Everything you need to know about Facebook Messenger’s M assistant

Update: Facebook’s M Suggestions are now available in Spanish to users in the U.S., and is currently rolling out in Mexico. 

Notice a little “M” logo near the textbox in Facebook Messenger? It’s the social media network’s artificially-intelligent assistant that’s meant to offer suggestions in your conversations — similar to how Google Assistant can jump in to help in conversations via Allo. With the assistant officially rolled out across the U.S., it is now available in both English and Spanish to all Messenger users in the country.

M is now able to provide suggestions in Spanish — like sending payments or sharing your location — and the feature is gradually rolling out in Mexico for iOS and Android, Facebook told Digital Trends. If you’d like to receive M Suggestions in Spanish, you can change the preferred language to Spanish.

M itself is powered by Facebook-built AI, and so far works by popping up in your chats when it detects that it can help with something. For example, if you mention going somewhere, M can detect this and will offer up a quick way to book a ride with Uber or Lyft (you can set your preference) — all without leaving the Messenger app.

Before diving into what Facebook’s M can do, there are a few things to keep in mind. Most importantly, Facebook is still working on M and it’s likely the assistant will evolve a lot over the next few months and years. It will also roll out globally at some point as Facebook says users across the globe will “start seeing a redesigned way to compose messages.” If you want nothing to do with this AI revolution, or if you think M makes your conversations too cluttered, you can mute it by heading to Messenger’s settings — tap on the person icon on the top-right of Messenger’s main page, then tap M settings and toggle Suggestions off.

A lot of M’s functions are available in Facebook Messenger — simply tap on the “+” icon on the left, and you’ll be able to share your location, book a ride, plan an event, and more. All M does is take away an extra step, and it reminds you these features exist in Messenger. If M has indeed caught your eye, here’s a list of all the ways it can currently help in your conversations.

Stickers

Facebook’s M can help make using stickers a little easier, preventing the need to search through them. During your chats, M may suggest stickers relating to whatever you’re talking about. For example, if someone says goodbye, you may see a group of stickers depicting “goodbye,” like the image above. You can swipe left or right to hide these suggestions.

Location sharing

During a conversation, it might be appropriate to share your location with the other person in the chat. If you’re meeting up with a friend who asks where you are, M will suggest you share your location. It’s not hard to share your location without M, too. Tap the “+” icon on the left and scroll to Location. You can share your real-time location for 60 minutes.

Settings reminders

Your phone probably has a way to set reminders, such as with Siri on iOS or Google Assistant on Android. Reminders with M will involve others, such as when a significant other or friend asks you to remind them of something. These are not location-based reminders, sadly, but just time-based.

Sending and requesting money

It has been possible to send money to friends with Messenger for a while, but M makes it easy. If someone mentions sending or requesting money, M will ask members of the conversation if they want to follow through. It’s really pretty easy to use — but you will have to enter your payment information first. You can store your payment information beforehand by heading into Messenger’s settings and scrolling to Payments.

Planning Events

Facebook M can also help you plan out events. Perhaps the easiest way that it does so is by looking for things like restaurants nearby — so if the assistant sees you planning to meet up with a friend, it will let you create an event with a name, date, and time.

Hail a ride

Julian Chokkattu/Digital Trends

Along with helping you plan where you want to go, M can help you get there too. When you’re planning to meet up with a friend to go somewhere, M will suggest you book an Uber or Lyft, and it will help you through the booking process — you never have to leave Messenger.

Starting a poll

Last but not least is the ability to start a poll, however this option is only available in a group chat. If you’re asking a question in a group chat, for example, M might suggest a poll to more easily gather information.

Anti-poaching shockwave sensors help save Kenyan elephants from gunfire

Why it matters to you

WIPER could help protect vulnerable elephants and keep them off the endangered species list.

Conservationists have a new way to monitor Kenyan elephants and track poachers who are after their tusks. Called WIPER — Wireless anti-Poaching Technology for Elephants and Rhinos — the device uses sensors to pick up on ballistic shockwaves and transmit the exact coordinates of an elephant as soon as gunshots are detected.

“Poaching has devastated many populations on which I work and, in response, we have been developing technologies and approaches to provide enhanced protection,” George Wittemyer, Colorado State University professor and chairman of Save the Elephants, told Digital Trends. That includes the 100,000 elephants poached for their tusks between 2010 and 2012, according to Save the Elephants’ estimates.

