May 1, 2018 4:59 PM

Everything Facebook Announced Today at F8

Oculus Go, Facebook for dating, and a suite of new features for Instagram and WhatsApp.

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Almost everything Zuckerberg and his colleagues announced today focused on bringing people together. Virtual reality? It’s about letting you play Boggle with your friends who live across the country. Messenger? A tool for business owners touch base with their customers. There’s even a new Facebook dating platform for, uh, sparking “connections.” The 90-minute keynote speech was filled with ways Facebook hopes it can make its ecosystem feel more social. Also, celebrity dog Jiff the Pomeranian made an appearance.

If that sounds like a lot to take in, we agree. So we’ve rounded up all the highlights from this year’s F8.

Oculus
Oculus Go
If you want a hint about where Facebook is headed, look to virtual reality. Today, it’s pushing its view of the future into the real world with the release of Oculus Go. The standalone VR headset goes on sale today for $199. At that price point, Facebook’s trying to convince people that VR can be easy, affordable, even intuitive. Facebook’s also introducing a few new things you can do in VR: Oculus TV lets you stream Netflix or Hulu into your headset; Oculus Venues does the same for live concerts, sporting events, and comedy shows. There’s also Oculus Rooms, a place to casually hang out and play a friendly board game with friends … in virtual reality. Thinking of buying it? Read our Oculus Go review first.
Facebook
Facebook for Dating
Facebook's getting into the matchmaking game with a brand new dating feature, built right into its own app. OK, so Facebook Dating looks a lot like Tinder. It works like Tinder, too, except for that you can connect it to Facebook Events to find potential matches at concerts or block parties. Zuckerberg says it’s designed for “building real, long-term relationships, not just hookups.” We’ll see how that goes. Read more about the dating feature here.

Instagram
Instagram
Love the playlist you’re listening to on Spotify? You can now share it directly to your Instagram Story, thanks to a new integration with the platform. You can also upload footage directly from the GoPro app into Instagram. The company says more third-party apps will be integrated soon, so you can expect a growing number of ways to enhance your Stories. Instagram is also borrowing from Facebook’s Camera Effects Platform to roll out new AR features in the app, and a redesigned Explore tab to help people discover new content on Instagram.
Marcio Jose Sanchez/AP
WhatsApp
You can now video chat with your friends through Instagram. WhatsApp already offered video chat, but the app now supports group video calls too. Remember? It’s all about “connecting people.”

Messenger
You might not care about Messenger, but lots of businesses do. Businesses send and receive 8 billion messages through the chat app every month. Now, Facebook’s redesigning the app to improve those interactions. There’s a new Customer Chat plug-in that lets businesses integrate Messenger into their websites, and an opportunity for #brands to tap into Facebook’s augmented reality tech. M, Messenger’s virtual assistant, gets new functionality too: It can now offer realtime translations within a chat app—in English and Spanish for now, but more languages soon.
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
Privacy
Are we forgetting something? Oh, right: the fact that F8 comes on the heels of major controversy about how Facebook handles user privacy, collects data, and undermines the very fabric of our democracy. Today, Zuckerberg nodded to those problems and introduced a new feature that lets users clear their browsing history from the platform. He also affirmed Facebook’s commitment to preventing “fake news” and fake accounts from spreading on the platform. He didn’t say much about how Facebook plans to do that—but you can read more about the company’s plan in this exclusive interview with Zuckerberg.

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Arielle Pardes, a former senior writer for WIRED, covers people and products in Silicon Valley. ... Read More

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