Earlier this week, Facebook’s founder and Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg took to Facebook Live to demonstrate some of the new features which could hit the largest social network on the planet in the near future. More specifically, during his stream, Zuckerberg was experimenting with a set of products developed by the company’s engineers during the latest iteration of the Facebook Hackathon which took place in November.
Among other things, the founder of Facebook demonstrated a customized version of the Oculus Touch controllers, a solution for posting GIFs in Facebook comments, an option to request someone’s location within Messenger, and a convenient offline messaging service. Zuckerberg’s live stream started with the famous entrepreneur picking up a pair of enhanced Oculus Touch controllers capable of turning hot or cold depending on players’ interactions with their virtual environments. As he approached a virtual fire and hovered his hands above it, Zuckerberg said that his controllers turned warm. Following that short presentation, Facebook’s CEO demonstrated a service for sharing one’s location through Messenger. The solution allows Messenger users to approve individual contacts as trusted which in turn enables them to request their location at any time. Users can decide between automatically sharing their location with friends and family or disabling the auto-response for a specific amount of time. Coincidentally, this works pretty much like the Trusted Contacts app Google debuted just a few days ago.
Furthermore, Zuckerberg’s stream also showcased a solution for posting GIFs in Facebook comments, powered by GIPHY and Riffsy search engines. The company’s engineers that came up with this product stated that GIF support should be rolling out shortly to all iterations of Facebook, while Zuckerberg himself said he’s certain users will love this new feature which works just like Twitter’s GIF integration does. In addition to that, Facebook’s CEO also revealed an offline messaging solution for the company’s Messenger Lite app available in developing countries. The stream ended with a demonstration of an AI-powered Facebook album which compiles photos and videos from comments of a single post and automatically turns them into an online album. Now, apart from GIF support for Facebook comments, there’s still no confirmation any of these features will ever officially roll out, but more information should follow soon.