The Facebook Annual Developer Conference – 2018 or simply just the F8 is here, well what’s so special here? Not one or two, there are many that are worth to have a look at. Let us glide you through all the notes quickly at a glance.
The F8 mainly focused on User’s Privacy after all the allegations facebook has been facing recently. On the first day of the 2 day event of F8, we witnessed makor updates and refreshments over Facebook, Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp. Along with it, a focus towards Augmented reality and VR too through Oculus.
The new things announced about Facebook are clear history which allows you to see which websites use your data and send it to Facebook, and you can delete this information and even opt out of this program if you don’t want websites to send your data to Facebook. The quick share feature using which you can share stories to your Facebook and Instagram account without actually logging and authorizing the app, sounded cool. you can even see a new groups tab which organizes the existing groups you are a part of and helps you to connect with other groups.
Dating. Well at first glance, dating sounds pretty interesting. Users can create a separate dating profile on which they can put up their interests and based on matches and mutual friends, you can connect to more people and enhance your relationships, great news for Couples and hangout loves. It feels a direct competition to Tinder, we will have to see how well this comes out to be.
Crisis response, a feature launched for areas like India, Bangladesh and Pakistan where users can get to know about any recent crisis like calamities, road closures or anything that is unusual and a use should be well aware of. These threats and warnings is a really good initiative by Facebook. Users in India can even now register as Blood donors so that they can be contacted and help with their blood donation in any need or emergencies. They can be even notified about nearby Blood donation camps to. Facebook even mentioned that have invested fair bit of amount in the Developer community for privacy protection of their data.
Instagram gets new options like AR effects which can be seen within the application under the stories section. They really look out distinct and seem cool. Instagram also is about to get Video Call feature in direct messaging which is a really cool feature and will be appreciated by most of us. The explore tab also gets a redesign to help you filter out content more effectively based on your interests, people you follow and so on.
WhatsApp will soon be Group Video Calling which was even noticed by WABeta Info in a beta version of WhatsApp recently. WhatsApp stickers are also about to roll out pretty soon.
Messenger
The popular Facebook Messenger app will be redesigned soon and getting AR camera functionalities to enhance the overall user experience. Messenger will also be getting M translations where you will be asked to translate the message in your preferred language if the received message is not your default language. This translate feature seems really promising.
Facebook steps into AR and VR Game with Oculus.
Oculus Go is now available globally for $199 and has native support for over 1000 applications and games at the launch itself. Oculus Venues are about to launch soon where users can take maximum advantage of their Oculus Go Headset. The Oculus TV is also set out to come pretty soon. Facebook also announced the ability to post 3D posts into the news feed for a better immersive experience. Fun fact, all the attendees of the F8 conference were given away Free Oculus go headsets too!
And that pretty much wraps up the Day 1 of the Facebook Annual Developer conference or simple the F8, we will be bringing coverage of Day 2 too, pretty soon.