WhatsApp lets you doodle on photos and videos
Even a straightforward messaging service like WhatsApp isn’t immune to the allure of adding Snapchat-style features. The Facebook-owned app is introducing the option to draw on photos and videos, including emoji. If you don’t think that puppy photo is charming enough by itself, you can easily doodle on it to make your point. More interested in improving the quality of the shots themselves? Don’t worry, you’re getting a couple of upgrades as well.
The native WhatsApp camera now supports front-facing flashes, so you can take those nighttime self-portraits without turning to another app. And the Snapchat-like recording controls that made it into Instagram have spread to WhatsApp — you can double-tap to switch between front and back cameras, and swiping up and down will zoom while you’re capturing videos. You can check out all the new additions right away if you’re using an Android device, and they should be coming to iOS “soon.”
Source: WhatsApp, Google Play
Facebook opens Marketplace to take on eBay and Craigslist
If you visit Facebook today, the chances are that you’ll come across someone trying to sell something. It could be a friend looking to make some money from an old smartphone or a thousand-strong parenting group looking to trade items for their little ones. Facebook has slowly introduced features to make it easier for people to list their items, but today the company has launched Marketplace, a new way for users to “discover, buy and sell items” with other people in their area.
In the coming days, users in the US, UK, Australia and New Zealand who are over 18-years-old will see a new shop icon in the bottom menu of the Facebook app. This will load a selection of photos of items that people in your general location are looking to sell. It also includes a search function, if you’re looking for something, specific and results can be filtered by location, category or price. If something catches your eye, Facebook will list the name and details of that product, a profile photo of the person selling it and a loose overview of where they live.
Although Facebook already lets Messenger users send payments, the company categorically states that it is not performing the role of a retailer or auction site: “You and the seller can work out the details in any way you choose. Facebook does not facilitate the payment or delivery of items in Marketplace.” That also means it won’t charge users for listings, giving it a distinct advantage over eBay and other app-based buy and sell apps.
With Facebook now counting over 1.5 billion users, sites like eBay and Craigslist will be watching Marketplace with keen interest. Sure, it’s currently only available in four countries, but with little to no oversight over sales and payments, the company is free to take it to new markets at will. Facebook says it will “continue expanding [Marketplace] to additional countries” via its iOS and Android apps, and will make the service available on the desktop “in the coming months.”
Source: Facebook Newsroom
Facebook Replacing Messenger Tab With E-Commerce ‘Marketplace’ in iOS App
Facebook is launching a new user-to-user e-commerce service called “Marketplace” this week in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand (via The Verge). The new buying and selling service will replace the Messenger tab in the main Facebook mobile app for iOS and Android.
According to Facebook Marketplace project manager Bowen Pan, almost 450 million people use the social network’s various other services, like group messaging, to buy and sell items already, so “with Marketplace, Facebook is now giving users a more formal process to conduct these exchanges.”
When users tap on the new Marketplace icon, Facebook will use an algorithm to present each user with items it believes they will be interested in. This data is accumulated based on previously liked pages, and will even factor in a user’s viewing, purchasing, and selling history on Marketplace after they’ve used the service for a while.
When an item is discovered, users can send the seller a message, or place an offer on it to see if the seller accepts. When users want to unload something of their own, the process will include taking a photo of the item, naming and describing it, setting a sell price, and confirming a current location. The company said search queries can be set to nearby (for person-to-person exchanges), or wider to other cities with the option to ship the item.
“We saw a lot of people were really just looking at coming to Marketplace without necessarily anything in particular they were looking for,” Pan says. “They were just on Marketplace to casually browse through. This really mirrors an offline experience where you can go to a Sunday market or maybe the mall. You don’t know exactly what you want but you want to browse.” In that sense, Marketplace feels like a hybrid between eBay, Craigslist, and Amazon.
The company said it “does not plan” to charge users fees for using Marketplace when selling items, and Pan said that a desktop version is coming but the company’s focus is getting the service right on mobile as of now. On the safety and privacy side of things, Marketplace will continue Facebook’s rules against selling drugs, explosives, animals, firearms, and alcohol, but in terms of specific financial security, “Facebook does not have the same kinds of protections or guarantees as, say, eBay,” according to The Verge.
“We have built the tools to allow our community to report on any items that may violate our policies,” Pan says. “It has well as a whole host of flags that people that can put out for people that may not be acting in the best faith. Once we see a flag, we have a team that will promptly review these and take action.” Still, Facebook won’t take responsibility if you get ripped off, and it certainly will not get involved if someone decides to assault you and steal your item at the designated meeting place.
The company thinks that because users will be conducting these transactions under their real identities, it will prevent potential scams that other services might face because of their anonymity. “People on Facebook represent their real selves,” Pan said. “We think knowing who you’re transacting with is very important.” Facebook said the Marketplace tab will start showing up on the mobile app “over the next few days.”
