posts disappear and all replies in Messenger Day are private so you don’t have to worry about seeming lonely.
Including Messenger Day, Facebook’s Snapchat copying has grown to include Instagram Stories, WhatsApp Status, and the yet-to-launch-worldwide Facebook Stories. Within Facebook Messenger, some users noticed recently that a few of the company’s “Reactions” have been made available to respond to friends’ messages, including a new thumbs-down option.
Tags: Facebook, Facebook Messenger
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Apple Retail Ends Genius Training in Cupertino, Moves to In-Store Web Seminars
For years, Apple has sent new Genius hires to its Infinite Loop headquarters in Cupertino, or sometimes an auxiliary campus in Austin or Atlanta, to receive hands-on training for up to three weeks. Recently, however, Apple appears to have stopped offering these group-based trips, according to people familiar with the matter.
Apple’s off-site Genius Training program has been replaced by an in-store, self-guided experience using company-provided reference materials, according to a source. The training now involves watching web-based seminars through the Apple Technical Learning Administration System, or ATLAS, another source said.
At its Cupertino headquarters, Apple had a small training facility with a mock Genius Bar and Macs set aside specifically for trainees to take apart and perform test repairs on. But with the switch to web-based seminars, Apple is allegedly providing “virtual take aparts” only now, with no physical hardware.
“This means that many customers who check their computers in for repair may have their device serviced by someone who has never physically worked on their model of computer before,” said a person familiar with the matter.
A handful of Geniuses have shared photos of their training experience on social networks over the years, with one person calling it a “life-changing experience” and others echoing similar positivity. One source described it to us as a “rite of passage” and “a milestone in the career” of an Apple retail employee.
Apple’s Genius Training program was for years a rite of passage for Apple Retail employees: not only a training opportunity, but a chance to visit one of Apple’s corporate campuses, to get questions answered at the source, and, for those who headed to Cupertino, to experience Silicon Valley and the Apple culture. The traditional “selfie” in front of One Infinite Loop was a milestone in the career of every Apple Genius.
Apple Store managers have been quietly informing new Genius hires of the changes in recent weeks. It is unclear if the off-site training is permanently discontinued, or if it could return to Infinite Loop or Apple’s new campus in the future. Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Last year, we revealed a new Apple retail position called Technical Expert, which falls between Technical Specialist and Genius. These employees are able to provide mobile repairs, a task previously limited to Geniuses, and troubleshooting for software and products like the Apple Watch and Apple TV.
Tag: Apple retail
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‘Farpoint’ will feature online co-op
There’s even more riding on the success of Farpoint, the first PlayStation VR title that uses Sony’s new Aim controller. The company has revealed that the game will also be a showcase online VR FPS co-op, with two people exploring alien worlds and killing things in tandem. At launch, there will be just four co-op levels, with pairs competing with players from all across the world to ratchet up the highest score.
Impulse Gear, the developers of Farpoint, has been working closely with Sony to ensure that the game and Aim controller work in tandem. For instance, if your teammate leans in to view the virtual scope on their futuristic rifle, you’ll be able to watch them do it. As we’ve previously reported, Farpoint will make its debut on May 16th in the US and Canada, and you’ll pay wither $80 for it and the Aim gun, or $50 on its own.
Source: Sony
UK newspapers want Facebook and Google probed over ‘fake news’
The UK’s newspaper industry is calling on the British government to investigate Google and Facebook’s role in the controversial rise of ‘fake’ news. Responding to an inquiry set up by the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, the News Media Association (NMA), which represents both local and national newspapers, advised MPs to call on both companies for questioning. Grilling representatives in person would, it argued, help ministers to understand how important news is to their business models, and how their algorithms are being manipulated by fake news sites.
In addition, the association has asked for either Ofcom, the UK’s media regulator, or the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) to open up a separate investigation into Facebook and Google’s role in the media. The NMA argues that fake news travels “fast” on social platforms and is easier to produce because, unlike ‘real’ journalism, creators don’t have to spend time or money on proper reporting. The problem is compounded, it says, because Facebook and Google’s algorithms are designed to surface what it thinks people will be interested in, regardless of the source’s quality.
The nature of online advertising means that oftentimes, brands are supporting fake news sites without their knowledge. They’re merely chasing eyeballs, which just so happen to be pointed toward publications of suspicious quality. “Funding fake news causes real social harm by rewarding piracy and facilitating the spread of conspiracy theories,” the NMA writes in its submission to the the Culture, Media and Sport Committee. “Another social harm caused is the diversion of funds from real news to fake news, weakening the former’s voice, reducing its reach and undermining its vital role of anchoring public discourse in reality.”
Facebook has long argued that it’s not a traditional media company. But its influence on the news business is unquestionable; for many, it’s their primary source of information. The complexity lies in how much responsibility companies such as Google and Facebook have for the content that’s shared and presented to their users. UK readers are savvy to fake news, the NMA says, but the problem is worrying nonetheless.
“Fake news has arisen because of a cumulative failure by a number of players,” it admitted. “That is not to say there is no role for government and regulators in this issue. They cannot ignore forever the impact on our media landscape of the Google-Facebook duopoly.”
The NMA’s recommendations include an inquiry by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) to confirm whether the two companies “are in a dominant position” regarding the “collection, aggregation, processing and sale” of users’ personal data. Finally, it wants a regulatory review of Google and Facebook’s role as news “intermediaries,” or distributors. “Such a review should look at what additional responsibilities they should bear, without creating any new regulatory burdens or wider liabilities for the traditional media, or new restrictions on its publishing freedoms.”
The NMA’s position is pretty clear: fake news is threatening the viability of real news, and whether or not it’s their attention, Facebook and Google are tied to its growing popularity. The UK’s newspaper industry wants the pair investigated, not necessarily to penalise them, but to figure out how the phenomenon can be curtailed. “Instead of weakening the press, government and regulators should concentrate on combating fake news with a renewed emphasis on the importance of genuine news media to democracy. The best defence against fake news is for genuine news publishers to continue their important work of investigative journalism.”
Source: News Media Association
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