Save the Elephants

In order to avoid detection, poachers often put silencers on their weapons. But even if the sound is muffled, the shockwave generated by supersonic projectiles is not. With just a few sensors on a tracking collar, WIPER can detect these shockwaves and alert authorities to the assault.

WIPER was designed by Vanderbilt University’s Akos Ledeczi, who’d previously worked for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to create similar sensors for detecting and locating muzzled gunfire.

“In the military domain, shockwave sensing is important because the bullets typically fly close to the sensors — vehicles and soldiers — while the shooter may be far away,” Ledeczi told Digital Trends. Meanwhile in law enforcement, sensors are designed to detect muzzle blasts instead, since bullets from handguns are usually subsonic.

Engineers have been trying to use strategically placed anti-poaching sensors to detect muzzle blasts. “The problem is that you need a sensor every few hundred meters, so the solution does not scale beyond a relatively small area,” Ledeczi explained.

Since WIPER can detect gunfire using just a few sensors in an area the size of half of a football field, the researchers say just one device is sufficient to cover an entire herd of elephants. The team’s next steps include field studies in Kenya. It will also try to develop a 12-month battery life for the device.

WIPER is yet another tool in the arsenal of anti-poachers, who are battling to keep African elephants off the endangered species list. They’ve recently deployed drones to track poachers and even scare elephants away from danger.

Microsoft-backed artificial intelligence can beat your ‘Ms. Pac-Man’ high score

Why it matters to you

The method used to master Ms. Pac-Man could help demonstrate the benefits of a divide-and-conquer approach in real-world applications.

A team of researchers have managed to develop an artificial intelligence capable of mastering the arcade classic Ms. Pac-Man. Maluuba — a Canadian deep learning startup that was acquired by Microsoft in January 2017 — used a divide-and-conquer technique to empower its system to complete the Atari 2600 version of the game with a perfect score of 999,990.

Maluuba’s approach is interesting, because it breaks down the strategies and maneuvers required to beat the game into their component parts. Various different agents focus on one job and one job alone, while an agent put in charge of managing from the top makes high-level decisions about what actions should be prioritized.

For instance, some agents might be tasked with chasing down pellets, while others focused on avoiding enemies. The decision-making agent would then choose the best option based on weighted logic — if a hundred agents wanted to move left to grab a pellet, but only three wanted to move right to avoid a ghost, it would elect to move right because colliding with the enemy would end the run.

Ms. Pac-Man is relatively widely used in AI research because of the unpredictable nature of its gameplay, according to a post on the official Microsoft blog. Steve Golson, who is credited as co-creator of the original arcade version of the game, notes that this was intentional, as the game was reliant on players spending quarter after quarter on extra lives for it to be a financial success.

Maluuba used reinforcement learning, a process by which an AI receives positive or negative feedback for each attempt it makes at a problem, to address this unpredictability. It’s hoped that reinforcement learning could help foster systems that are better equipped to make decisions on their own, compared to those that are trained via supervised learning, where the system is simply fed good and bad examples to establish a base of experience.

Microsoft promises to achieve parity between Xbox and PC games

Why it matters to you

Microsoft may not have the greatest track record on PC over the past decade, but it’s looking to improve that moving forward with some major changes to console ports.

With Microsoft’s recent push to see many games playable just about anywhere, you might imagine there would be one platform somewhere that was better than the others. That’s not something Microsoft itself wants to see, though, and the firm has announced at this year’s E3 gaming show that it will endeavor to make all of its games play equally well on the Xbox and the PC.

Although for decades there have been mountains of mud slung by gamers of various camps about why their chosen system or platform is the best, gaming today is much more universal. While there are exclusives, they are far less common and more often games are multi-platform and can be streamed to and from various devices. That’s a push Microsoft has been part of in recent years and as it expands its Xbox into a service as much as a hardware choice, it promises to make sure there is parity across its platforms.

Crucially, that means that Microsoft wants to ditch the age-old system of porting. Indeed two upcoming games, Sea of Thieves and Forza Motorsport 7, will not be ported in the traditional sense. Instead, as TechSpot points out, the two versions of the game are being developed in parallel. The plan is to offer the game on both platforms with comparable features and performance.