Tag: Facebook
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Facebook introduces Messenger ‘Lite’ for Android
Facebook has announced a “Lite” version of its Android Messenger app. The new bare-bones Messenger app is designed for older phones with less memory and less powerful processors. Messenger Lite will initially launch in Kenya, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Tunisia, and Venezuela, but will hit other regions at a later, unspecified date.
Much like the main Facebook Lite app that came before it, Messenger Lite is aimed at users in emerging markets. The pared down app has been designed to be work reliably a wider variety of Android devices, and use less data to mitigate unpredictable network speeds. It’s not clear what’s missing in the lightweight version, but don’t be surprised if features like Stories or Chatbots don’t make the cut. At the very least, Messenger Lite will send and receive photos, stickers and links. There’s no mention of whether there will be a similar app for iOS (Facebook says it chose markets with a “prevalence of basic Android smartphones”), but if you’re in one of the five launch nations, you can download Messenger Lite starting today.
Via: ABC News
Source: Facebook
Facebook gives select Pages the power to tag their products
Someday, you might see products tagged in Facebook images and videos the same way people are today. Facebook has begun testing an experimental feature that allows businesses running Pages to tag their products, according to Business Insider. The publication has spotted the option in their account and confirmed the ongoing test with the social network. What does it mean for buyers like us? Well, when you click on a tagged product, you’ll be taken straight to a dedicated page where you can read more information about it.
A Facebook spokesperson told BI that the company is testing the ability to tag products in photos, videos and posts to “provide Page admins with more tools to drive organic product discovery.” In other words, it’s a free way for companies to advertise their goods and make them more visible to potential buyers. Besides product tagging for Pages, the social network has also started testing yet another Snapchat-like feature for Messenger. It’s a tool you can use to make an ephemeral compilation of photos and videos that you can embellish with stickers and scribbles, similar to Snapchat Stories.
[Image credit: Business Insider]
Source: Business Insider
Facebook tests feature similar to Snapchat Stories for Messenger
Facebook has been keen on borrowing features from Snapchat as of late and it’s testing yet another one in Poland. The so-called “Messenger Day” tool allows Facebook Messenger users to share a collection of photos and videos with friends that will disappear in 24 hours. And yes, they can be decorated with text, scribbles, stickers and more just like you can do with Snapchat Stories. If you’ll recall, Facebook reportedly tried to buy Snapchat for $3 billion before getting turned down in 2013.
Image credit: TechCrunch
The social network is no stranger to the Snapchat-like feature. Instagram announced its own “Stories” tool back in August, and similar to “Messenger Day,” those slideshows of snapshots and videos are no longer available for followers to view after 24 hours. Facebook recently added “Instant Video” to Messenger as well, a feature that allows users to share videos in an on-going conversation quickly and easily. That video tool is another option that’s similar to something Snapchat offers its users. Facebook says that “Messenger Day” is currently only in testing among a small group of users in Poland.
“We know that people come to Messenger to share everyday moments with friends and family,” A Messenger Spokesperson told Engadget. “In Poland we are running a small test of new ways for people to share those updates visually. We have nothing more to announce at this time.”
It’s common practice for companies to test new features with a small group before making the final call on when or if the tools will be part of a wider roll out. As is the case with any beta process, there’s no guarantee “Messenger Day” will be available for all users in the future. However, adding something similar to “Stories” to the messaging app makes a lot of sense. A lot of people around the world are using it to communicate, so making the slideshow feature part of the app rather than a piece of standalone software would leverage that existing user base.
Google opens up its machine learning tricks to all
There may now be an easier way to implement advanced machine learning models in your projects. Google has opened up its Cloud Machine Learning to all businesses in a public beta, after a few months of testing it in private alpha. The tool makes it easier to train models at a much faster rate, and is integrated with the Google Cloud Platform. This has applications for businesses in areas such as customer support (learning how to automate responses to a variety of queries and complaints) or any kind of repetition-heavy task.
In a blog post, Google described how its customer Airbus Defense and Space used the tool to automate the detection and correction of satellite images that contain imperfections such as cloud formations. According to the blog, an Airbus employee said Google’s tool “enabled us to improve the accuracy and speed at which we analyze the images captured from our satellites. It solved a problem that has existed for decades.”
That speed and ease of use are what really stands out about Google’s algorithms. To facilitate adoption, the company also launched a Machine Learning Advanced Solutions Lab that gives companies access to a Google engineer to help solve complex problems. It also debuted a Cloud Start program for businesses to learn the basics of the public cloud and how to identify opportunities to implement machine learning.
