Facebook pushes users to download its Moments app
Facebook is urging people to download yet another one of its apps after shoving users towards Messenger. This time, the social network has begun sending out warnings that their synced photos will be deleted by July 7th if they don’t install the Moments app. Facebook gave users the capability to auto-sync their photos on mobile with a private album within its app back in 2012. Three years later, it introduced the standalone Moments app for iOS and Android to house those photos, but it clearly decided to wait a while before phasing the old feature out completely.
According to TechCrunch, users can see more info within the private album that will be affected by the move if they haven’t received an email and a notification yet. If they switched Synced photos on by accident and would like to get rid of the feature, though, then they can take it easy. Just let the deadline pass, and Facebook will do the heavy lifting.
dang i didnt even know facebook privately synced TWELVE THOUSAND of my photos now they tryna delete them wow pic.twitter.com/Ii1fupbHQ7
— a.m. ☆.。.:* (@aurevoiralexis) June 9, 2016
Source: TechCrunch
Facebook’s 360-degree photos invade your News Feed tomorrow
We knew they were coming, and now they’re here: 360-degree photos on Facebook are rolling out on the social network starting tomorrow. The new feature spans across Android, desktop and iOS and thankfully uploading your panoramic and spherical shots doesn’t sound much different from how you’d share 2D photos. In the News Feed, you’ll be able to differentiate between the two thanks to a compass icon denoting what photos you can drag around to get a different perspective. Folks with a Gear VR-compatible device (Facebook owns Oculus, remember) can even check out the fancy new uploads in virtual reality.
Zuckerberg and Co. know that there won’t be a ton of folks taking these new-fangled shots with high-end gear, so they’re leaning on the likes of Paul McCartney, NASA and The New York Times for that. Each respective page plays host to 360 images of concerts, various space-related items and the Supreme Court, respectively. So, if you’ve ever had a hankering to peer behind the highest court in the nation’s hallowed halls, your dream is almost a (virtual) reality.
Mark Zuckerberg holds his first live Facebook Q&A on June 14th
Now that Mark Zuckerberg has talked to astronauts using Facebook Live, he’s ready to talk to the Facebook community at large… and it might just be one of the biggest showcases of the streaming service to date. The social network founder will use Facebook Live to host a Q&A on June 14th at 2:30PM Eastern, and he’s using comments on the announcement post to determine what he’ll answer. If you’ve been yearning for a big new feature or have a question about Facebook’s artificial intelligence efforts, you might just get your voice heard. Suffice it to say that there will likely be a lot of people watching — it’s not often that Zuckerberg gets to address the people who made his site what it is.
Source: Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook)
Mark Zuckerberg holds his first live Facebook Q&A on June 14th
Now that Mark Zuckerberg has talked to astronauts using Facebook Live, he’s ready to talk to the Facebook community at large… and it might just be one of the biggest showcases of the streaming service to date. The social network founder will use Facebook Live to host a Q&A on June 14th at 2:30PM Eastern, and he’s using comments on the announcement post to determine what he’ll answer. If you’ve been yearning for a big new feature or have a question about Facebook’s artificial intelligence efforts, you might just get your voice heard. Suffice it to say that there will likely be a lot of people watching — it’s not often that Zuckerberg gets to address the people who made his site what it is.
Source: Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook)
Facebook tests News Feed-only posts that avoid your Timeline
Being able to hide a Facebook update after it posts isn’t entirely new, but the social network is testing a way to let users keep things from ever hitting their Timeline. A “Hide From Your Timeline” checkbox will allow you to only publish something in the News Feed, without the need to remove it afterwards. CNET reports that any post you keep off your Timeline will still show up in search results and they’ll be listed alongside your other activity on the “Your Posts” page that only you can view. The feature appears to available for a select few on the web, and Facebook isn’t saying when or if it’ll be a permanent addition.
We reached out to the company on the matter and it offered the following statement:
“The Timeline on your profile is a great place to see a comprehensive history of your Facebook posts. We’ve heard feedback that sometimes, you may want to share a post with friends and family via News Feed and not have that post be displayed on your Timeline. The ability to hide a post from your Timeline already exists, and today we’re testing a feature that would make it even easier to control where your posts live by giving you the option to publish a post only to News Feed and not to your Timeline”
Facebook is letting users create posts that ONLY show up in News Feed and Search, but NOT on their profile timeline pic.twitter.com/9MAM7UcwPk
— Matt Navarra ⭐️ (@MattNavarra) June 6, 2016
Via: CNET
Tech firms say FBI wants browsing history without warrant
Tech companies and privacy advocates are warning against new legislation that would give the FBI the ability to access “electronic communication transactional records” (ECTRs) without a warrant in spy and terrorism cases. ECTRs include high-level information on what sites a person visited, the time spent on those sites, email metadata, location information and IP addresses. To gain access to this data, a special agent in charge of a bureau field office need only write a “national security letter” (NSL) that doesn’t require a judge’s approval.
It’s worth noting that ECTRs don’t amount to a full browsing history. If a suspected terrorist were reading this article, the FBI would only see they read “engadget.com” and how long for, rather than the specific page links. Additionally, the ECTRs won’t include the content of emails, search queries, or form content, but will feature metadata, so the FBI would know who someone is messaging and when.
