Facebook Live will host a collaborative escape room game today

If you enjoy live action room experiences (think zombies, puzzles etc) or fancy yourself as a bit of an armchair detective, it might be worth tuning into a first-of-its-kind Facebook Live stream later today. To celebrate the launch of its new crime drama, UK TV channel Alibi will host Framed, the “world’s first livestreamed escape room”, at 3pm ET/8pm BST — and it’s open to all.

The hour-long interactive murder mystery focuses on a security guard at an exclusive art gallery who finds himself trapped in a room with a dead body. The guard (who will be wearing a head-mounted camera for the duration of the stream) has 30 minutes to piece together what happened before he is framed for the crime himself.

Sounds like any other Escape Room puzzle, right? Well, because Framed is being hosted on Facebook Live, thousands (if not millions) of users can potentially get involved. If you do decide to tune in, you’ll be encouraged to debate clues in the comments and asked to vote using Facebook’s Reactions emoticons. The Guardian reports that moderators will also be on hand to wade through the comments and pick out the answers that will help the protagonist progress through the story.

With a potentially large audience working together, the story’s creators think it’s very possible that the crime will be solved sooner than expected: “In a way that will just prove our premise, that the audience are a bunch of brilliant amateur detectives,” UKTV’s Sam Pearson told The Guardian.

Framed will launch on October 13th at 3pm ET/8pm BST on Alibi’s Facebook channel.

Via: UKTV, The Guardian

Source: Alibi (Facebook)

Facebook triggered a spike in US voter registration

How well do those online voter registration campaigns work, really? Better than you might think. Both officials and the Center for Election Innovation & Research report that Facebook’s four-day voter registration campaign, which sent friendly 17-word reminders starting September 23rd, triggered spikes in registrations across the US. These weren’t just moderate bumps, either. Sign-ups in a given state grew anywhere from double to 23 times what they were on the 22nd, sometimes adding tens of thousands of voters.

Many of the registrants were on the younger side. The New York Times observes that 24 percent of California’s registrations during the period came from 17- to 25-year-olds, and almost 30 percent from 26- to 35-year-olds.

The figures aren’t completely surprising when this election marks the first for a generation of young adults that practically grew up using Facebook. Many of them are not only new to voting, but get a lot of their news from social sites. The real question is whether or not the Facebook campaign will have a meaningful impact on the outcome. That could be difficult to quantify, even in battleground states where a few thousand votes could make all the difference. Still, it’s apparent that Facebook’s get-out-the-vote effort is paying some dividends.

Source: CFEIR, New York Times

Facebook says it shouldn’t pay back taxes from Irish loophole

Apple and Google aren’t the only big tech companies fighting against requests to pay back taxes they allegedly racked up through loopholes. Filings obtained by Ars Technica show that Facebook is resisting the IRS’ request for taxes owed after the social network reportedly undervalued property transferred to its Irish holding company. If you ask the US agency, Facebook owes $1.7 million plus interest for at least 2010. That doesn’t sound like much for such a profitable company, but Facebook claims that it could wind up paying $3 billion to $5 billion (before interest and penalties) if the IRS really does want money from the past several years.

If you ask Facebook, the IRS hasn’t even settled the matter of how much that property transfer was worth. It’s still “in dispute,” the company says. Not that the agency is likely to show much sympathy, as it has repeatedly fought with Facebook over the auditing process. The IRS maintains that Facebook didn’t produce all the data it needed for an audit and didn’t show up to meet auditors, while Facebook insists that it bent over backwards to supply info and make staff available.

Companies won’t get to use the loopholes in question after 2019 thanks to changes in Irish law, so Facebook may not run into a tax dispute like this again. However, it’s doubtful that Zuckerberg and crew will take much solace in that fact. The whole point of the Irish presence was to minimize taxes — it’s reasonable to say that Facebook will fight tooth and nail to preserve the benefits of its creative accounting.

Source: Ars Technica

Facebook is still trending fake news stories

It’s been six weeks after Facebook’s “trending topics” section was publicly called out for promoting a blatantly false story about Megyn Kelly and very little — if anything — has changed. According to a new audit from the Washington Post, that Megyn Kelly incident was far from an isolated case.

In fact, after logging every trending story spotted from four different Facebook accounts during peak workday hours in September, the Post discovered at lease five trending stories that “were indisputably fake” and three others that were “profoundly inaccurate.” One such blatant example popped up the day after Apple’s big iPhone event and claimed that the Tim Cook said the iPhone 8 would have “Siri physically coming out of the phone and doing all the household chores. (The site in question was literally called “Faking News.”)

What’s more: the Post audit found even more times when the trending topics section surfaced straightforward press releases, Medium posts and links to iTunes or other online stores — in other words: things that aren’t news. While the newspaper notes that their results shouldn’t be taken as conclusive because the trending section is personalized to each user, it is clear evidence that Facebook’s switch from human editors to a completely algorithm-driven system still needs some work.