Google is also introducing a certification program to teach people how to “design, train and deploy accurate machine learning models.” The curriculum will be taught by Googlers, and is based on internal education methods.
While this news may mean more to startups and other enterprise users, Google’s apparent efforts to mainstream machine learning will affect a far larger audience. The company also announced today that it will implement the advanced learning method in its popular Docs, Drive and Calendar services to make them more productive. It also isn’t the only tech titan to be trying to simplify artificial intelligence adoption. Facebook has already publicly shared its AI bot-building code, as well as its similarly smart image recognition tech.
Via: TechCrunch
Source: Google
Google, Facebook and other tech titans form ‘Partnership on AI’
Five of the biggest tech companies have launched a collaboration to help the public understand the benefits of artificial intelligence. The New York Times reported in early September that Google, Facebook, Microsoft, IBM and Amazon had been meeting to discuss an AI-related project. Now, the cat’s finally out of the bag. Their collaboration is officially called “Partnership on Artificial Intelligence to Benefit People and Society,” and it has a few goals other than to make sure people know that AI research isn’t all about creating killer robots.
Partnership on AI will support related research and recommend best practices in ethics, transparency and privacy when it comes to artificial intelligence studies. The project also aims to create an open platform where researchers and major players in the industry can communicate.
The initiative’s website explains its tenet as follows:
“We believe that artificial intelligence technologies hold great promise for raising the quality of people’s lives and can be leveraged to help humanity address important global challenges such as climate change, food, inequality, health, and education.”
All five founding companies have huge AI projects. IBM, as you know, has Watson, while Google has DeepMind, which you probably recognize as the the team behind AlphaGo. Amazon has Alexa, the voice assistance that’s loaded onto its Echo speakers, while Microsoft has Cortana and a whole bunch of chatbot projects. Finally, Facebook, depends on artificial intelligence for many of its features, including face recognition and its News Feed.
Despite the initiative’s solid lineup, people couldn’t help but wonder why it’s missing one key player: Apple. Microsoft’s Eric Horvitz, who serves as one of the project’s interim co-chairs, told The Guardian that they’ve been in discussions with Cupertino. “I know they’re enthusiastic about this effort,” he said, “and I’d personally hope to see them join.” Another missing name is Elon Musk’s OpenAI, a non-profit AI research project that promises to make its results available to all. That might eventually change, though, since the team plans to invite more companies and non-profits from around the world to be part of the effort.
Via: PopSci, The Guardian
Source: Partnership on AI
WhatsApp won’t comply with India’s order to delete user data
WhatsApp’s decision to share user data with Facebook has provoked the ire of yet another foreign government. Last week, India’s Delhi High Court ordered WhatsApp to delete any data collected from users who opted out of the company’s new privacy policy before September 25th. According to Mashable, however, WhatsApp has no plan to comply with the court order and it will have “no impact on the planned policy and terms of service updates.”
In August, privacy groups in the US spoke out against the change, which allows WhatsApp to pass account information like mobile phone number, contacts, profile pictures and status messages to its parent company. Facebook claims that sharing information between the two will help it to improve the experience and fight abuse across both platforms, while WhatsApp defended the change by saying that all messages on the service will remain encrypted. The case before the Delhi High Court was brought by two Indian students who alleged the new terms of service will jeopardize the privacy and “severely compromises” the rights of over 100 million active WhatsApp users in their country.
The change took effect earlier this week, but yesterday the German government also ordered Facebook to stop collecting user data from WhatsApp and to delete any information it had already gathered. In that case, Facebook has said it will appeal the court order.
Source: Mashable
Facebook’s Slack competitor may be coming next month
With nearly two years of development and 450 companies already on board, Facebook at Work is gearing up for a commercial launch of its in-house social network and communications platform for companies. According to a report from The Information, the service will launch next month and the social network will charge a set monthly fee per active user.
Although Facebook hasn’t disclosed how much that will cost exactly, several people briefed on the launch say companies of any size will be able to sign up for Facebook at Work through the social network’s main site. Companies will also have a few months to try out the service before getting charged. With 5.25 million users already using the service, the executives in Menlo Park are hoping Facebook at Work will provide a much more steady revenue stream than the advertisements in the core product.
As we’ve seen during the trial run, Facebook at Work uses familiar communication tools like the News Feed, Groups, Events and a dedicated Messenger app, all powered by the same algorithm as Facebook itself, except dedicated to the chatter within your company rather than your friends and the general public. One interesting — and potentially dystopian — twist the company has reportedly been pitching alongside the Facebook at Work product is the potential to use artificial intelligence to determine employee sentiment. In other words, Facebook at Work will be able to learn how employees feel about topics within the company, so be careful what you say about the boss in those backchannel messages.
Source: The Information
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