Items tagged with Facebook Messenger
Much like Apple, Google, and Amazon have admitted to paying contractors to listed to audio from their respective digital assistants, Facebook is now coming clean about its own similar practice. In a new report today, Facebook confirmed that it has been using paid contractors to listen to audio clips obtained from users of its highly popular Messenger chat app. It also claims that it has since ceased its program. Messenger offers an optional feature that has the ability to transcribe spoken audio to text. For those that opted-in to the feature, Facebook's contractors had the ability to listen in on those conversations in order to provide more accurate transcriptions. There are obvious...
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Dark Mode seems to be all the rage these days with desktop and mobile operating systems (and their complementing apps), and now Facebook is getting in on the action. The social network giant has now included a new dark mode in its popular Messenger app, and it’s relatively easy to enable. The dark mode in Messenger can be accessed either with Android or iOS versions of the app, and you’ll first need to send the crescent moon emoji (clever) to one of your contacts (or to yourself), after which you’ll some fancy animations and a message telling you that you’ve found dark mode. You’ll be then given the option to enable it in settings, which should turn your...
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Have you ever sent a message that you instantly regretted? Facebook Messenger now allows you to unsend your typo-ridden, impulsive messages. The catch? You will only have ten minutes to remove the message. Users will need to open the Facebook Messenger app on their desktop, laptop, or smart device and open the conversation with the desired message. They will need to press and hold the message if they are using a smartphone or select the three dots icon if they are on a desktop or laptop. Users must then select “remove” or “remove for everyone” next to the message. The “remove for everyone” feature will guarantee that the message will be deleted from the inbox...
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Facebook recently revealed that it is working on cross-platform messaging between its three social media apps. Although the software rewrite is still in its infancy, it was immediately met with criticism and apprehension. Facebook’s intention of merging their messaging services has spurred concerns about privacy and calls for antitrust regulation. The New York Times reported last week that Facebook was developing software that would merge WhatsApp, Instagram, and Facebook Messenger. The apps would remain separate, but their messaging services would be interoperable. Facebook’s goal is to increase user engagement and discourage users from turning to other messaging platforms. The software...
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It seems as though Facebook has been continually improving its Messenger platform over the past few months with little tweaks here and there. All of these feature additions are coming for a good reason — Facebook needs to feed the beast. Facebook’s David Marcus just announced that Messenger now has over 1.2 billion active users per month. “I keep on hearing powerful stories about how our product is becoming a more important part of your daily lives,” said Marcus. “So from all of us here at Messenger, a heartfelt thank you to all of you for giving us a chance to build something good and more meaningful for you.” This is a huge accomplishment for the chat application, which had just 200 million...
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Facebook’s “M” AI assistant is getting even more powerful, and will leverage that power to provide “suggestions” as you use the increasingly popular Messenger app (over 1 billion active users per month). Facebook has been testing M’s interactions with Messenger on a “small percentage” of its users, and we are now seeing the fruits of that labor. At its core, M is a machine learning AI assistant that scans your chat sessions with friends or family, and then provides relevant actions that you can either choose to interact with or completely ignore (you can also shut it off completely). Some of these actions are rather simple, such as suggesting a complementary sticker if you tell someone in chat...
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Are you Facebook fan or part of the #Snapfam? Facebook’s latest feature Messenger Day is essentially the clone of Snapchat Stories. Imitation is the best form of flattery, right? According to Stan Chudnovsky, Head of Product for Messenger, “Millions of people around the world have already used Messenger Day to show what they’re doing, how they’re feeling and to invite friends to join them for activities — or just to chat.“ Users can add more than 5,000 Frames, Effects and Stickers to their Messenger Day photos and videos. Like Snapchat, everything a user posts will disappear within 24 hours and Messenger fans can post as often as they would like. Users can also control who sees their message....
