Facebook Messenger Launches Group Video Calling

Facebook Messenger has launched its own split-screen group video chat feature, allowing for multi-video chats in one session.

The group chat can be used by six different people at the same time while 50 people in total can listen to the audio and send texts, stickers, emojis, and GIFs. You can also use filters like those Snapchat-style selfie masks during your video chat.

This feature is going to make the Facebook Messenger much more resourceful as it won’t be just a text messenger anymore and would be the perfect way for a group of friends to connect with each other live. Facebook itself calls it “perfect for those spontaneous moments where text just isn’t enough”.

The group video chat feature rolled out worldwide on iOS, Android, and web, today, though Android will have to wait for the MSQRD-powered selfie masks. The filter feature might not ever come to desktop.

Messenger Gets Video Calling

Facebook Messenger got one-on-one video calling feature back in April 2015, and since then, everyone has been anticipating the addition of the group video call feature. With over 245 million people using video calling regularly, it’s safe to say the feature will be a hit.

Facebook had already beaten other messengers like FaceTime/iMessage, Google Duo, Snapchat and others when it came to video calling. WeChat added the feature an year ago.

How it Works

If you want to use the group video calling feature, you can select friends or a group text thread to invite to a video call.

Six people in total will be able to use the video calling feature at the same time. The Messenger screen will switch to a gallery format, and whoever is speaking will take up the big bulk at the top of the screen while the rest of the 5 will have little thumbnails for each one at the bottom of the screen, quite like Hangouts.

Up to 50 other people can join the call, but they won’t appear in the video gallery and will only be able to listen to the on-going call.

Facebook Launches Live 360 Video Streaming

Just yesterday it was announced that Facebook is going to launch its support for 360-degree Live streams, called Live 360.

Today on 13th December 2016, National Geographic’s Facebook page will publish the first 360 Live video at noon as scientists emerge from 80 days in isolation pods at Utah’s Mars Desert Research Station.

The Live stream will feature footage from the landscape of Mars and interviews with the researchers.

About the Mars Isolation Pods

These seven space scientists from around the world have spent their past 80 days in isolation pods, simulating every aspect of life on Mars.

National Geographic will be live in Facebook as these scientists emerge from their pods. The scientists will let us have a look on some behind the scenes action, allowing us to see how they suit up in their space suits, explore the living quarters, take a rover out for a drive across the surface of Mars, and much more.

Facebook Live 360 Videos

Facebook will even take questions from the Facebook audience in their Q&A session with the experts, writers and thinkers.

Live 360 videos is going to be made available to more pages via the Live API in the coming months, and it will roll out for all the pages and profiles next year.

An example of Facebook VR in action

Microsoft, YouTube, Facebook & Twitter - Working On Anti-Terrorism Database

Four of the biggest social networks, Twitter, Microsoft, YouTube and Facebook are going to be working together to build a database of photos and videos used to recruit people into terrorist organizations.

This shared database will identify images via a unique digital footprint, making it easier for them to identify and remove any imagery related to terrorism. Shared hashes will be used to help identify potential terrorist content on the mentioned social networks.

They said that hopefully this collaboration will lead to greater efficiency of helping to curb the global issue of terrorist content online.

A joint blog post by the 4 companies states:

“There is no place for content that promotes terrorism on our hosted consumer services. When alerted, we take swift action against this kind of content in accordance with our respective policies”.

Not the First Collaboration of Its Kind:

Exactly an year earlier, these big names had collaborated before as well to identify and remove child pornography from the internet using a similar technique. This technique was developed by the UK’s Internet Watch Foundation.

The companies said that the content flagged by the database will not be automatically removed from the platform, but instead it will be reviewed by each company, and by reviewing its policies it will be decided whether if it violates the company’s terms of service.

The companies also said that throughout this collaboration they will do their best to protect the users’ privacy and their ability to express themselves freely and safely on each of the mentioned platforms.

“We also seek to engage with the wider community of interested stakeholders in a transparent, thoughtful and responsible way as we further our shared objective to prevent the spread of terrorist content online while respecting human rights”

via The Verge 

Facebook Now Lets You Cast Videos To TV

You can now cast videos from your Facebook Newsfeed directly to your TV. This new feature allows streaming Facebook videos on your TV through AppleTV, Airplay devices, Google Chromecast and other Google Cast devices.

Available on iOS, Coming Soon to Android

For now this feature is available on the iOS version of the Facebook app. It will become available on Android soon. This could further increase video ad revenue for Facebook and also increasing usage time. Being able to view videos on your TV screen is always preferable to watching it on your phone.

