Facebook changed your life today

Highlights from the annual F8 Developers Conference

Messenger chatbot API

• We have all heard the phrase “bots are coming”, and most of us have seen Robin Williams in his epic journey to become a human in the 1999 hit “Bicentennial Man”. As distant of a future as that may seem, we aren’t very far from that being our reality. Bots ARE coming, and if you aren’t paying attention they might come for your job.

“We think you should be able to message businesses like you message a friend” — Mark Zuckerberg

The chatbot API will now allow businesses to build chatbots that communicate with you inside of Facebook Messenger. Forget about that 1–800 number or the annoying phone tree you have to sit through to pay your power bill. Chatbots are the future of business interacting with their customers. You can even order Taco Bell in Messenger, and that is not a joke. You don’t have to be drunk or be 2 in the morning to enjoy a melty Gordita Crunch. Well, you probably have to be drunk to enjoy it, but you can order it through messenger. That is our future. Taco Bell and Bots. 🤖 Sorry guys.

Bot Engine

• Teaching the chatbots what to say to you with Artificial Intelligence — Along with the announcement of their open API to build chat bots, Facebook announced the beta launch of “Bot Engine”. David Marcus, the VP of Messaging, wrote about the launch of Bot Engine in this blog post. By feeding the engine new information, new tasks, and new data, it will understand more situations and will become smarter over time.
• Bot Engine comes just a year after the launch of “M”, Facebook’s “Siri”.

The future of AR and VR

• A huge obstacle facing the VR/AR industry is the fact that as of now you have to wear clunky hardware on your face. Andre from LiveLikeVR and the STHQ community speak about this often. It’s incredibly difficult to convince consumers to wear this on their face and sit through an entire soccer game or any lengthy amount of time. Well ole Zuck here seems to think he has the problem solved.

• Just 10 years away from “Ray-Ban” size VR glasses. So that solves that problem, but the other big issue facing the VR/AR industry is the fact that as of now there is very little content you can watch in virtual reality, especially augmented reality. Granted, the porn industry jumped all over the opportunity to create VR porn (click the link, or don’t click the link? Youll have to decide)😜 . That’s just porn, and we are far from augmented reality. Microsoft lied to us when they said they could do this…

• Although this looks very cool, we might be a ways off before Russell is standing in your living room while you watch the Seahawks play. Fortunately for us though, we might be one step further towards that reality with the unveiling of Facebooks’ open source 360 VR camera.

• Although it will still cost you $30k, it’s far cheaper than anything you would need to buy to create VR content. Making this type of technology accessible to the masses might just be what is needed to propel us into the virtual future…

“It’s almost starting to look like the chicken and the egg. Hardware is waiting for content to catch on, content isn’t worth creating due to lack of mass market hardware. Maybe an open source push like this will be the catalyst.” — as pointed out by Matthew Heid in the STHQ Slack community.

Facebook live: Livestream API open to developers

• This is incredibly exciting, especially for sports.

• Phoenix Filming is an awesome company from Washington DC that is using Drones as a service in sports.

“Phoenix Filming works with your playbook and coaching staff to provide aerial footage to teams of all sizes and budgets. Using our hardware and experience, we will provide teams with practice shots they can only get with drones. We have developed an Operations Manual that allows up to capture the All-22 Shot, Box Shot, Sideline Shot, High Endzone Shot and the player Selfie Shot.”

• My parents now live in Florida and my brother plays college football at Randolph Macon in Virginia (mom and dad, talking to you guys). Wouldn’t it be awesome if you could hop on Facebook to watch an arial livestream of Chris’s games? Yes. The answer is yes. It would be very awesome and this will be a very real possibility, very soon.

• Facebook has partnered with DJI, the Chinese drone manufacturer. Here is Zuck live streaming video from a DJI phantom during the F8 conference. Aside from sports, there are tons of other applications for this type of technology. As with everything else Facebook announced today, the possibilities are endless…

Facebook’s internet beaming satellites to launch soon

• You know how when you are about to go on vacation and you think to yourself, “I am totally shutting off this trip, I really need a break from everything”. Yea haha Facebook has other plans…

• Facebook has consistently pushed for a “more connected world”. Mark has stated multiple times that one big focus for Facebook is providing internet access to the almost 60% of the worlds population that currently doesn’t have access. Think about how much your day-to-day life revolves around the internet, now think about the fact that more than half of the worlds population still doesn't have access to it, pretty crazy. Although these Facebook satellites that Zuck is planning on using to blanket the earth with internet access aren’t so good for your vacation plans, they will do a lot of good for a lot of people around the world.

There were a few other announcements from F8…

Instant Articles open to all publishers — No more lag time for those dumb articles you are opening that you don’t really want to read anyways. Instant Articles is now available to all publishers who want to upload their content to the social network.

Account Kit: Sign into apps without passwords — Account Kit will allow third party developers to develop apps that will allow users to log in without having to use a password.

A “Save to Facebook” Button — Now that list of articles you are never going to read but you save on Facebook anyways will get even longer with “save to Facebook” button. Developers can put the button on sites other than Facebook.

A button for sharing quotes —share quotes you find from around the web on Facebook.

So that’s about it. Facebook said that they would change the world, and today they certainly have delivered. There is much more to come too. Mark presented the companies “10 year roadmap”…

“Facebook’s 10-year roadmap is basically lasers, bots and VR” — Napier Lopez

… Only time will tell what will come from all of this new tech. One thing is for sure though, Facebook is definitely on track for world domination.