This will mean a lowering of the minimum requirements to run the games, which should make them more inclusive for gamers playing on weaker hardware on PC. While that could give those on higher-end systems pause, Microsoft has clarified that it wants to build a base game parity across systems, while still providing options for those with more powerful PCs and graphics hardware to really push the games to the limit.

Scalability on the Xbox platform could have some benefit on the console itself, too, since Microsoft will be spreading its latest generation across three hardware configurations when it launches the Xbox One X this fall. It will want to make sure games play just as well on the original Xbox One, the One S and the One X, despite their hardware differences.

Get this Wallet-sized Battery Pack for just $20!

There are few things worse than checking your phone and seeing that low battery warning when you’re far away from a charger. It can lead to some real anxiety. Battery packs will help, but most are so bulky that it can be tough to take them along with you.

Get this pocket-sized battery pack for $20! Learn more

But that’s where this LithiumCard Wallet Battery pack can help! It offers 1,200mAh of power in a sleek package that’s about the size of a wallet and includes a built-in Micro USB or Lightning Connector to keep your devices charged.

Best of all, you can get yours for only $20 — that’s 66% off the regular price! It’s available in your choice of black or silver to match your style.

This thing is compact, roughly the size of a stack of five credit cards. At 1/5 of an inch thick, you can toss this in your bag or jacket pocket and always have that backup power available to you when you need it.

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Enjoy the premium design of this durable aluminum battery pack, which can be yours for only $20. Stash it in your wallet or use the NanoStik pad to attach it directly to your phone. The choice — and power — can be yours, so act now!

Rev up your engines with these automotive wallpapers

Car wallpapers for the win.

What’s your dream car? Mine is a Chevy SSR. It may be impractical — they may call it a “fake truck” — but I don’t care: the SSR will always have a special place in my heart. It was just beautiful, and unique, and whenever I see one on the highway, I can’t help the words from coming out: “Hi, pretty…” There are cars that desire, delight, and awe. And even if those cars can’t grace our garages (yet), they can grace our home screens.

My daily driver is a minivan, and as a minivan driver, I can’t help but fantasize about the best minivan ever: the VW Minibus! Volkswagen keeps teasing and taunting us into thinking they’re going to finally bring back one of the most iconic automobiles… But the concept cars never go beyond the trade shows, and the artist renders get more and more beautiful, but they never jump off the page into a dealer showroom. Well, until they do, I’m gonna keep dreaming of a Minibus to replace my aging Odyssey and I’m gonna dream… and put the majesty of yesteryear on my home screen.

VW camper van by adamduckworth

Walk into a room and say Tesla, and at least half of them are gonna think of a sweet-ass electric car that’s learning how to drive itself and is intensely fun to navigate when you give the autopilot a break. The Model 3 is still at least a little while away, but let’s face it, it’s gonna be worth it. And if a Tesla and Launch Mode sparks excitement in your soul, you should probably head to Tesla Central, where Derek Kessler is serving up Tesla love and presiding over an electric car-lover’s forum.

If you open your phone and you see that iconic Tesla ‘T’ symbol on your home screen, here’s to hoping you get that spark every time.

Tesla Model S Insignia by Derek Kessler

Tesla isn’t the only name in electric cars anymore. The all-electric Chevy Bolt EV has been a long-time coming, and according to our own MrMobile, it’s the first EV that’s really made for the average driver rather than the money-to-burn early adopters that Tesla has delivered vehicles to so far. There’s still a lot of work to be done before most of us can switch from a gas pump to a charge port, but it’s a step I’m thrilled to see more major car manufacturers testing. Not all cars can be as pretty as a Tesla, but so long as we see more of these ports under the old gas doors, I think things will turn out alright.

Chevy Bolt EV

Speaking of cars that drive themselves, Waymo holds a glimpse of a future that divides rooms with the strong emotions it evokes. Waymo wants to take the wheel away from easily-distracted, over-worked, sleep-deprived, error-prone humans. As someone who works two jobs and makes a 90-mile drive to and from my parents’ house every other weekend or so, I’ve been ready for self-driving cars forever, as I fought getting my license until I was 18, and the only reason I ever learned to enjoy it was listening to music and singing while I drove. Is there a rush you get from going 85 down a mostly-empty freeway? You bet. But I’ll gladly give up the feel of speeding to get there without me drifting lanes and without having to brake and roll through five-mile backups on I-35.

