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WhatsApp today announced that it's bringing one-to-one calls to its desktop app. Calling will be available both for voice and video and they'll be end-to-end encrypted as well. While these calls have been a centerpiece in the WhatsApp mobile app for a long time, the company says that it's bringing calling to the desktop app to help support the increase in calls that have come with the pandemic.

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Facebook CFO David Wehner spoke this week about new smart glasses that are expected to launch later this year in collaboration with Ray-Ban and Luxottica. This isn't the first time we've heard of said glasses - but it is the first time anyone from Facebook has suggested the glasses will be anything less than extraordinary. Speaking at the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media and Telecom Conference today, Wehner pointed to Facebook's future in augmented reality technology.

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NPE Team, Facebook's internal group for experimental apps, has released a new product called BARS. The social media platform is similar to TikTok, but with a niche userbase: amateur rappers. With BARS, anyone can create rap songs using tools like beats, autotune, and more, then share the content with others.

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Almost all the Big Tech companies have smart assistants these days except for Facebook. There have been rumors and signs that the social media giant would be coming out with its own but nothing has materialized so far. It might, however, be taking another step in that direction by pushing its own trigger phrase to activate voice commands not only on its Portal smart display but even on the Oculus Quest 2 VR headset.

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WhatsApp users who don't accept the company's controversial upcoming privacy policy will steadily lose functionality over a few weeks, as the Facebook-owned messaging platform squeezes them into agreeing with the new rules. Announced last month, the new privacy terms met with near-instant backlash, as they appeared to allow WhatsApp to share user data with other Facebook products and services.

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The internet space down under was expected to split up in an uncanny manner. When the day of reckoning arrived, the two tech giants – Google and Facebook – took a drastically different approach to tackle the situation presented by the News Media Bargaining code in Australia. While Google chose to befriend the terms, Facebook walked off the bargaining deal to block all content from news sources in Australia – resulting in pages of news agencies like news.com.au and theage.com.au, among others, being completely wiped off their content on the social network.

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Facebook isn't one to back down from a fight or making controversial changes, at least until its hands are forced by laws. Even as it faces inquiries and lawsuits about its alleged monopolistic business practices, it is still pushing through with unpopular actions that practically put its mark on everything it owns. The Oculus Quest's new multi-user support, for example, is still tied to Facebook accounts, and WhatsApp is now resuming the journey to revamp its privacy policy to favor Facebook.

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Oculus Quest is getting two useful features today, particularly for instances where there are multiple people in a household using a single headset. Oculus has rolled out multi-user accounts and app sharing - two somewhat self-explanatory features that nonetheless make it easier to ensure that everyone using a headset not only has their own account, but also their own progression in games and their own privacy settings.

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Facebook will block users and publishers from sharing news content in Australia, a stark reaction to the proposed new Media Bargaining code in the country. The decision means that Facebook users in the country will not be able to see local or international content through the social network.

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Facebook may be planning to launch a smartwatch in 2022, according to a new report, marking yet another hardware project for the social media company. As you'd expect, the smartwatch will reportedly tie in with the Facebook platform, enabling users to access the service in addition to more general wearable features like fitness tracking.

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While Facebook displaced many of the old friends-centric social networks like MySpace, Friendster, and other forgotten names, it hasn't exactly cornered all the social markets, at least not by itself. It had to resort to different strategies to compete with the likes of Snapchat, sometimes making controversial acquisitions that are now under regulatory and legal scrutiny. Sometimes, though, it just simply copies those features, which is allegedly the strategy it will use to compete with fledgling social media platform Clubhouse.

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Facebook is expanding its policy on removing false claims to include a greater variety of posts about vaccines, including ones about vaccines in general, not just the COVID-19 products. The company announced the expansion on which claims it will remove from the platform, explaining that this change follows consultations with the WHO and more.

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