How to Use It

To use this feature on the app, you just need to find a video to stream to your TV. Tap or click on the TV icon on the top right (works on the web version as well) and select the device you want to stream to.

While you’re streaming a video you can continue using Facebook as you please in the background. you can watch this video here:

https://www.facebook.com/fbmedia/videos/1216914131683337/

Late to the party?

The social media giant started testing the new streaming feature on Android back in May this year. The iOS version began testing likewise in August. This isn’t the first time Facebook has tested something related to streaming videos before. Back in 2011, they added an option to cast via Airplay from the iPad app.

Competitors like YouTube already have well established ways to stream content to TVs. Facebook is making sure it doesn’t stay behind in the race. Casting on YouTube also lets you queue videos to watch one after the other in a sequence, this could be a useful feature for Facebook’s casting options as well.

The key thing with Facebook is the fact that its everywhere, so allowing more platforms for streaming videos is an obvious thing. Nevertheless this is a welcome feature from Facebook and we would love to see it improve over time.

Facebook Messenger Chats Now Offer End-to-End Encryption

Facebook is finally capitalizing on the promise it first made back in July, of making conversations on Messenger completely encrypted. The platform isn’t the first to offer such a feature but is definitely among the most used ones, even if it doesn’t offer it in full glory.

The feature, dubbed Secret Conversations, is now available to the billion or so active users of Messenger, as confirmed by Wired. It is turned off by default so it requires turning on manually. It also doesn’t make every conversation that has occurred in the past encrypted.

How to Activate:

In the latest version of Messenger, you’ll see a new secret icon in the top right corner of the app. Tap that and you can start an encrypted chat. Existing conversations can also be converted to secret ones, by tapping their name at the top, and toggling the Secret Conversations option.

Encryption Tech:

Messenger uses the renowned Signal encryption system, developed by the nonprofit Open Whisper Systems, which has already been implemented in the privacy-centered Signal Private Messenger. That app has the blessings of none other than Edward Snowden.

Of course, both the users need to update to the latest version of Messenger to use the updated security feature so first make sure that is done. The conversations can only be carried out on a single device at a time.

Room For Improvement:

The functionality of these conversations is a bit more limited in comparison to normal ones, with GIFs and videos not supported, yet.

The feature was first tested in beta in public back in July and only now is it arriving to the all users.

Messenger isn’t the first platform to offer such privacy, as Signal, Telegram and Whatsapp among others have had it for long. Though, it is certainly among the most used messaging apps. That will happen of course if you trust Facebook with your privacy in the first place.

WhatsApp Adds Snapchat-Like Doodling in New Update

A feature that has been in Google Allo and Snapchat from the start is now making its way to WhatsApp. You can now doodle on images or add stickers and emojis on them.

New Features in the Update

Aside from doodling and adding emojis on images, the update brings front facing flash support (screen flash) for selfies and video zooming options in the app’s camera.

The update was available in WhatsApp beta and is now available for the general public. Only Android users can avail this update for now. iOS users will have to wait.

According to the WhatsApp blog:

"When you capture a new photo or video or share one that’s already on your phone, you’ll automatically see the new editing tools. The WhatsApp camera feature now supports the front-facing flash so you can take the perfect selfie."

"In low light and at night, this will brighten up your screen and improve the quality of your photo. We’ve also added a convenient zooming feature for recording videos – just slide your finger up and down to zoom in and out. And to quickly switch between front and rear facing cameras, double tap on the screen."

Adapting to the Competition

This isn’t the first time Facebook has copied Snapchat’s features. They copied Snapchat stories and introduced it in Instagram, renaming it to Instagram stories.

It should be mentioned that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg once offered to buy Snapchat from its CEO Evan Spiegel a few years ago.

Even though both Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp boast around a billion users each, Snapchat still poses a major threat because of its immense popularity among teens and the younger demographics. Facebook seems to be adapting and introducing new features in anticipation of the fact that Snapchat will become a major competitor to its messaging platforms soon.

The update is not yet available at the Google Playstore but is expected to be available today

Facebook Releases 'OSquery' Security Tool for Windows

OSquery, an open-source framework created by Facebook that allows organizations to look for potential malware or malicious activity on their networks, was available for Mac OS X and Linux environments until today.

But now the social network has announced that the company has developed a Windows version of its osquery tool, too.

When Facebook engineers want to monitor thousands of Apple Mac laptops across their organization, they use their own untraditional security tool called OSquery.

OSquery is a smart piece of cross-platform software that scans every single computer on an infrastructure and catalogs every aspect of it.

Then SQL-based queries allow developers and security teams to monitor low-level functions in real-time and quickly search for malicious behavior and vulnerable applications on their infrastructure.

