Facebook can notify Android users via Chrome, as well as its app
Facebook has just flicked the switch on notifications via Chrome on mobile. Previously, if you wanted the social network to send you updates, you’d have to have the Facebook app installed. Now, if you browse to Facebook’s site with Google’s mobile browser, you’ll be asked if you’d like to receive notifications (or not). At least on Android, for now. If this sounds familiar, it’s because Google announced the planned feature back in Spring, only Facebook (by far and away the biggest notifier of anything?), finally added the feature this week.
Web notifications are important for sites like Facebook and content providers generally, because it adds a way to reach users without requiring they install an app. In some cases, that’s a way to give users a taste for the extra layer of “stickiness” an app provides; in other situations — like developing nations — it’s a way to overcome obstacles such as variable access to data. There’s another group, curmudgeons like me, that find the lack of notifications on a mobile browser a plus — you can still access the site when you want, without any alerts or pop-ups. Whichever camp you’re in, you have full control under Chrome’s settings to turn them on or off at any time.
Filed under:
Internet, Mobile, Google, Facebook
Source:
TechCrunch
Tags: android, app, chrome, facebook, google, mobilepostcross, noescape, notifications
Facebook push notifications now available via Chrome, no official app needed
With the introduction of the Chrome Push API, Google made it possible for websites to push notifications through their popular mobile browser. This proves to be a huge step for many web developers and companies, as they no longer have to make users download an app in order to get updates on the latest happenings. Facebook has now joined the party after working with the Search Giant to bring convenient alerts to web users. This Facebook notification feature is live on Chrome and can be activated at will!
Now, we know what you are thinking: why not just get the app? And that is a legit doubt for many of us tech geeks with ample internet and storage availability, but there’s definitely plenty of people out there who would rather use the web version of the social network. First, remember the Facebook app is huge; in my phone it weighs in at 210 MB and an extra 135 MB of additional data. That is a lot of space for someone who’s phone storage space is limited.
In addition, the Facebook website is known for being faster, less data hungry and not requiring any updates. It’s actually a very popular solution in emerging markets, which is why this feature’s introduction is much more exciting than many of us would believe.
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Those who want to take advantage of Facebook push notifications via Chrome can do so very easily. Let’s run you through the steps.
How to get Facebook push notifications through Chrome:
- Before anything, let’s make sure your Chrome app is updated to the latest version. You can check this at the Google Play Store.
- If all is good to go, simply open the Chrome app on your Android smartphone.
- Go to m.facebook.com and sign into your account.
- A request to allow push notifications should show up. Tap on the “Allow” button.
- You are done! You can also double check by tapping on the 3-dot menu button, going to Settings > Site Settings > Notifications and seeing if Facebook is in the “Allowed” section.
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This is an important stepping stone for a better future in mobile communications. Not that native apps are going anywhere, but it’s obvious not every company needs a whole app, and they may still want to get in touch with users when an important notification becomes available. Now it’s possible to do this straight from the most popular browser in the world.
Have any of you guys tried this? Is it something you will be using every day? Hit the comments and let us know! By the way, I have Facebook notifications active on Chrome and it works like a charm.
‘Sleepy Hollow’ for Oculus wins first virtual reality Emmy
Virtual reality has officially become mainstream, as an Emmy has been awarded to a work created for an VR headset (the Oculus Rift DK2) for the first time. The Sleepy Hollow Virtual Reality Experience (below), co-produced by Fox and Toronto-based Secret Location, won in the “Interactive Media, User Experience and Visual Design” category. It first debuted at Comic-Con, and gave thousands of Oculus Rift users the unique gift of seeing what it would be like to have their heads cut off and waved in front of them by the Headless Horseman. You can view it for yourself on Oculus Share if you have a Rift DK2.
Another Emmy was handed to the team behind the AMEX Unstaged: Taylor Swift Experience app, a 360-degree video centered around the singer’s Blank Space music video, which has been viewed over a billion times. It let users to look around the entire scene, follow Swift around and look for hidden clues. However, it was designed for a smartphone or tablet and not a headset, so falls outside what most folks would call virtual reality. Nevertheless, Swift was clearly well pleased, and the awards will no doubt motivate producers and artists to create similar side projects and keep the VR snowball rolling.