Nonetheless, this data is extremely important to the bureau. FBI Director James B. Comey told the Senate Intelligence Committee in February that the agency’s inability to make requests affects its work in “a very, very big and practical way.” He also said that the new legislation essentially fixes “a typo” in the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) that has led tech firms to refuse to provide the bureau with ECTRs. The proposals are being considered this week by the Senate Judiciary Committee as an amendment to the ECPA.
Tech companies and privacy advocates are not happy with the proposed changes. The “ECTR coalition,” which includes tech giants like Facebook, Foursquare, Google and Yahoo and non-profits like the American Civil Liberties Union, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, has signed an open letter warning against the legislation. In it, they argue that the expansion of the NSL powers would reveal “incredibly intimate” details of an individual’s life. “This information could reveal details about a person’s political affiliation, medical conditions, religion, substance abuse history, sexual orientation and … even his or her movements throughout the day.”
The letter also highlights the FBI’s past use (and abuse) of NSLs. It states that the FBI issued over 300,000 letters over the past decade, and also claims that the “vast majority” included gag orders that stopped companies disclosing the requests. It then points to a 2007 audit by the Office of the Inspector General (IG) that found “the FBI illegally used NSLs to collect information that was not permitted by the NSL statutes.”
The IG also found the bureau had stored that data indefinitely, and it was used in cases not relevant to an FBI investigation. Finally, NSLs were used to collect “tens of thousands” of records at once, rather than being carefully targeted. The letter ends urging the senate to “oppose efforts to include such language in the ECPA reform bill.”
Source: ACLU
Some big websites might require you to change passwords
If you receive an email from Netflix or Facebook asking you to change your password because it matches a credential from an older security breach, you may want to heed its advice. Cybersecurity expert Brian Krebs says some big companies, including the streaming service and the social network, tend to go through data from other websites’ security breaches to look for log-ins that match their users’. They then force those users to change the passwords they reused to keep them safe. If you’ll recall, hackers recently sold the millions of log-in combinations they stole from LinkedIn, Tumblr and MySpace a few years ago.
According to Krebs, Netflix has already begun sending out password resets after scouring the log-in credentials leaked online. The company apparently uses a tool it released in 2014 to comb through leaked log-ins — so, yes, the email is legit and not an attempt to phish for your details. Of course, the best way to ensure you’re safe is to use a unique password for every online account and to delete anything you don’t use anymore.
Source: KrebsOnSecurity
You can finally post to Instagram from other iOS apps
Ever since Apple introduced app sharing extensions in iOS 8, budding iPhone photographers have been wondering where Instagram’s extension was. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could share a photo from any app, rather than diving into Instagram and choosing from your camera roll? You’re getting that chance today: Instagram has quietly introduced a sharing extension to the latest version of its iOS app. So long as you turn on the extension, any app that supports iOS’ official sharing method can send a photo Instagram’s way. That’s a particularly big deal if you’re fond of third-party imaging apps, which don’t always automatically save pictures to your photo library.
The addition is overdue, to put it mildly. Android users have had this share-from-anywhere luxury for a while, and numerous other photo-focused apps (such as Flickr) have had iOS sharing extensions for a long time. All the same, it’s good to see Instagram fill in a missing piece of the puzzle.
Via: iMore
Source: App Store
Blizzard deal lets you stream its games on Facebook Live
Blizzard is about to make it much, much easier to share your gaming exploits with the world. The developer has unveiled a deal with Facebook that will let you stream its games directly through Facebook Live — you won’t have to do much to broadcast your latest Overwatch marathon for your friends. There isn’t a firm timeline for when this will be available, but it won’t be limited to Overwatch when it arrives.
Appropriately, the pact introduces Facebook logins to Blizzard’s games. You won’t need to create a distinct Battle.net account, in other words — you can just use your Facebook details to sign up for World of Warcraft or log in to StarCraft II. The integration starts later this month in virtually all of Blizzard’s titles.
Via: Polygon
Source: Activision Blizzard
Mark Zuckerberg’s lesser-known social accounts get compromised
Mark Zuckerberg’s biggest social network presence is undoubtedly on Facebook, but he has other accounts, too — and he’s learning the hard way that those accounts are just as sensitive. Hackers appear to have briefly compromised Zuck’s Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest and Twitter accounts, in some cases defacing them for the sake of bragging rights. It’s not certain that they have his personal email address, but that would make sense if it’s a common thread between the accounts. It’s alternately possible that LinkedIn’s 2012 password breach is at fault.
Most of the proof was removed quickly (we’ve preserved some of it for posterity), which hints that Mark was likely on top of things. We’ve asked Facebook if it can shed some light on what happened. Having said this, the incident is eerily similar to what happened to Katy Perry just days ago — while there’s nothing definitively linking the two, it’s hard to shake suspicions of either a similar attacker or a copycat. One thing’s for sure: Zuckerberg is now well aware that even old, rarely used accounts are still prime targets for intruders if there’s a big name attached.
Source: OurMine Team (Twitter)
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