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Instagram gets pinch-to-zoom on iOS, Android update in tow
The feature you didn't know you wanted for Instagram has finally arrived: pinch-to-zoom. Surprised it wasn't already there? Don't be. Originally, Instagram didn't support large enough images to warrant enlarging -- but last year, that changed last year when the company bumped its default image size up to 1080 x 1080. Now, we're seeing the fruits of that upgrade: starting today, iOS users can pinch and zoom any image or video in their feed. On Android? Sit tight. Instagram says the update will roll out to additional platforms in a few weeks.
Chris Brown turns to Instagram amid police standoff
Singer Chris Brown's Instagram account got a lot more interesting today. With police outside of his Los Angeles home, who were following up on a report that Brown pulled a gun on an unnamed woman, the singer started posting Instagram videos criticizing the LAPD. Meanwhile, local news stations have been broadcasting footage of the standoff on Facebook Live for much of the day.
Instagram Stories fights Snapchat by recommending users to follow
Instagram Stories' feature updates are no longer quite in lockstep with Snapchat's. It's gradually rolling out an update to the Explore section that displays a bar of Stories from people Instagram thinks you want to follow based on both your existing contacts and your favorite topics. The addition could give you extra Stories clips to watch even when your usual Instagram friends aren't up to snuff. The concept isn't entirely new (Snapchat's featured Stories are slightly similar), but it's uniquely tailored to you -- you're not just getting the same editor's picks as everyone else.
Zuckerberg hopes to show off his home control AI next month
Remember that artificial intelligence Mark Zuckerberg said he was going to build to control his house? It sounds like he actually made it -- and he's almost ready to show it to the public. "I got it to the point where I can control the lights, I can control the gates, I can control the temperature," he said at a Facebook Q&A in Rome this week. "It's getting there."
Facebook is working on user-activated Safety Checks
Facebook's Safety Check has proven an invaluable tool for people to contact their friends and families in the immediate aftermath of large scale disasters. At a public Q&A session in Luiss University in Rome on Monday, CEO Mark Zuckerberg told the crowd that his company is also working on a means of letting any user activate the emergency system on their own.
Facebook highlights false news story in its trending topics
The usefulness of Facebook's "trending topics" feature has always been a bit questionable, but it's been under fire this year as the company battled accusations its human editors were filtering out "conservative" news stories. Today, Facebook is getting a bit more egg on its face: its trending topics area promoted a story about Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly being fired for supporting Hillary Clinton. As of this writing, that has not happened -- but the false story was still trending for hours on Facebook before finally getting pulled.
UK: Facebook, Google, Twitter 'consciously failing' on terrorism
The UK parliament has slammed Facebook, Twitter and YouTube for "consciously failing" to remove terrorism recruitment content. According to a report from the Home Affairs Committee, the social networks are "the vehicle of choice in spreading propaganda and the recruiting platforms for terrorism." In statements to the WSJ, the companies denied that they are lax with extremist postings. "We deal swiftly and robustly with reports of terrorism-related content," a Facebook spokesperson said.
Facebook will show bigger vertical videos in your News Feed
Facebook's News Feed for mobile will become much friendlier to vertical videos in the near future, according to Marketing Land. It won't exactly be optimized for the orientation the way Snapchat is, but it will apparently stop cropping and showing them as tiny squares. The publication says when the update rolls out for Android and iOS, you'll start seeing vertical videos with a 2:3 aspect ratio (as opposed to 1:1) on your News Feed without having to expand them. "We know that people enjoy more immersive experiences on Facebook, so we're starting to display a larger portion of each vertical video in News Feed on mobile," a spokesperson told Marketing Land.
Recommended Reading: The political media machine on Facebook
Inside Facebook's (Totally Insane, Unintentionally Gigantic, Hyperpartisan) Political-Media Machine John Herrman, The New York Times Magazine A barrage of political links, ads and other content has filled up your News Feed over the last few months. With each new election, the amount of noise seems to get worse and now that we have two candidates who both have quite a list of shortcomings, the chatter is at an all-time high. The New York Times Magazine takes a deep dive into how Facebook is serving as a massive political media machine and its influence on democracy in the US.
