Facebook cancels F8 conference citing coronavirus concerns

Photo by Ian Kennedy

Facebook won't be pushing through with its biggest event of the year over concerns about the novel coronavirus (or COVID-19) outbreak. The F8 developer, which is a mostly-annual conference, was scheduled to take place on May 5 and 6 at the San Jose McEnery Convention Center. The highly anticipated Facebook event attracted over 5,000 developers, entrepreneurs, and creators from around the world last year. Facebook's decision mirrors the cancellation of this year's Mobile World Congress due to COVID-19.

Konstantinos Papamiltiadis, Facebook's director of developer platforms and programs, said in a statement, "This was a tough call to make—F8 is an incredibly important event for Facebook and it's one of our favourite ways to celebrate all of you from around the world—but we need to prioritize the health and safety of our developer partners, employees, and everyone who helps put F8 on."

Source: CNET

Instagram now lets Canadian users add music to Stories

After waiting years for the feature to come to Canada, Instagram and Facebook users can now add music clips to their Stories. According to Facebook, if the song you want to put has lyrics, these will automatically show up and can be used as reference points of what part of the song you want to include in your Story. The lyrics might have different animation or text styles, which you can access by tapping on them. It can be manipulated in the same way you would other stickers. The Instagram Stories question feature will now also have music, allowing your friends to reply to your query using a song from the music library.

It's now also possible for Canadians to add videos with music in the new music section on your Facebook profile. Aside from that, you can pin songs to the top of your profile, too. Facebook said it collaborated with local artists and labels to make sure Canadian artists are prominent on its platform. The new features should already be available on both platforms.

Source: MobileSyrup

Facebook Messenger desktop app gets new beta features

The latest update for Facebook Messenger on the desktop brings a couple of features that are being tested in the beta version of the mobile app. Version 350.5.122.0 will now let you ignore a conversation if it comes from a Facebook friend you choose to ignore messages from. That means you won't get notifications when said friend messages you. Instead, their messages will be moved to the message requests section. The second feature is you can now send voice clips from the desktop app. So, if either feature seems useful to you, now might be the best time to download the app.

Source: MSPowerUser

Facebook backs off from plans to fill WhatsApp with ads

Facebook is reportedly "backing away" from plans to sell ad placements inside WhatsApp. According to The Wall Street Journal, the team in charge of building ads into the Facebook-owned messaging service was disbanded in recent months, with the work they've done "deleted from WhatsApp's code."

But the app won't be completely ad-free. Facebook will still integrate it into WhatsApp's Status feature. Facebook will reportedly focus on WhatsApp features that will "allow businesses to communicate with customers and organize those contacts." WhatsApp co-founders Jan Koum and Brian Acton—both of whom have left the company—reportedly expressed concern about the impact a commercial messaging feature will have over the strength of its end-to-end encryption.

Source: The Verge