Items tagged with NASDAQ: FB
Feel left out not seeing advertisements in Facebook's Messenger? Don't fret: that's going to be changing real soon. Following what Facebook touts as being a successful test in Australia and Thailand, the social media giant is planning to expand advertising in its Messenger service to the rest of the world. For advertisers, this is a great move, although the verdict remains out as to whether or not it will cause Messenger fans to revolt. In an example provided, it appears that the advertising never appears inside of chats, but will instead be nestled in the contact list screen. Located here, the ads wouldn't be too intrusive - especially not to the extent they would be if they broke up one of...
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Every job has its risk, however, very few of us expect to be on a terrorist’s hit list. It was recently revealed that the information of over 1,000 content moderators was leaked thanks to a security flaw. The profiles of six Facebook content moderators in particular were considered “high priority” risks. Although Facebook uses algorithms to monitor most of its content, the company still employs people to comb over content related to terrorist propaganda, extreme violence, and/or child pornography. Last year, Facebook discovered that “the names of certain people who work for Facebook to enforce our policies could have been viewed by a specific set of Group admins within their admin activity...
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A good deal of "alternate reality" talk in recent years has revolved around virtual reality, but as time goes on, it becomes increasingly clear that augmented reality is going to be the one that makes the biggest splash. At least in the near term. Last year, the success of Pokemon GO proved that AR has some serious potential, and now, the biggest companies in the industry are pushing their own AR efforts hard. One example is Facebook, which announced at its F8 developer's conference this week a brand-new AR platform, with a small group of developers being granted access to it right now. On stage, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg made it apparent that his company saw AR as being a major part of our...
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We've all done it, surely. We've poked around someone's profile on Facebook to see what they've been up to, or to peruse through their photos. Sometimes it's just for curiosity's sake; other times it's because you need some reference points before bumping into that person so that you have things to talk about. Ultimately, what's great about this information gathering is that it's anonymous. Because let's be real: it can feel a little creepy otherwise. Well... in a move that we hope isn't a sign of things to come, Facebook has decided that anonymity isn't really important when it comes to its Stories feature. Stories are short bursts of images or video that can be viewed up to two times,...
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If you were just thinking that Facebook wasn't already addictive enough, don't fret: there's more feature goodness en route. Last year, the world's largest social network released Facebook Live, a simple feature that let people stream to their friends' lists on-the-fly, regardless of where they are located (provided there is Internet access, of course). How often you see this feature used will largely depend on your particular friends list, but overall, the feature has proven overwhelmingly popular. Now, that functionality is coming to the desktop (and notebooks), with a few additional tricks up its sleeve. When you create a status now, you'll notice "Facebook Live" as a new option. This will...
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WhatsApp is one of the most popular chat apps on the planet, for a handful of reasons. For one, WhatsApp makes it extremely easy to keep communications with friends and family open and ongoing even if your mobile data package is paltry (thanks to Wi-Fi), in addition, it's also been deemed one of the most secure chat apps available, a fact that's led those even with the most confidential subject matter to rely on it. But there may be a chink in WhatsApp's armor. A report recently outed a significant security flaw in WhatsApp that "could" let the company regenerate your encryption keys without your knowledge, effectively allowing it to intercept your messages before they get re-encrypted. There...
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How would you like it if Morgan Freeman turned on your lights, kept on an eye on your house, and even made you toast? You may not be able to get him physically in your house, but his dulcet voice could be coming to home AI very soon. Morgan Freeman has agreed to be the voice of Mark Zuckerberg’s home AI, Jarvis. This past October, Zuckerberg asked in a Facebook post who his followers believed should voice Jarvis. Actor Robert Downey Jr. leapt at the chance. He said that he would "do it in a heartbeat" if actor Paul Bettany, the voice of Jarvis in the Iron Man films, got paid and the resulting money went to a charity of Benedict Cumberbatch’s choice.Morgan Freeman, however, was Facebook’s overwhelming...
