Facebook F8 2018 Day 1: Dating, Clear History, AR Camera on Instagram, Group video chats, new AR/VR experiences announced

At the Facebook  **F8 2018 conference** , Mark Zuckerberg said that that it was Facebook’s responsibility to give powerful tools to its users and also ensure that these tools are used for good. He also discussed the possibility of bringing people together in meaningful new ways across Facebook and the social media platforms owned by it, such as Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger along with its VR entity Oculus. [caption id=“attachment_4453273” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Mark Zuckerberg at Facebook’s F8 conference.[/caption] On that note, Facebook  announced new features for all its platforms which will ensure the above. Here are the highlights from Day 1 of the F8 2018: Facebook

• Sharing to stories: Facebook is introducing a new way for users to share their interests on both Facebook and Instagram Stories. Apps like Spotify can directly share what you are playing on both Stories platforms when you click the share button. There is no need to connect to your Facebook or Instagram account with other apps for sharing the app’s content on your stories.

Groups: The new Groups tab is aimed at helping you navigate to your existing groups more easily. Facebook says that later this year the user will be able to discover and join new groups through the tab. [caption id=“attachment_4453287” align=“alignnone” width=“800”] Sharing on your stories.[/caption]

• Clear History : Clear History is a feature that will let you clear up your browsing history.  You will be able to see the websites and apps that send Facebook information when you use them. Now you can delete this information and also remove Facebook’s ability to associate it with your account. It work similar to clearing cookies.

• Dating: Facebook is also building a feature for dating and relationships within the Facebook app. In this, the user will be able to create a dating profile which is separate from their Facebook profile and matches will be generated based on dating preferences and mutual friends. In other words, Facebook will be aping Tinder and Bumble with this feature, after doing the same with Snapchat all these years.

[caption id=“attachment_4453291” align=“alignnone” width=“960”] Dating on Facebook.[/caption]

• Crisis Response: This feature will help people affected by a crisis to share firsthand accounts of timely information such as property damage, roads closure, real-time updates and more.

• Blood Donation on Facebook: People living in India, Bangladesh and Pakistan can locate a nearby blood donation camps, requests for blood donations using this Facebook feature.

Instagram

• AR Camera effect: The AR camera platform , that was introduced last year on Facebook, is now coming on Instagram. AR studio will enable creators to design unique, interactive camera experiences such as face filters and world effects, like the ones we see on Snapchat.

•  Video Chat: Video Chat will soon be available on Instagram Direct. This would mean Facebook would have three apps under its belt which have video chat namely, Messenger, WhatsApp and soon Instagram. It will let you do group chats with your friends as well.

• New Explore section: The newly redesigned explore tab will organise suggested content into relevant content buckets, so that it is easier to browse across your interests on Instagram**.**

WhatsApp

• WhatsApp Group Calling and Stickers: WhatsApp will soon be having the feature for **group calling**  along with new stickers.

[caption id=“attachment_4453293” align=“alignnone” width=“800”] Group chat on WhatsApp.[/caption] Messenger

• AR for the Messenger Platform: Facebook is giving brands the ability to integrate AR camera effects into Facebook’s Messenger.

• M Translations: Buyers and sellers on Facebook’s Marketplace will now be able to communicate across various languages with the new M suggestions feature for translation.

[caption id=“attachment_4453295” align=“alignnone” width=“800”] Messenger AR.[/caption] AR/VR

• Oculus Go: The first standalone VR headset from Oculus called the **Oculus Go** is now available globally starting at $199.

• New apps for shared VR Experiences: Facebook is introducing new ways to socialise on the Oculus platform with your friends. These new apps include Oculus Venues which takes you to live social events in VR including concerts, sports and more.  Oculus Rooms allows you to play board games, watch movies and more with your friends. Oculus TV will give you a big virtual screen where you can watch movies on demand with your friends.

• More immersive ways to share: Facebook has introduced 3D posts, which means that now people will be able to take 3D objects from News Feed into Facebook Camera AR experiences with one tap. Also announced is the 3D Photos which will come this summer and let you capture moments in 3D using your smartphone.