In simple words, OSquery allows an organization to treat its infrastructure as a database, turning OS information into a format that can be queried using SQL-like statements.

This functionality is critical for administrators to perform incident response, diagnose systems and network level problems, help to troubleshoot performance issues, and more.

This open source endpoint security tool has become one of the most popular security projects on GitHub since its release in mid-2014 and was available for Linux distribution such as Ubuntu or CentOS, and Mac OS X machines.

So, if your organization was running a Windows environment, you were out of luck.

But, not today, as with the help of Trail of Bits, Facebook has finally launched the OSquery developer kit for Windows, allowing security teams to build customized solutions for their Windows networks.

"As adoption for osquery grew, a strong and active community emerged in support of a more open approach to security," reads the earlier version of Facebook's blog post provided to The Hacker News.

"We saw the long-held misconception of 'security by obscurity' fall away as people started sharing tooling and experiences with other members of the community. Our initial release of osquery was supported for Linux and OS X, but the community was also excited for a Windows version — so we set out to build it."

To get started with the OSquery developer kit for Windows, check this official documentation, the development environment, and a single script. The build is easy to install, and you can start coding right away.

You can read the full documentation of the development process of the OSquery developer kit for Windows on the blog post by Trail of Bits.

WhatsApp to share User data with Facebook - 30 Days Left to stop it

Nothing comes for Free, as "Free" is just a relative term used by companies to develop a strong user base and then use it for their own benefits.

The same has been done by the secure messaging app WhatsApp, which has now made it crystal clearthat the popular messaging service will begin sharing its users’ data with its parent company, Facebook.

However, WhatsApp is offering a partial opt-out for Facebook targeted ads and product related purposes, which I will let you know later in this article, but completely opting out of the data-sharing does not seem to be possible.

Let's know what the company has decided to do with your data.

Of course, Facebook is willing to use your data to sell more targeted advertisements.

WhatsApp introduced some significant changes to its privacy policy and T&Cs today which, if accepted once, gives it permission to connect users' Facebook accounts to WhatsApp accounts for the first time, giving Facebook more data about users for delivering more relevant ads on the social network.

The messaging service will also begin pushing users to share some of their account details, including phone numbers, with Facebook, allowing the social network to suggest phone contacts as friends.

When Facebook acquired WhatsApp for $19 Billion in 2014, users were worried about the company's commitment to protecting its users' privacy. But, WhatsApp reassured them that their privacy would not be compromised in any way.

"Respect for your privacy is coded into our DNA, and we built WhatsApp around the goal of knowing as little about you as possible," said WhatsApp co-founder Jan Koum in a blog post published at that time.

Now the WhatsApp users are feeling betrayed by the company's latest move.

However, you need not to worry about the contents of your WhatsApp messages, like words and images, as they are end-to-end encrypted, meaning that even the company cannot read them.

Ultimately, the two companies will be sharing, what they called, a limited amount of user data, which includes phone numbers and other information about users.

No Option to Completely Opt-Out of Data Sharing

If you think WhatsApp is more privacy conscious than Facebook’s Messenger, it is not anymore.

WhatsApp is offering a solution partially to opt out the data sharing, specifically for Facebook ad targeting and product-related purposes.

However, the company notes that data will still be shared "for other purposes such as improving infrastructure and delivery systems, understanding how our services or theirs are used, securing systems, and fighting spam, abuse, or infringement activities."

So, those who are thinking to opt out of the data-sharing entirely: There's no possible way to opt totally out.

Though one short solution is to stop using WhatsApp.

Here's How to opt -out of sharing data for Facebook ad-targeting purpose:

The company has outlined two ways to opt out of the exchange of information with Facebook on its blog.

One way is for those users who have not yet agreed to the new terms of service and privacy policy, so before agreeing to the new terms, follow these simple steps:

• When prompted to accept the updated T&Cs, tap Read to expand the full text.
• A checkbox option at the bottom of the policy for sharing your data on Facebook will appear.
• Untick this option before hitting Agree. This will let you opt out of the data-sharing.

The second option is for those who have already accepted the new T&Cs without unchecking the box to share their information with Facebook.

WhatsApp is also offering a thirty-day window for users to make the same choice via the settings page in the app. To exercise your opt-out in this scenario you need to follow these steps:

• Go to Settings → Account → Share my account info in the WhatsApp app
• Uncheck the box displayed there within 30 days, as after that this partial opt-out window will expire.

However, WhatsApp states Facebook will still receive your data in some situations.

After introducing end-to-end encryption, WhatsApp has become one of the most popular secure messaging apps, but this sudden shift in its privacy policy may force some users to switch to other secure apps like Telegram and Signal.