The Future?

Okay, I know motorcycles aren’t quite cars, but they inspire freedom, fresh air, and are just as good as their four-wheeled brethren. This illustration from Babs Tarr, of Motor Crush and Batgirl fame shows off two of her loves: motorcycles and Sailor Moon. From the custom bikes to the punk-rocker take on the Sailor Scouts, this is a wallpaper that’s begging for a race (and maybe a custom comic).

But unless you get power from the Moon, you better wear a helmet out there!!

Bosozoku Sailor Scouts

This $379 Chromebook can convert into a tablet and lets you access Android apps alongside ChromeOS

The Thrifter team is back again with a great deal on Samsung’s Chromebook Plus that you won’t want to miss!

The Samsung Chromebook Plus is one of the newest Chromebooks around, having just been introduced in January this year, and is currently $378.74 on Amazon. It shipped at a starting price of $449. While it has seen a few drops here and there since then, this is the lowest it has ever dropped. Pretty much everywhere else, including Newegg and Best Buy, has it for $419 or higher right now.

The Chromebook Plus is lightweight, comes with a stylus, and has a touchscreen. It can convert from a laptop into a tablet. It comes with Bluetooth, a 720p integrated webcam, and two USB-C ports. It has a nice, bright, screen with 2400 x 1600 pixel resolution, which is part of the reason it cost a bit more out the gate than your average Chromebook.

It’s also unique in that it’s part of Google’s attempt to combine ChromeOS and Android, letting you use the features of the Chrome operating system while also accessing Android apps. If you already use an Android smartphone, this Chromebook should complement it pretty well. The Chromebook Plus uses a 2 GHz OP1 Dual-ARM processor, which is designed for use with Android apps, to make that a faster process. However, since ChromeOS is designed to work with a different kind of processor you might see some slowness in other aspects (like when browsing the Internet).

It’s not perfect. It is a Chromebook, after all, which means it’s designed for light work not heavy play. It only has 4GB RAM and a 32GB SSD, which can be expanded with a microSD port. The battery life is only six hours and the keyboard doesn’t have a backlight. It’s designed to be able to do a few things at a time and do them well. If that’s what you need, then go for it.

Not sure if this is the Chromebook for you? Be sure to check out some of our thoughts here.

See at Amazon

For more great deals be sure to check out our friends at Thrifter now!

How to avert (even more) disaster at Uber

Uber is a classic example of that old adage about money not being enough to buy you class, especially in 2017. The startup, valued at around $70 billion, has been helped and hindered by the leadership of its controversial CEO, Travis Kalanick. After a tidal wave of revelations about the company’s ethical lapses, Kalanick is taking a leave of absence. Upon his return, his role will be diminished, with freshly appointed executives, including a new COO, taking on some of his responsibilities.

The company’s internal issues were initially highlighted by former engineer Susan Fowler in a tell-all blog post. In response, Uber officials asked former US attorney general Eric Holder to conduct an independent investigation. His report was voted on earlier this week, with the company’s board agreeing to adopt all of the recommendations. One of those is to reformulate Uber’s key cultural values, a manifesto that currently encourages or justifies “poor behavior.”

But we here at Engadget feel that Uber’s going to have to do more than just follow Holder’s recommendations to cure the sickness inside its soul. Which is why we’ve prepared a few hints and tips on how the company can heal itself from the inside out.

Do: Fix the corporate culture

The board has already agreed with the recommendations in Eric Holder’s report, and Uber is now hiring Frances Frei from Harvard Business School. An expert in gender equality, Frei is tasked with fixing a startup that has a big problem with seediness. After all, Travis Kalanick once wrote a company memo informally outlining to employees who they can and can’t have sex with inside the organization. That’s something best left to an HR department who won’t end their memos with the line “Yes, that means that Travis will be celibate on this trip. #CEOLife #FML.”

Don’t: Assume every government official is corrupt

Uber has a knack for getting into pointless fights with governments all across the world when it doesn’t really need to. Some of those battles, including Uber’s war of attrition against the Las Vegas taxi lobby and politicians who acted in its favor, were probably justified. But the constant skirmishes and tantrums with regulators, who seem to have legitimate concerns, are tiresome.

