Articles about Meta

The inescapability of AI continues, and Meta is at the forefront. WhatsApp has already liberally coated itself in features driven by artificial intelligence, and now there are more.

This time around, things are fairly innocuous. The chat platform has now added the option of using AI backgrounds within video chats.

Continue reading →

Instagram has a handful of updates to explore – some available to everyone, others in testing with a smaller group. First up there are updates to the handling of DMs, something Instagram is billing as being aimed at creators.

While creators’ inboxes are likely to be busier than the average person, everyone can use the new DM tools which provide new ways to sort and filter messages. Another exciting development sees the testing of picture-in-picture video mode for viewing Reels.

Continue reading →

WhatsApp is getting another injection of artificial intelligence in the form of Writing Help. As you would guess from the name, this is a tool designed to help you come up with the perfect message for different scenarios.

With Writing Help being billed as something that could be of assistance in all manner of communication, there will be understandable concerns about privacy. WhatsApp is one step ahead of worried users here, pointing out that Writing Help is built on top of Private Processing technology.

Continue reading →

WhatsApp beta testers have access to a new option that allows them to link to a verified Instagram profile, complete with a special icon that others should recognize.

This ability is not necessarily something that will appeal to or interest all WhatsApp users, but it is certainly something that has value for some types of user. Creators are among those who are likely to welcome this addition, as are companies and brands looking to build trust and drive engagement.

Continue reading →

WhatsApp would like you to leave a message after the beep. In what feels like a blast from the past, Meta is testing what equates to an answerphone service in WhatsApp.

Currently undergoing beta testing with a limited number of users, the feature seeks to encourage conversation and connectivity. You have almost certainly been notified of a missed WhatsApp call on your phone, but how many times has the person who called followed up with a text message? Probably not often, and this is something WhatsApps is looking to address.

Continue reading →

Rokid will unveil its newest wearable, the Rokid Glasses, at a launch event in New York City on August 26. The company says the device is the world’s lightest full-function AI and AR smart glasses, combining translation, navigation, transcription, and a first-person camera in an everyday design.

The glasses run on Qualcomm’s AR1 platform and include features such as real-time multilingual translation, live transcription, a teleprompter function, and object recognition. Rokid is also building around a developer ecosystem that already counts more than 15,000 developers in China, with plans to expand internationally.

Continue reading →

WhatsApp is now an essential communication tool for both personal and business use, and its popularity means that it is also a prime target for scammers. As such, the company has just announced the rollout of a new series of tools designed to help keep users informed and protected.

Among these new tools is a safety warning for group chats that warns about being added to new chat groups by unknown contacts. There are also tools and advice for individual chats, which are also targets for scams.

Continue reading →

There is some disappointing news for WhatsApp users who like to work with the desktop app. In what appears to be part of a streamlining process, Meta is dropping the UWP app in favor of a web wrapper.

There are advantages and disadvantages to this, but few people who have compared the native Windows app with the web-based version off WhatsApp can have failed to notice the performance difference. The WhatsApp UWP app has always been snappier, more responsive, and used fewer resources, so in some ways it feels like a backwards step to switch to a web wrapper.

Continue reading →

Facebook posts take many forms – images, videos, links, reels, and text. The company has tweaked and added to the posting options over the years and has now just announced a neat new option for text-based posts.

Just as is possible on other social media platforms, Facebook users are being given the chance to embellish their text posts with background music. Working in a similar way to adding background music toa video post, there is a limit library of tracks to choose from.

Continue reading →

We first heard about Trial Reels last year, and Instagram launched the feature to a limited number of creators back in December. Now the social media giant is giving more people access to the feature which is designed to help grow a following.

There is not yet free access to Trial Reels for everyone and anyone; there are entry requirements. The promotion tool is aimed at creators, and a following of at least 1,000 is needed to get started. You will also need to have an account that is set to public. So, if you meet these criteria, what does Trial Reels mean for you?

Continue reading →

Post an image to Instagram and it will almost certainly be automatically cropped. The reason for this is that, until now, the platform has supported 4:5 aspect ratio images, as well as the Instagram staple -- the square format.

But this is not in line with how most people shoot photographs, and the platform is finally taking this into account. There is now support for a new (new to Instagram, at least), aspect ratio.

Continue reading →

While WhatsApp is, ostensibly, a messaging, chat and video calling platform, it is more than that; it is also a pseudo social media platform. The Status section of WhatsApp has gradually evolved over the years to become a way to not only indicate your availability, but to express much more.

And now Status has received another massive upgrade. It is now possible to display a collage of multiple photos, share music, and much more. A plethora of new options are rolling out globally; here's what you have to look forward to.

Continue reading →

Using WhatsApp on an iPad has long meant making a compromise or two. The reason is that there has simply not been a version of WhatsApp designed for Apple's tablet, forcing users to turn to WhatsApp Web in Safari.

After an incredibly long period of development, Meta has finally produced an iPad version of WhatsApp. So how does the iPadOS port of WhatsApp look?

Continue reading →

WhatsApp has announced the expansion of its Voice Chat feature for groups. The live audio feature is something that was well-received when it first appeared in the chat app, so the wider rollout makes a lot of sense. There is a twist, however.

While the feature is now available to more users than before, the expansion is not like most feature expansions.

Continue reading →

Under a great deal of political pressure to do so, many social media platforms have opted to move away from using fact checking services. X and Facebook are among those to have adopted a “community notes” system that relies on crowd sourcing rather than third party companies.

Such systems have faced criticism because of the potential for manipulation, but these risks have been downplayed by social media firms. But now X has decided to take steps to improve its own Community Notes system to help detect suspicious activity that could be indicative of manipulation attempts.

Continue reading →