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With so many online communication tools allowing you to conduct group calls, it's really quite surprising that Facebook has yet to catch up - at least on the desktop side. This past spring, the company updated its Messenger mobile app to support group calling, but for when actual work is getting done, chances are good people are in front of their computer rather than on-the-go. Well, this grand omission is soon to be rectified, as Facebook has begun testing the group calling waters with its desktop Messenger app. Group chats are nothing new on Facebook, but they do have limited use when you can't talk to the users in the group, so as to expedite the conversation. As of the time of writing, the...
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Does that Facebook status look familiar? Have photos of you and your ex resurfaced on social media? You are not alone, since a glitch is publishing posts of Facebook pasts. The Facebook glitch is reportedly sharing outdated posts on users’ timelines without their permission. The re-posted content has had its "timestamp" altered. This makes it seem like the outdated material has been recently posted. The exact cause is unknown. Some speculate that it is due to the latest iOS update or the recent “Year in Review” feature. A Facebook spokesperson has stated that the company is aware of the issue and is investigating. This is not the only Facebook glitch to surface over the past month. A few weeks...
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This past weekend, we talked about how Facebook and its founder Mark Zuckerberg were planning to combat the "fake news" problem we've likely all seen on a regular basis. This comes hot on the heels of Donald Trump becoming president-elect, as it's a no secret that this political season has been rife with misleading headlines and information. Well, Zuckerberg isn't immune to irony, and has just been hit with what might be his biggest dose. In the very post where he talks about his company's plans to eradicate fake news, two blatantly fake news posts could be found right beside it: What makes this truly ridiculous is that these ads were paid, and Facebook is supposed to give the a-OK to all ads...
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It's no secret at this point that Facebook has huge ambitions to make sure that anyone in the world can access the internet - even in places where ISPs might not be available for many miles. Thus, the company's Connectivity Lab has been hard at work to advance these efforts, and once again, we're being shown some impressive networking breakthroughs. Using the millimeter-wave portion of the radio frequency spectrum, Facebook believes that it can ultimately deliver many gigabits of information over many kilometers for each base and receiver. In a recent test, the company managed to beam 20Gbps over 13KM using this technology, which is the equivalent of streaming "1,000 ultra high-definition" videos...
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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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If you're responsible for creating advertising campaigns for a website or a Web service, you need the confidence that you're going to see a good return-on-investment. To gauge that, you're going to listen to the promises of the company or site that hosts the advertising platform. Unfortunately, those promises are sometimes inaccurate - even if it's by accident. Such is the case with Facebook. The world's largest social network has just admitted to fudging up the view counts of videos used for advertising, though it insists that no one has been ripped off. The crux of the problem is that Facebook counted a video as a "view" for a mere three second watch. It's safe to assume that in three seconds,...
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Blizzard Introduces Live Facebook Streaming For Battle.net Games Like Overwatch, WoW And Hearthstone
Streaming is big business, and almost every developer and gamer wants in. For gamers, this couldn't be more true than with Blizzard's portfolio of games. Games like World of Warcraft and Overwatch are full of moments well-worth streaming, so in the latest version of Blizzard's own game client the company has built new streaming options right in. Unfortunately for many gamers, Blizzard's streaming platform of choice is Facebook. While Facebook itself would love for its own social network to become the de facto place for streaming, it's a website that tries to cater to everyone and everything and thus it hasn't had great success attracting hardcore game streamers that don't care for all of the...
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It looks like Steam is about to get a little bit more competition. Facebook and Unity Technologies have teamed up to create their own PC-gaming platform. The collaboration builds a new functionality in Unity that helps it to easily export and publish games on Facebook.Elliot Solomon, Unity’s Vice President of Business Development, remarked, “Integrating tools that provide effortless access to Facebook’s network is a key part of helping developers find the success they deserve.” Unity Engine - Image from Iwan GabovitchUnity will now be able to reach the 650 million people who play Facebook-connected games. At its peak in 2014, Facebook earned over $257 million USD from mobile gaming. This number...