For instance, NYC mayor Bill de Blasio wanted a temporary slowdown on Uber licenses being offered, for up to a year. He wanted to do this so that the city could examine, in detail, ridesharing services’ impacts on traffic, safety and pollution. Uber’s response was to add a scaremongering “de Blasio mode” that suggested the service would die out if the mayor got his way.

Then there’s the apparent refusal to listen to district attorneys in both San Francisco and LA who believe Uber has a safety issue. Not only did they find that 25 drivers should have failed Uber’s background checks, but they believe the company has a problem with intoxicated drivers. One woman was left paralyzed from the chest down because her Uber driver ran a red light and crashed. It was later found out that the driver not only didn’t have insurance but had also previously been arrested for drug and gambling offenses. She’s now suing the company, an issue that might have been avoided if the company had listened to earlier concerns.

Do: Take safety more seriously

The crash mentioned above isn’t an isolated incident, either, and every time it happens, it gets plenty of press attention. The taxi lobby runs an admittedly biased website called Who’s Driving You that catalogs every incident in which Uber (and other ridesharing services) drivers risk passenger safety. In addition, instances of sexual assault and violence by drivers with histories of such acts are cataloged. Uber’s background checks have been found to be defective, and that needs to change.

Don’t: Keep burning cash

Uber’s business model is simple: Raise billions of dollars from investors, then use that cash to subsidize rides. By constantly undercutting the entrenched taxi firms, Uber will help put its immediate rivals out of business. Once it’s king of the hill, Uber can raise prices back to a sustainable level and then phase out human drivers with self-driving vehicles.

But let’s be honest: Uber’s already won the hearts and minds of plenty of millennial customers. How many stories do you see where property developers are handing out Uber credit in lieu of building parking spaces? Kids, too, are apparently ditching driving lessons and car ownership, since they can get where they need to with the service.

Surely, that blend of convenience and near-global ubiquity is enough to push the company to think about becoming profitable. After all, it lost $708 million in the first quarter of 2017 alone, and nearly $2.8 billion across 2016. Adding a buck or three to every ride will help stanch the bleeding and make the company look a little better when it comes time to launch on the stock market.

Don’t: Treat your employees with contempt

It’s a hard life being an Uber driver, and there are numerous reports about how shabbily the company treats them. The hours are long, the income is steadily dropping and Uber spends plenty of time and money preventing them from being classified as employees or unionizing. When Fawzi Kamel, an Uber driver, told Travis Kalanick of his problems, the CEO described him as someone who didn’t “take responsibility for their own shit.”

It would be easier to stomach if Uber hadn’t just had to settle a lawsuit concerning how it overstated how much prospective drivers could earn. Rather than handing out millions of dollars in legal fees and settlements, how about just do the decent thing anyway? These folks work for you, no matter how hard you pretend that they don’t, and the sooner you fix this, the better.

Do: Use the ‘Are We the Baddies?’ test

If you’re running a company that has demonstrated some spectacular lapses in ethical judgment, here’s a handy test. If you’re about to do something that feels like it might be problematic, stand in front of a mirror and state your intentions, out loud. If it sounds like the sort of thing a villain from an ’80s movie would do, then perhaps do something else.

You know, like if you’re planning to obtain the medical records of a woman who was raped by one of your drivers. Especially if those records were obtained through questionable means and you’re looking for reasons to discredit her or disregard her experiences. Or maybe if you’re thinking about building a tool that actively hinders a police investigation into your business practices. Or when you’re threatening a journalist with smears by using a secret customer tracking platform that violates their privacy.

Don’t: Let Kalanick get his own way

Uber’s board has voted to curb Kalanick’s power in a diminished CEO role that he’ll return to after his leave of absence. But he’ll still be the same person, driven to win at all costs and cross lines as he does it. The new management team will need to be strong enough to tell him, loudly and repeatedly, where the lines are and what he shouldn’t be doing. In addition, rules should be tweaked to ensure that Kalanick, despite his extraordinary power as a founding shareholder, cannot avoid accountability. Sure, he’s still answerable to the board, but without proper checks and balances, we could be here, doing this all over again, in a few years’ time.