Catch up on everything from the Facebook F8 developer conference
Missed the Facebook F8 conference? Fear not. Wired have pulled together a comprehensive roundup of everything major that went down at the platform’s annual developer powwow. The focus this year seemed to be very much on both VR and AR. New virtual reality hangout spaces featuring bobble-headed avatars will be big and augmented reality overlays that allow users to turn table tops into game boards will be even bigger.
YouTube enlists teens to help tackle fake news and fixes ‘Restricted Mode’ bug Teenage guardians of the internet, assemble! That’s right, YouTube is training 13 to 18 year-olds to moderate video content on its platform in order to tackle the spread of hate speech and fake news. YouTube has also reportedly fixed a bug that was causing LGBTQ+ content to be filtered out when users activated the “Restricted Mode” feature. The fix means that up to 12 million videos featuring LGBTQ+ content will now be available to watch.
Snapchat launches new world lenses
Ever wanted to swap faces with a tree? Or put dog ears on a wheelie bin? Well, now you can thanks to the roll out of Snapchat’s world lenses. This new batch of lenses allow you to drop rainbows, flowers and other digital delights on to landscapes, backgrounds and other non-human things. The new lenses use the phone’s rear-facing camera for capture.
Snapchat racks up record-breaking patent purchase
Snapchat has also snapped up the official geofilters patent for a meagre $7.7m from Mobli, the Israeli company which came up with the original idea. Facebook was reportedly interested in the patent. The patent purchase has set a new record for Israel, where the previous highest amount ever paid for a patent was $2.7 million.
People in the UK can now buy festival tickets on Facebook You can now get tickets to that thing you love directly through Facebook. Launched last year in the US, this feature now offers UK users the ability to buy gig and festival tickets thanks to a freshly inked partnership with Eventbrite. Users can buy tickets without leaving the platform and a digital copy of the tickets will be stored in the app.
The first Pinterest ad campaign is coming Pinterest is to launch its first ad campaign in the US. The aim of the campaign is to define exactly what the platform is about, which for those who don’t know, is providing inspiration for wedding favours, throw cushions and spice racks. Or as they put it, targeting people who have gone from “dreaming about their life, to designing it.”
Starbucks’ Unicorn Frappuccino made a real froth on social
The words ‘meme-based menu’ should make most people want to weep for weeks, but not the plucky marketing crew at Starbucks. Their ‘Unicorn Frappuccino’ has been a social smash for the brand, so standby for other technicolour stunt-foods in the future.