[Thanks, Felipe!]
Filed under:
Wearables, Facebook
Source:
Fox
Tags: Emmy, facebook, OculusRift, SecretLocation, SleepyHollow, video, VR, VRExperience
Facebook now lets journalists broadcast live video
Using a new app called ‘Mentions,’ select Facebook users will be able to broadcast live video. Previously the feature was only available for high-profile public figures, but now journalists can enjoy the service.
Previously, live broadcasting was limited to celebrities, actors, athletes, musicians and politicians. Beginning today, Facebook has granted journalists the ability to broadcast live video to their news feed. The reason for this is likely due to the upcoming presidential campaign. Politicians now have the freedom to live broadcast during breaking news, behind the scenes reports, as well as host live Q&A sessions with their supporters. If you think you deserve the privilege to broadcast live video on Mentions, you can apply at the source link.
Facebook’s goal is to bring more up to date news right at your fingertips. Online Shopping, instant messaging, live broadcasting and more are just some of Facebook’s new implementations aimed at becoming people’s center for entertainment.
Come comment on this article: Facebook now lets journalists broadcast live video
Google and Twitter working on ‘Instant Articles’ solution for their platforms
In this fast-paced world, every second seems to count. Google and Twitter have started working together to trim down the seconds that smartphone users may wait for an article on their smartphone to appear from a few seconds to zero seconds. So-called “instant articles” are part of a push by social media and tech giants like Facebook, Apple and Snapchat to make it easier to connect content publishers with readers. The apparent Google and Twitter partnership adds a couple different wrinkles to the concept of instant articles as the companies plan to open source their publishing tools and they do not plan to host the content themselves, relying instead on cached web pages.
Sources have pointed out that the use of cached information has a couple benefits, notably for Google. First, this may head off some complaints connected to Google providing results from their own hosted content, like the news snippets many European publishers object to, instead of sending users to other sites. Second, the use of cached pages means the original ads will continue to appear next to a story, helping them to retain their value longer.
Sources close to the project say Google and Twitter are speaking of the new instant articles as “accelerated mobile pages” during this development stage. They also point out that the companies do not plan to launch separate, standalone solutions or apps for the presentation of this content – it will just launch from within the Google or Twitter framework.
No details have been revealed about what ad revenue structures may be like for the new service and both companies have declined to comment on the project.
source: Re/Code
Come comment on this article: Google and Twitter working on ‘Instant Articles’ solution for their platforms
Facebook skunkworks looking at tool for education
One area of life where technology is starting to make some big inroads is in K-12 education as the tools available are finally reaching a point where they are accessible to students and affordable for schools to deploy. If you have children in a public school system, there are decent odds that your kid is using some Google tool to manage or even complete assignments. Word is now out that Facebook has a small team that has been working on their own education tool that is rolling out on a pilot basis to public schools this year.
Facebook has already been working on their new education tools in conjunction with California’s Summit Public Schools. The Summit Public Schools are unique in that they rely heavily on online delivery of content and assessments to students, so there is a good familiarity with technology already. Summit schools also put all students on their own personalized learning track so they can learn at their own pace. The framework appears to be quite successful as they have a very high ratio of students getting accepted in the university system.
Facebook’s engineers were so impressed with this that they approached the Summit schools and asked how they could help them improve what they have. Summit pointed to the tool used to track progress on individual learning plans and asked Facebook to help them overhaul the system. This resulted in the Personalized Learning Plan (PLP) platform.
During 2014 over 2,000 students and 100 teachers used the PLP. Facebook and Summit are expanding the program during 2015 to partner with public schools through a small pilot program. The long-term goal is offer a platform for free to any school in the U.S. that wants to use it.
For those worried about privacy, a frequent sticking point for Facebook, the team working on the project and the PLP are completely separated. Facebook says an account with the social media giant is not required to use the PLP. The engineers working on the project also abide by the White House endorsed Student Privacy Pledge to protect student data and information.
source: Facebook
Come comment on this article: Facebook skunkworks looking at tool for education
ICYMI: Coral protector bot, non-ugly wearable glasses & more
Today on In Case You Missed It: The nation’s largest vision insurance company, VSP, is beta-testing wearable health-tracking glasses and somehow they don’t even look ridiculous. An autonomous robot submarine is patrolling coral reefs and killing the starfish that normally eat coral, to preserve the reef. (So many conflicting feelings, amirite?) And MIT researchers are back with another 3D printer to blow your mind. This one is machine-vision enabled, meaning it can scan as it prints and correct itself.
