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Mark Zuckerberg Reveals Upcoming Features in First Facebook Live Q&A

Mark Zuckerberg Reveals Upcoming Features in First Facebook Live Q&A

By Tasneem Akolawala | Updated: 15 June 2016 12:24 IST

Highlights

Facebook is building tools for the disabled, Zuckerberg said.
It is interested in building tools to promote online education.
The team also working on upgrades to Live Video.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg conducted his first ever live Q&A on the social platform to answer people's queries from across the world. Using Facebook Live for the first time in a Q&A session, he touched upon various topics including online education, specific features for the disabled, Live Video upgrades, virtual reality, and even briefly mentioned Orlando shooting that happened over the weekend.

Zuckerberg began the session by answering the most popular question. A Facebook user from Sydney requested folders on Facebook to store things like recipes. The question had about 1,000 likes, and Zuckerberg claimed that the company was working on it, without getting into the specifics. In the meanwhile, he asserted that there are hoards of special interest groups on Facebook that users could join to learn and share things of the same interest with each other.

He also made a special mention to the 49 people that were killed in Orlando over the weekend. He read out a comment from a Florida user asserting that social media technology needs to be used to find solutions to humanities problems, and work together towards peace.

Touching upon online education, Zuckerberg expressed interest over building tools that would enable users to learn things on the social media platform. He also confirmed that Facebook is working on features to improve experience for the challenged and disabled. The social platform will use artificial intelligence to build tools that would decode an image and read it out loud for the blind users. Moreover, it looks to support video subtitles for users who are hearing impaired.

Facebook also is working on improving Live Videos, and bring tweaks like chat back for a more immersive experience. This will enable talk back into the video, for a real time chat on Facebook. Zuckerberg just said that it was a work-in-progress, and did not dwell into any timeframe specifics.

(Also see: Facebook Live Used by Alleged Terrorist to Broadcast Confession)

He also spoke about the social giant's push into virtual reality. He said that while virtual reality is a grand tech innovation, it is not the end of it. There is a lot past VR, and research to capture thought is also been conducted. "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 said.

Zuckerberg chose to keep it light, and even ended all rumours that he is not a lizard. He even said that if he were to start Facebook in today's times, it would be via a mobile app. He rubbished rumours of ever making Facebook a paid platform, and said that the main aim of the platform was to connect people. Comedian Jerry Seinfeld also joined him at the end of the Q&A for a brief period.

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