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At long last, Facebook is getting a Dislike button, but not in the way many had hoped for. Rather than add a Dislike button News Feed posts, Facebook is currently testing the feature to a small number of users in Messenger, the company's separate instant messaging application. Those who have access to the new Dislike emoji will see a thumbs-down option next to the thumbs-up emoji.A Vietnamese blogger named Hoan Do noticed the inclusion of a Dislike emoji that appears when hovering over messages friends have sent in a chat thread. He sent the tip to TechCrunch, which followed up with Facebook and received confirmation that it is in fact testing the new reaction."We're always testing ways to make...
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In early January, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced his plans to build his own Jarvis personal AI assistant as an homage to the AI “butler” of the same name in the Iron Man movies. "My personal challenge for 2016 is to build a simple AI to run my home and help me with my work. You can think of it kind of like Jarvis in Iron Man," said Zuckerberg at the time. "I'm going to start by exploring what technology is already out there. Then I'll start teaching it to understand my voice to control everything in our home -- music, lights, temperature and so on." Nearly a year later, Zuckerberg is back with an update on how things are going. Not surprisingly, Zuckerberg has come a long way with coding,...
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Facebook Messenger is no stranger to casual gaming. Over the past year, we’ve seen mini basketball, soccer and even chess games. But now, Facebook is stepping into the [retro] big leagues by adding support for full-fledged games, including classics like Pac-Man and Space Invaders. Facebook announced this new gaming platform for Messenger today under the Instant Games initiative. Accessing these games is as simple as opening a conversation and tapping on the game controller icon that shows up in within the Messenger app. From there, you will be able to discover new games and waste time away tapping on the screen to achieve the highest score in Arkanoid or Galaga. “After you finish a round, people...
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Are you planning a surprise party for a significant other and do not want them to find out? Or maybe, you want to have a private conversation with a loved one about an addiction or illness. No matter your agenda, we are here today to show you how to have a “secret” conversation on Facebook. First, what is a secret conversation? Secret conversations are encrypted end-to-end, meaning only you and the person you are talking with can see the messages. Both people in a secret conversation have a device key that they can use to verify that the messages are encrypted. If the users have the same device key, then their conversation is encrypted. Second, how do you use the secret conversation? Users can...
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It looks as though Facebook is doing everything in its power to persuade people to move on over to its Messenger platform. The latest trick up Facebook Messenger’s sleeve is a hidden football (soccer) game. The launch of the game neatly coincides with the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) Euro 2016 competition and the centennial anniversary of the Copa America tournament. Unlike the basketball mini-game that was launched in March, which required you to swipe the screen to get the ball in the hoop, the football mini-game requires you to repeatedly tap the football on the screen to keep it in the air. The more you tap the football (without letting it fall back to earth), the higher...
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It used to be that we could get along with a single Facebook app that not only handled our social networking needs, but also private messaging between friends. Over the years, Facebook has split the apps, forcing users to install both Facebook and Messenger. While users balked at the split, Facebook contended that it would allow it to create better experience for both platforms. Playing on that reasoning, Facebook has released a pretty big overhaul for Messenger that introduces a new Home screen, which in effect serves as an inbox for your new messages and recent conversations. “Up until now, most inbox experiences haven’t kept up with the new ways people connect,” wrote Facebook in a blog post...
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There's a good chance that you or someone you know uses Snapchat. We're not going out on a limb to say that, it's simply a numbers thing -- at last count (May of this year), Snapchat users were sending 2 billion photos and videos to one another per day. That's an amazing amount of activity, and Facebook will try to replicate that success by rolling out a disappearing message option for its Messenger application. The self-destructing message option is being tested in France. However, as presently implemented, it's a bit different from Snapchat. Instead of setting a timer for 1 to 10 seconds (in 1 second increments), Facebook Messenger users in France are given the option to have their messages...
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There has been a lot of backlash since users were forced to download the Facebook Messenger app while removing the same feature from the primary app. In addition, a lot of criticism has been thrown at the social media company due to the Messenger app requiring access to a smartphone’s camera and microphone. The requirement has led many to believe that the app will allow Facebook to see and hear what everyone is doing at any time. Facebook Messenger product manager Peter Martinazzi addressed the issue regarding the camera and microphone requirement explaining, “Like most other apps, we request permission to run certain features, such as making calls and sending photos, videos...
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