Change your Facebook profile to show you’re a ‘Star Wars’ fan

The marketing efforts for Star Wars: The Force Awakens are relentless to say the least. With the movie coming out this week, Facebook is cashing in on the popularity by letting you change your profile picture temporarily to have either the red Dark Side cross-guard lightsaber or the blue Finn lightsaber. You can just click this link and try it out or check the link on Star Wars’ Facebook page. The direct link seems to be working from mobile for me, in case you want to check that out.

Source: Tech Crunch

Create your own Facebook video profile with Flixel

Want to stand out from those static and boring Facebook profile photos? Well, it’s a good thing Facebook brought its video profiles to Canada. Instead of a static image, you can now have a seven-second looping video show up in your profile. But how do you make one of these? Canadian cinemagraph company Flixel is here to help you out. Just check out the video above for how to make one. It takes just a few steps and a lot of creativity to make this happen. You can check out the more detailed blog post on it in the link below.

Source: Flixel

Facebook wants to keep your Android device safe with Security Checkup

We’re constantly hearing reports about security breaches online so we can’t help but feel a tiny bit paranoid for our online accounts. Thankfully, big sites and social networks like Facebook are looking to help calm your fears. Facebook has brought its Security Checkup tool from its online site to Android app. Security Checkup aims to add another layer of security for Facebook accounts. It makes it easier to log out of Facebook from browsers and devices you haven’t used Facebook on for a while. It also turns on Login Alerts in case someone tries to log into your account from a new phone or computer. And it protects your password, too.

You can use the Security Checkup tool in the Facebook Help Center on your Android app or online via this link.

Facebook closes the doors on its Creative Labs

Facebook's Slingshot is one of the app's getting the boot.

You might not be familiar with Facebook’s Creative Labs but that team’s been responsible for introducing the social network’s standalone apps like Slingshot, Rooms, and Riff. All of these together with said team have been shut down. The three Creative Labs apps have been pulled from iOS App Store and Google Play Store. Slingshot was Facebook’s Snapchat-like service; Riff was for “riffing” on viral videos; and Rooms was the company’s anonymous chatroom app. Users who already have the apps can still use it. Those who use Rooms can continue to do so until December 23^rd. There’s no final posting day set yet for Slingshot or Riff.

Even though Facebook is disbanding its Creative Labs division, some of the features developed by the team are being integrated into Facebook’s main app. For example, Paper, a Creative Labs’ creation, is being used as an inspiration for the look of Facebook’s Instant Articles project. This goes to show that while Facebook is a successful social network, it doesn’t mean all their projects meet the same level of success as the others.

Source: MacWorld