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Facebook Messenger is the latest app to adopt end-to-end encryption for its chats, ensuring that conversations cannot be accessed even by Facebook. It’s just in testing so far, but the company says that it will be made available more widely in the course of the summer.

We are starting to test the ability to create one-to-one secret conversations in Messenger that will be end-to-end encrypted and which can only be read on one device of the person you’re communicating with. That means the messages are intended just for you and the other person — not anyone else, including us.

While Apple uses end-to-end encryption as standard for both iMessages and FaceTime, and WhatsApp followed suit in April, Facebook is taking a slightly different approach …

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Facebook today has announced a new Featured Events capability that will make it even easier for users to find nearby ongoings right in the Facebook app itself. While Facebook already has support for Events, with 550 million people taking advantage of it each month, the company hopes that Featured Events will give more a more personalized experience.

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Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is no stranger to elaborate security. It was reported earlier this year that Facebook has spent more than $16 million on security to protect the executive from “specific threats” from users and other sources. Meanwhile, Zuckerberg has also apparently hired 16 bodyguards to protect him at home. Now, Zuckerberg has inadvertently revealed another security measure he takes – and it’s surprisingly simple.

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Just days after Apple announced major enhancements to iMessage, Facebook today revealed a significant update to its Messenger app. In a blog post, the company announced major changes coming to how users are able to start a conversation.

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It wasn’t that long ago when creating 360-degree photos that you could share with others online required special camera kit, and you had to post them on websites that supported the feature. It’s since got much easier, and as of the latest update to the iOS Facebook app, you don’t need anything more than your iPhone and the stock camera app.

Simply take a panorama with your phone […] and then post it on Facebook as you would a normal photo. From there, we’ll convert it to an immersive 360 photo that people can explore, similar to how people experience 360 videos on Facebook … 

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Facebook held its annual F8 developer’s conference today that laid out the foundation for what the company plans to accomplish as far out as the next ten years. Today’s keynote presentation focused more on what the next year at Facebook and its products would look like for customers. Putting a heavy emphasis on Messenger and Facebook Live, it’s fair to say that you’ll be seeing a lot of these changes coming to mobile very soon.

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According to a new report from TechCrunch, Facebook is working with developers to build chatbots and Live Chat web plugins for business clients. The tools are said to be officially announced next week at the social network’s F8 conference. Chatbots will allow for businesses to offer automated response systems for responding to inquires from potential customers.

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At a time when so many Facebook posts comprise a photo and a brief comment, there’s one group of people who get rather left out of the picture: those who are blind and partially sighted. That’s a problem Facebook is fixing, starting from today. The iOS app now uses artificial intelligence to figure out the content of photos, and Apple’s VoiceOver feature to read aloud a description of them.

The Verge got a demo of the feature, which Facebook calls ‘automatic alt text.’

Automatic alt text, which is coming to iOS today and later to Android and the web, recognizes objects in photos using machine learning […] While still in its early stages, the technology can reliably identify concepts in categories including transportation (“car,” “boat,” “airplane”), nature (“snow,” “ocean,” “sunset”), sports (“basketball court”), and food (“sushi”). The technology can also describe people (“baby,” “smiling,” beard”), and identify a selfie.

Facebook said that there were two approaches it could have taken to the problem, and it chose the one it believed would be most successful …

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According to a report out of The Information today, Facebook has begun preparing several new features for Facebook Messenger, including a new service that allows users to pay for items to be picked up in person, a new “secret” chat feature, and more. If nothing else, these features could be insight into how the company plans to monetize its messaging platform…

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Following in the footsteps of Facebook, Instagram today announced in a blog post that it will soon adjust the way in which content is presented in its iOS and Android apps. While content is currently shown in chronological order, Instagram will soon switch to new personalized algorithms based on each user…

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Remember six months ago when Snapchat introduced its crazy selfie lens feature that sort of went viral? Facebook wants in on the “how’d you do that” action too so it bought the recently launched app Masquerade (stylized as MSQRD) to instantly have access to its own selfie filter features. Masquerade, which only launched on iOS in December, works similarly to Snapchat’s filter feature seen above by using facial recognition over video to transform faces with comical filter effects.

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Following Apple’s filling earlier today in which it formally responded to the FBI’s court request to access date on a locked iPhone, the Wall Street Journal now reports that Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Twitter all plan to file court motions supporting Apple’s stance.

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Facebook has long faced calls for a Dislike button on posts, users arguing that they may want to express support in response to bad news, and Liking a post feels like the wrong way to do it. After a great deal of testing, the company has today announced that it is supplementing the Like button with five additional one-touch responses – but Dislike isn’t one of them …

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