Facebook will be rolling out a new notifications tab in its iOS and Android applications. Facebook’s Product Manager, Keith Peiris posted about the changes in the company's official blog. The redesigned look will add reminders in the form of cards about the user’s day, friends, as well as other topics based on preferences and previous activity. The rollout is currently only for those users living in the US.
Along with general Facebook notifications, users will now get information about their friends’ milestones such as birthdays and other life events. It will also give sports updates as well as TV reminders based on the pages a user has liked. Users will also get updates for upcoming events that they have joined.
Users also have the option of getting additional information if they choose to enable Location History in the Facebook app. When they do so, users will get information about things happening in their community such as local events as well as news about their city. They will also get weather updates as well as severe weather alerts. Aside from this, users will also be informed about movies that are playing in nearby theaters. They will also get a list of nearby places to eat along with the links to their respective Facebook pages and reviews. Users can also customise information that they see but tapping an arrow to the right of each card.
Facebook is also working on its own virtual assistant called M. Unlike other virtual assistant like Siri, Cortana and Google Now, M will be have real people working behind the scenes to help it accomplish tasks. Through the service, users will be able to buy items, make travel arrangements and appointments, book tickets, deliver gifts, and more. The service is currently being tested by a small number of users living in San Francisco. A number of screenshots showing the assistant in action appeared on Buzzfeed. The screenshots showed the assistant accomplishing a number of different tasks. This included finding nearby restaurants and providing a screenshot of its Yelp page showing its reviews. M also found the cheapest flight tickets and also booked a flight with all monetary transactions happening from within the app itself.
Source: Facebook