For the first time ever, Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, addressed a worldwide Facebook audience in a Live Q&A session on Tuesday. The social media website founder used the Live feature on the website to talk about Facebook’s future plans and certain feature additions planned in subsequent releases. Of course, an official Facebook live stream cannot go sans a surprise event, and that’s exactly what happened. Comedian Jerry Seinfeld joined Zuckerberg to add some much needed flavour to the live stream.
Folders
To kickstart the Q&A session, Zuckerberg answered one of the top voted questions about the inclusion of folders for saving “stuff in, like recipes.” The Facebook CEO responded by saying that the company is looking to create similar spaces, which would allow users to store and share their favourite posts. He also hinted at a feature that will allow users to create closed groups, for sharing such articles.
VR
Virtual Reality is also an industry that Facebook is eager to tap. Speaking about the company’s foray into the VR space, Zuck pointed at the increasing popularity of the platform. He also confirmed that after the inclusion of 360 videos and photos on the social media website, the company is now looking to add VR experiences as well. "There is some crazy brain research going on, where you can take an MRI of a person doing different activities, and then can predict what they are thinking. It's a technology that is still many years away," he added.
AI
If you saw Microsoft’s Build Conference this year, you would remember their engineer Saqib Shaikh, who developed an AI powered app to describe pictures and objects to those with visual impairments. Now, seems like Facebook too has their own engineer working on a similar technology. Zuckerberg spoke about a blind Facebook engineer (most probably a guy named Matt King) who is working on AI based facial recognition for blind FB users. The feature will be used to provide audio description of pictures on Facebook, for those with visual impairments.
Live Video
Facebook’s live streaming feature was also a topic of discussion in Zuckerberg’s session. He promised that a new chat back feature is in the works. He also encouraged Facebook users to try out the feature, so that the company can keep developing the same.
Seinfeld!
“Isn’t it funny how we work so hard to just eliminate a little bit of effort? To get the door is not that much work but we are going to put in a lot of work to save us from walking to the door and opening it,” said Seinfeld as Zuckerberg spoke about Artificial Intelligence. The comedian went on to ask Zuckerberg about his daily routine and his Facebook usage patterns. The duo also spoke quipped for some more time before they ended the Live session.