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For a number of great reasons, WhatsApp is an instant message client worth using. It can be used on your mobile device, or on the desktop (through the mobile device). It's reliable, fast, and best of all, secure. A couple of months ago, we learned that Facebook deployed always-on encryption in the app, making an already great chat client even better and more secure. Well, let's back things up just a tad. While WhatsApp does in fact use end-to-end encryption, and there's no fault there, an iOS researcher discovered a gaping flaw: deleted chats are not actually deleted (hmmm, that sounds familiar). To the user, deleting a WhatsApp conversation will give the impression that it's actually deleted,...
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You know a story is going to be good when it involves Facebook, its creator Mark Zuckerberg, and the word "privacy". It used to be that Google was considered the biggest, baddest people data-fetcher, but over time, that crown has been passed to Facebook, a service that doesn't even need to try to get information from people, as those people willingly cough it up themselves. For a multitude of reasons, the lack of privacy on Facebook should be concerning to many, especially when you consider that Mark Zuckerberg can't seem to get enough privacy for himself. As we reported just the other day, Facebook-owned Instagram recently achieved half a billion users. To celebrate, Zuckerberg took to...
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Have you ever noticed that when a service becomes almost incomprehensibly large, it can begin to care less and less about what people think about it? Some might feel that way about Facebook, a company that time and time again has forced changes on its users that haven't been very well received. A major example of this in recent years has been with the forced transition to Facebook Messenger, something that caused thousands of users to give the app a 1-star rating for. Simply put, people were not happy. As that move happened a couple of years ago, we don't hear too much about the hate anymore, much like we don't hear much about the angst held towards Google for shutting down Reader. It could be...
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For some folks, Facebook's Messenger mobile app has felt like a stick in the mud. Prior to a couple of years ago, messaging people through Facebook was very easy - you could either load up the Facebook app, the Facebook website in a browser, or, if you were so inclined, use the dedicated Facebook Messenger app. Today, your options have become "optional". When Facebook forced us all to transition over to the Messenger app if we wanted the ability to keep in contact with people while on-the-go, a second option for desperate people remained: just load Facebook up in a mobile Web browser, and chat to people that way, in effect mimicking the experience on the desktop. Well, if you've been using this...
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While much of the autonomous buzz right now revolves around vehicles, the ever-evolving world of technology will see many other sectors become automated in the future -- including simple things like customer service. The problem, of course, is that most businesses can't invest in advanced 'chatbots', either through purchasing a solution from another vendor or developing it themselves. That's where Facebook wants to help. The social media giant already offers a number of tools to businesses, but according to a leak, it will unveil chatbot and Live Chat solutions at its upcoming F8 developer conference. When launched, these chatbots will run through Facebook Messenger, a piece of software that...
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Those who've preordered an Oculus Rift or are planning to get one in the near future are in for quite a treat. To help get people kick-started on the awesome VR journey ahead, Oculus includes two free games, Lucky's Tale and EVE Valkyrie. Two games are a great bonus, but for Ross Martin, his Rift came with a perk beyond that: a personal visit from Oculus founder Palmer Luckey. Ross happened to be the very first person to preorder the Rift, so to give his thanks, Luckey decided to pay him a visit. While Ross at first seems a little unenthusiastic, we'd wager that he was merely so taken back by the fact that the creator of the product actually showed up to hand-deliver the must-have...
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Facebook's Messenger app isn't the most-liked on the planet. Why? Well, the company thinks that everyone is a-OK with the fact that two separate apps need to be used for the same service, something that caused quite a stir in the summer of 2014 when the company forced people install the Messenger app in order to keep in touch with friends and family. Well, if you haven't liked Messenger up to this point, just wait until you see what's in store for Q2: advertising. According to a document that was leaked to TechCrunch, Facebook is planning to bring advertising to its Messenger app, which up to this point has been completely devoid of anything resembling an ad. However, this is a case where it...
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