We’re also covering some of the biggest stories of the week but if you only have time for one, read up on how easy baby monitors are to hack.
If you come across any interesting videos, we’d love to see them. Just tweet us with the #ICYMI hashtag @engadget or @mskerryd.
Filed under:
Misc, Meta, Robots, Transportation, Wearables, Science, Internet, Software, Facebook
Tags: 3Dprint, 3Dprinter, AIrobot, Coral, coralreef, coralreefrobot, engadget, engadgetdaily, engadgetdailyshow, engadgetvideo, facebook, icymi, InCaseYouMissedIt, MIT, ProjectGenesis, robotsubmarine, video, VSPglasses, wearableglasses
Facebook working with schools on a personalized learning app
In an unusual side project, Facebook has built an app that helps teachers create tailor-made student learning plans, and it may come a US school near you for free. The social network got involved in the project after it learned about an institution called Summit Public Schools, which is consistently ranked among California’s best. The school gets those results by creating programs customized for each student, then tracking their progress with a software tool called the “Personalized Learning Plan.” However, it told Facebook that the technology behind it wasn’t up to snuff, so the Zuckerberg and Co. donated a small team to help revamp it.
In 2014, Summit started using the tool, designed to work smoothly with large number of students and teachers. The app has nothing to do with Facebook itself; in fact, students don’t even need a Facebook account. The social network implemented strict privacy controls, and its team must handle data in accordance with the White House-endorsed Student Privacy Pledge. As it hasn’t been a paradigm of privacy protection, it’s no doubt hoping to fend off any criticism with those steps. The final app (below) looks polished, and gives students and teachers a number of ways to create long-term career goals, plan coursework and track progress.
The team described the project as “personal for those of us working here… we all wanted to find a way to hep make an impact doing what we do best — building software.” Facebook and Summit are launching a pilot program this year for a small number of public schools that want to use the same personalized teaching methods. It plans to use the feedback to improve the program, and will eventually give the software away to any US schools that wants it.
[Image credit: Getty Images]
Filed under:
Internet, Facebook
Via:
TNW
Source:
Facebook
Tags: Education, facebook, learning, monitoring, SummitPublicSchools
WhatsApp reaches 900 monthly users milestone
It would seem that many of us are quite familiar with the mobile messaging app, WhatsApp, considering it has just reached the milestone of 900 million monthly users. The achievement was announced by WhatsApp founder, Jan Koum, via a Facebook post. Coincidentally, Facebook purchased WhatsApp last year for around $19 billion.
This means that WhatsApp has gained around 100 million users since April this year. Android fans make up the bulk of WhatsApp users, managing over a billion downloads while iOS accounts for just 22% of active users. Bringing features such as WhatsApp Web to Android users and most recently, iOS users has no doubt helped the proliferation of the Facebook-owned messaging app.
Come comment on this article: WhatsApp reaches 900 monthly users milestone
Facebook-owned WhatsApp reaches 900 million monthly active users
WhatsApp has grown tremendously from the time Facebook acquired it in 2014 for $19 billion. The messaging app’s founder, Jan Koum, has just announced on Facebook that the service has reached 900 million monthly active users (MAU). That means it has gained 100 million new ones in less than five months since Koum celebrated reaching 800 million subscribers in April. That number isn’t too far off from its parent company’s either, which announced 1.49 billion MAUs as of June this year. In comparison, Facebook’s own Messenger app reached 700 million MAUs in June, mostly due to its split from the social network’s main application. Considering the app has been installed at least a billion times on Android, the new user count isn’t that surprising. We just hope its continued success doesn’t lead to even more divorces in Italy.
WhatsApp now has 900 million monthly active users.
Posted by Jan Koum on Thursday, September 3, 2015
[Image credit: pestoverde/Flickr]
Filed under:
Misc, Mobile, Facebook
Source:
Jan Koum (Facebook)
Tags: facebook, mobilepostcross, whatsapp
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