Source: Washington Post

Oculus’ plan to rule VR is to throw more money at it

Oculus is the first company to help ship more than one virtual reality headset. In the past year alone, it’s collaborated on two smartphone-powered versions of the Samsung Gear VR as well as the Rift, a higher-end model that requires a PC. But the company is also facing a growing field of rivals, including the HTC Vive, Sony PlayStation VR and, most recently, Google Daydream, which aims to unseat Samsung in the smartphone category. So how does Oculus draw consumers to its side? By betting on exclusives, eschewing standards, funding a vast ecosystem of games and relying on Facebook’s pocketbook.

Oculus touched on these efforts last week at its third annual developer’s conference, which also happened to be its largest. The event drew over 3,000 attendees — a far cry from the 1,000 or so who attended the inaugural Oculus Connect back in 2014. And it’s no wonder. With various consumer VR headsets finally shipping this year, virtual reality is no longer just a fad. But that doesn’t mean consumers are buying in just yet. Right now, VR is still something of a niche market. Samsung and Oculus reported there are now over a million Gear VR users, which sounds like a lot, but that’s still just a sliver of the population. The company wouldn’t announce exact Rift sales numbers, but that’s projected to be much lower.

Plus, Oculus suffered a few roadblocks along the way. Earlier this year, it weathered criticism when it implemented a DRM that blocked Rift titles from working with the HTC Vive. It eventually removed that restriction following popular outcry. Despite pushback by the community though, Oculus hasn’t given up on exclusives. “There are hacky ways of getting around the exclusivity,” said Jason Rubin, head of content for Oculus, referring to tools like Revive that some have used to circumvent the Rift’s DRM. But as Rift-exclusive titles are optimized for Oculus hardware, Rubin says it’s still best if users don’t use competitor headsets. To not offer exclusives isn’t an option either. “Everyone else is doing exclusives,” Rubin told Engadget, adding that to not do the same would put them at a disadvantage.

Exclusives or not, though, it seems to me that Oculus has the upper hand against the competition. For one thing, it has Facebook’s bank account at its disposal. At Connect last week, the company announced that it’s investing $250 million in game development, and will likely invest $250 million more. This makes Oculus a fearsome competitor because it’s able to foster a larger roster of games and apps, as well as take chances on more experimental stuff.

For example, it unveiled “asynchronous space warp” last week, a technology that would lower the minimum requirements of Rift hardware. It revealed that it has a standalone VR headset in the works, which none of its rivals have announced they’re doing. It’s also able to go head-to-head with its competition. While HTC’s Vive was touted as the more immersive VR system with its hand-motion wands and room-scale experience, Oculus is punching back with the release of its Touch controllers and the option of a third sensor for that same room-scale feel.

Plus, let’s not forget Oculus’ efforts in the social VR space, which instantly posits the Rift and the Gear VR as more than just headsets for gaming or 360-degree videos. It could also be used to talk with friends and family, which is a much more compelling use-case to the everyday consumer.

Still, that doesn’t mean the company is on an instant road to success. Sony’s PSVR is a lot cheaper and works on the PS4, a console that many people already own. It also remains to be seen what Google has in store for Daydream and how many more Daydream-compatible headsets will come to market in the next few months. Seeing as Samsung is facing a dire reputation crisis with the discontinuation of the Galaxy Note 7, the Gear VR isn’t looking so good right now.

“This is a very, very, new industry,” said Rubin. “It’s both fun and frustrating. Any given day you can wake up and see an announcement in the newspaper and say ‘Well that came out of nowhere and now we’re headed in another direction.’”

“But it’s a fun ride,” he said.

Facebook Launches New Team Collaboration Tool Called ‘Workplace’

Facebook yesterday officially launched its ‘Workplace’ platform, an organization and business collaboration tool to rival the likes of Slack.

Previously known as Facebook Work, Workplace combines social network, chat messenger, and productivity features to help teams work together online. The app includes groups, custom profiles and ad-free news feeds, including tools for team members to make audio and video calls as well as host live broadcasts.

There’s also something called Multi-Company Groups, which allows employees from different organizations to work together.

Workplace is free for non-profits and schools, but Facebook will charge commercial users of the platform $3 per month for organizations of up to 1,000 people, and as low as $1 per month for organizations comprising over 10,000 employees.

That contrasts with Slack’s Standard plan of $6.67 per user and its Free tier, which has some search and archive limitations.

Workplace exists as a web interface and an iOS app similar in style to Facebook’s other mobile offerings. The app is a free download for iPhone and iPad available on the App Store. [Direct Link]

Tag: Facebook
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