Facebook is full of red dots that appear over various parts of the app whenever something new is posted. For most people, these dots appear in random places in which the user has little interest, resulting in either a pile-up of notifications or the brief annoyance of having to tap to make them go away. That changes starting today.
Today WhatsApp, a Facebook company, updated their so-called Privacy Settings. This is the latest in a line of updates with the word "privacy" in the title released by Facebook and Facebook companies that, collectively, likely aim at doing some good for the overall image of the social networking giant. The latest update is for WhatsApp Groups and it has to do with your Contacts.
Facial recognition is becoming an increasingly popular option for authentication, and it may not be long before we see Facebook hop aboard that particular train. It appears that the company is gearing up to test a new facial recognition feature for identity verification. While the move does make some degree of sense, Facebook definitely needs to tread carefully here, because it's been at the center of a lot of privacy debates lately.
Ever since smart speakers started hitting shelves, there's been no lack of people bringing up certain security concerns, whether those have to do with flaws in hardware and software or just general privacy issues. Today, a team of researchers are detailing a new vulnerability that exists in many smart speakers - along with some phones and tablets - that could potentially allow hackers to issue voice commands from far away.
Today a report detailed an acquisition of the design firm Gossamer Engineering as initiated by the exercise-centric tech company Peloton Interactive Inc. earlier this year. The acquisition was apparently made to assist the company's efforts to create new hardware, like treadmills and bicycles - so said people familiar with the matter speaking with Bloomberg. Gossamer Engineering was an independent firm before this acquisition, having found success in contracts with both Facebook and Google.
Facebook has a new company logo, launched as the social network continues to face criticism from lawmakers and users for how it handles personal data and regulates lies in political adverts. The new branding debuts a custom font, which Facebook says will help it visually differentiate between the company itself and the Facebook app.
Facebook has introduced a new tool called Preventative Health that it presents as a way for users to better manage their healthcare. Preventative Health enables users to set reminders, schedule tests, access health-related resources, and more. According to Facebook, it has kicked things off with a focus on the two biggest causes of death in the US: cancer and heart disease.
Facebook, along with Amazon and, of course, Google, is facing no small amount of opposition and inquiry into its use of face recognition systems. Primarily applied for things like tagging family and friends in photos, the social media giant is often accused of misusing that technology for less savory uses. Now the company's own researchers are developing AI to combat other AI, perhaps including Facebook's, that try to identify and tag faces in videos.
Facebook's plans to launch its very own cryptocurrency was met with heavy opposition last week, as CEO Mark Zuckerberg's Libra proposal to Congress was hijacked into a hearing of the company's past mishandling. To put it briefly, the social media company's involvement in the Cambridge Analytica and election controversies had broken its trust with authorities. Without a clear structure for regulation, there are concerns that Zuckerberg's new Libra project could undermine the national dollar, as well as contain loopholes for criminals to exploit.
Facebook today announced that it's put a new feature called Facebook News into testing. Facebook News functions mostly as you'd expect a news aggregator to, getting a dedicated section of its own in the Facebook app. That doesn't mean the end of seeing articles in the News Feed - on the contrary, it sounds like the News Feed will work the way it always has, with Facebook News seemingly being positioned as something of a deeper experience.
Joining the NFL and ESPN is FOX Sports with plans to release exclusive shows on Facebook Watch, the social media company's video streaming platform. Under the collaboration between the two companies, FOX Sports will release what it calls interactive shows exclusively on Facebook Watch, including ones that involve sports wagering and football.
When it comes to video streaming platforms, Facebook Watch isn't the first thing that comes to mind. The company is working to change that with the gradual introduction of original productions on the platform. Following an announcement about its plans earlier this summer, Crypt TV has officially launched an original horror series on Facebook Watch; it's called The Birch, three episodes are available to start with, and it is entirely free to watch.