Privacy groups call foul on WhatsApp sharing data with Facebook
WhatsApp's new terms-of-service are causing quite a stir among privacy advocates. Yesterday, the company announced it would begin sharing user phone numbers, profile data, status message and online status with Facebook, its parent company -- a change that the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) claims violates a Federal Trade Commission consent order.
Tech giants pledge to close the gender pay gap
To celebrate Women's Equality Day, President Obama has announced a group of 29 major US employers who have signed the White House Equal Pay Pledge and promised to help close the gender pay gap. On the list are 10 top tech giants including Apple, Facebook, Microsoft, Intel and IBM.
Broadcast your Blizzard games right now via Facebook Live
As originally announced in June, game developer Blizzard Entertainment and social media powerhouse Facebook have agreed to a deal that enables FB users to stream their Blizzard gameplay over Facebook Live. And, starting Friday (hey, that's today!), users will actually be able to.
Facebook is ditching human editors from its trending topics
Facebook made the news a few months ago after claims surfaced via Gizmodo that the social network kept certain conservative news content from hitting the site's Trending Topics section (claims that it denied). Today, the social network announced that humans would no longer write special descriptions for the stories that appear in the site's Trending Topics area seen on the top right of your Facebook profile.
Facebook opens its advanced AI vision tech to everyone
Over the past two years, Facebook's artificial intelligence research team (also known as FAIR) has been hard at work figuring out how to make computer vision as good as human vision. The crew has made a lot of progress so far (Facebook has already incorporated some of that tech for the benefit of its blind users), but there's still room for improvement. In a post published today, Facebook details not only its latest computer-vision findings but also announces that it's open-sourcing them to the public so that everyone can pitch in to develop the tech. And as FAIR tells us, improved computer vision will not only make image recognition easier but could also lead to applications in augmented reality.
President Obama delivers an ode to America's national parks in VR
The first virtual reality film to feature President Obama is, not surprisingly, a love letter to some of America's greatest treasures: its National Parks. Together with Oculus, National Geographic and the VR studio Felix & Paul, the President filmed Through the Ages, a VR experience meant to celebrate the centennial of the National Park Service.
WhatsApp will start sharing your data with Facebook
WhatsApp announced a major change that we suspected was coming today by adding terms that allow it to share user data with its parent company Facebook.
Report: YouTube will fend off Facebook with social features
If you want to post a video on the web several years ago, YouTube was the go-to spot. Now, Google's video network is feeling the pinch with strong video features from Facebook, Twitter and others, and has decided to push back, according to Venture Beat. The feature, internally code-named "Backstage," will reportedly allow users to share photos, short posts, links, polls and videos with subscribers. Much like a Facebook timeline, items will be listed from newest to oldest and posted in subscribers' feeds.
VR game developers prefer the HTC Vive, grapple with nausea
The decision to get a high-end virtual reality headset is as much about the software selection as the technology itself. So which platform is getting the most attention from developers? Apparently, it's HTC's Vive. A UBM Game Network industry report shows that 49 percent of VR developers are targeting the Vive, while 43 percent are writing software for the Oculus Rift. And the gap gets wider when it comes to the next game from these studios -- nearly 35 percent are building for the Vive, while a little over 23 percent are aiming at the Rift.
Facebook tests auto-playing News Feed videos with sound
It's no secret that Mark Zuckerberg wants Facebook to become a more video-centric social network, and the company has been conducting various tests to see how its users would react to new features. One of its latest mobile app experiments is auto-playing videos on the News Feed... with sound.
Facebook's Lifestage is a video-centric social app for teens
Facebook isn't done launching products designed to capture the Snapchat generation. Its latest attempt after Instagram Stories and live filters? A new standalone, video-centric social app for high school students called Lifestage. To be able to complete your profile, you'd have to take videos and selfies of your likes, dislikes and facial expressions. It will ask you take videos of your BFFs, to bust out dances moves on cam, take photos of your desserts, so on and so forth. When we say that it's for high school students, we mean you won't even be able to see other people's profiles if you're older than 22. That's assuming you won't creepily pretend to be younger than you are.