Whatsapp to Share User Data with Facebook for ad Targeting

Its now official. WhatsApp just stated that they’re sharing user data with Facebook.

In a blogpost updated moments ago, Whatsapp noted:

And by connecting your phone number with Facebook‘s systems, Facebook can offer better friend suggestions and show you more relevant ads if you have an account with them.

In addition to this, Whatsapp has said that it won’t share Whatsapp conversations or content of messages with anyone. That’s something not everyone is going to trust, especially when you consider Facebook’s new ball game.

Let’s not forget that Facebook had bought Whatsapp for a whooping 19 billion dollars. Clearly they didn’t invest this amount of money for a service that doesn’t even generate more than 1$ per customer per year, or in some cases not even a single penny for a lifetime.

What Does This Mean For Us?

Whatsapp had more than a billion active users as of February 2016, which means one in every seven individuals on earth has a Whatsapp account. Resultantly, Facebook — through this acquisition — will have access to major part of communication that we do, and just if you don’t know: more information means more money.

What’s more alarming for some customers would be the fact that Whatsapp could also give access to your communication to governments world over, especially the notorious NSA.

While its still early to say more on how this shared data is going to impact our lives, given the track record, we can predict that its not going to be very beautiful.

Facebook Launches OpenCellular - An open source Wireless Access Platform

Big technology companies are in the race of bringing Internet connectivity to unconnected parts of the world through flying drones, high-altitude balloons, and laser beams, but Facebook has announced a far less expensive method to provide connectivity to rural areas.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced Wednesday the creation of a new open-source wireless communication platform called OpenCellular that can be easily deployed in remote locations by anyone.

OpenCellular is a doorbell-sized hardware device that could be attached to a pole or tree at a range of heights from where it can deliver a wireless network, from 2G cell-phone networks to higher speed LTE, and Wi-Fi networks like those inside your home, or local coffee shop.

The device is designed to work in rural locations in conditions, including high winds, extreme temperatures, and harsh climates.

But, wait! This doesn't mean that Facebook is rolling out its own broadband services.

Facebook to Open-Source the Designs and Software of OpenCellular

The social networking plans to open source the designs for this device so that service providers, researchers, and others can use its designs and control software for free to build their own boxes that are cheap to purchase and maintain.

"We designed OpenCellular as an open system so anyone—from telecom operators to researchers to entrepreneurs—can build and operate wireless networks in remote places," Zuck said. "It's about the size of a shoe box and can support up to 1,500 people from as far as 10 kilometers away."

Facebook has tested the new system at its headquarters in Menlo Park, California and, so far, it has been able to successfully use the device to send and receive text messages, make voice calls and access relatively slow 2G data connections.

OpenCellular is Zuckerberg's latest attempt to push its goal of worldwide Internet access, aiming to connect the next 4 Billion people across the world without Internet access and nearly 700 million people without cellular service.

Facebook's Free Basics -- an initiative to provide free access to certain Internet websites, including Facebook -- was banned in India from earlier this year due to the violation of Net Neutrality principles, while Egypt followed suit in April.

Besides OpenCellular, Facebook's other global connectivity initiatives include its high-bandwidth Internet laser beams, solar-powered aircraft Aquila and unmanned solar-powered Internet-distributing plane.

The initial version of OpenCellular's platform will be available this summer, but meanwhile, Facebook is testing out the devices at its headquarters and planning outdoor tests with its initial OEMs and Telecom Infra Project (TIP) partners.

Facebook Messenger Now Offers End-to-End Encryption for Chats

Following the recent surge in demand for secure apps, Facebook is now offering a new end-to-end encryption mode on Messenger, called Secret Conversations. The mode is currently available for a few users and could be in for prime time later this summer.

The mode brings Messenger in equal standing with competitors like iMessage, BBM and Whatsapp who already offer end-to-end encryption. Facebook highlights health and financial information as potential avenues where it could be used. It is not totally secure, but at least it demands a more sophisticated attack.

The mode resides inside the Messenger app, requiring no further installs. It will only work on one unique device at a time, be it your phone, laptop or desktop which makes sense as messages will only appear on the devices they’re delivered to. It will be very limited in terms of features at first, not supporting GIFs, payments, videos or any other Messenger features. Secret Conversations also won’t be turned on by default.

Users can time their messages to self-destruct after an allotted period, allowing greater controls over privacy.

Facebook, which came recently under fire from users for supposedly making their shared links on Messenger easy for marketers to find, is releasing the feature as a way to appease some of the bad press.

With 900 million users under its pocket, Messenger could be highly successful in getting encryption to larger populations. That is, if Facebook can shed away the trust issues to begin with.