How to Change Your Facebook Name on an Android Smartphone

Due to Facebook's terms of service, you would never want to change your Facebook name whatsoever as long as there is any genuine reason to do so such as changing your name due to marriage.

Before you go any further towards the process of changing your Facebook name, you must keep in mind that once you make amendments in your name on Facebook, you will not be able to make any further changes before the duration of 60 days. This restriction has been added to Facebook in order to prevent fake IDs and/or frauds.

Once you clearly understand the restrictions and consequences that you might experience after changing your Facebook name, you can follow the steps given below to get the job done using your Android phone:

This entire process is very simple and easy even for the person who is using an Android Smartphone for the first time

1. Turn on your Android phone.
2. From the home screen, tap the Menu button to go to the apps list.
   
3. From the available apps, tap the Facebook icon.
   
4. If you are not already signed in, on the opened window, provide your login details in the appropriate fields and tap the Log In button.
   
5. On the News Feed interface that comes up, tap the More button (Icon with three horizontal lines) from the top-right corner of the screen.
   
6. From the opened More interface, scroll down and tap the Account Settings option available under the HELP & SETTINGS section.
   
7. From the Settings window, tap General.
   
8. On the next window that comes up, tap the Name option.
   
9. On the Change Name window, type your first name, middle name, and your last name in the First Name, Middle Name, and Last Name fields respectively.

10. Type your Facebook account password in the To save the setting, please enter your Facebook password textbox.

11. Finally tap the Save button to change your Facebook name.

Facebook Spaces: A New Way To Connect With Friends In VR

Spending time with friends and family creates many of our most meaningful memories, but it’s impossible to always be physically near the people we care about. 

That’s where the magic of virtual reality comes in. Today, we’re introducing Facebook Spaces — a new VR app where you hang out with friends in a fun, interactive virtual environment as if you were in the same room. Facebook Spaces launches in beta for Oculus Rift and Touch today, and you can download it now from the Oculus Store.

Be Yourself in VR

It’s easy to create an identity that represents the real you in Facebook Spaces. This helps people recognize you and makes VR feel more like hanging out in person. Just choose one of your Facebook photos and you’ll see an array of options for your VR appearance. Start with one of these options, then customize until it feels just right. You can change your eye color, hairstyle, facial features and more until your look fits your identity. It’s all about being yourself.

Get Together, Have Fun and Share Experiences With People You Care About

Once you’ve decided on your look, jump into the experience and invite your Facebook friends to join you.

You can draw in the air with a virtual marker to create anything you can dream up, from a decorative hat to a handmade tic-tac-toe board.

You’ll also find the rich variety of Facebook content at your fingertips to view with friends in VR, including 360 videos and photos that can transport you to new places. You and your friends can relive personal memories from your own Timelines, or even make new ones as you explore things that interest you from people and Pages you follow.

Bring Anyone In On the Fun

Why should the people in VR have all the fun? Facebook Spaces lets you easily phone a friend in the real world with Messenger video calling, so you can bring even more people into your VR space. They can answer your call on their phone to instantly open a window into your virtual world. Whether you want to show off your latest 3D drawing masterpiece, play an amazing 360 video your friend would love, or just spend time chatting, it’s one of the best ways to be in the moment together, from anywhere.

Of course, there’s a selfie stick too. Use it to take photos of your experience and share the memories you create in VR with your friends on Facebook.

Control Your Experience

We want Facebook Spaces to be a comfortable place for everyone. You have control of your experience, including the ability to pause at any time. Pausing moves you into a quiet space where you can take a break away from other people and activities. You can also choose to mute your friends or remove them from your space. Facebook Spaces is all about connecting with friends and family that you know and trust, and we’re committed to making VR a positive place for all.

What’s Next

Today is only the beginning. We’re launching in beta, and we’ll add new features as we learn from your feedback and continue exploring what makes social VR experiences most meaningful. We also plan to bring the experience to more platforms over time. We’ve only just scratched the surface of social VR technology. In the future, it will continue to transform the way people around the world stay connected with their communities and those closest to them. We can’t wait to get there.

How do I add or change my profile video?

You can take or upload a video of up to 7 seconds to use as your profile video. Profile videos appear at the top your profile just like a profile picture. You can currently only add a profile video from iPhone or Android.

To add a profile video from iPhone:

1. Go to your profile and tap your profile picture or video
2. Tap Take a New Profile Video to take a new video or tap Select Profile Video to choose a video on your phone
3. Record a new video or select a video already on your phone
4. Tap Use

To add a profile video from Android:

1. Go to your profile and tap your profile picture or video
2. Tap Take a New Profile Video to take a new video or tap Select Profile Video to choose a video on your phone
3. Tap Next, then tap the bar at the bottom of the screen to choose a thumbnail for your video
4. Tap Use

Note: Profile videos are public and can be viewed by everyone.

After taking or uploading a video, you can then select a thumbnail from the video as your profile picture. The picture will show up in Facebook's news feed. Only when people visit your profile page will they see your video, which helps people add a some flair to their profiles without making Facebook's newsfeed overly distracting.

Elsewhere in the update is new bio field that lets you add a short, 101-character blurb about yourself and featured photos that let you select the five photos that appear on the mobile version of your profile page. Both of these features are available from your profile page on both mobile and desktop platforms.

Lastly, you can set a temporary Facebook profile picture (but not video) for both iOS and Android. When you select a new photo to use for your profile picture, you'll see a small Make temporarybutton in the lower-left corner of the Crop screen. Tap on this button and you can select 1 Hour, 1 Day, 1 Week or Custom.

Google introduces 'Quick Draw Turning scribble to art

Using your finger or mouse to draw on your smartphone, tablet or computer can be slow and very difficult. In order to address this little, yet much needed issue, 

Google created and now debuted  AutoDraw . The new web-based tool pairs machine learning with drawings created by talented artists to help you draw. Pretty similar to what a swipe keyboard or handwriting recognition can do, AutoDraw can intelligently identify what you wish to draw from a simple scribble to perfect art.

When you scribble an outline of something that you want to draw, the machine learning incorporated artificial intelligence senses an appropriate drawing and places it on the screen. It also asks you if you actually drew what you did or did you mean something different, similar to what an autocorrect algorithm does on a smartphone keyboard. For example, if you draw a jagged line from top to bottom, the AI senses that you could be drawing a flash and places it on screen and also asks you if you meant something different and puts it into a small bar on top of the drawing screen. Or if you drew two circles with a stroked line, it asks you if you wanted to draw a spectacle frame or a bicycle. AutoDraw’s suggestion tool uses the same technology from an earlier launched project ‘Quick Draw’ to guess what you’re trying to draw. >>>>> Quick Draw only tries to guess what you drew.

The best part of AutoDraw — it’s completely free and works on your smartphone, tablet and even your desktop PC or laptop. So next time you want to create your own greeting card, make sure you give AutoDraw a try. The new AI drawing portal is fun and kids can adopt it well for learning and entertainment.

Though the algorithm is great and predicts most of what you would want to draw, there are many more items, drawings, figures and more that needs to be added. For example, we did try drawing a regular IC chip and the prediction was off — it detected birthday cake, table, balloon, water drops, chandelier, and what not. Well, we did not expect it to be perfect, but we are sure the tool will definitely make itself better in time.

AutoDraw is developed with the help of artists, designers, illustrators and friends of Google who created original drawings. The hands behind AutoDraw are HAWRAF — Design Studio, Erin Butner — Designer, Julia Melograna — Illustrator, Pei Liew —Designer, Simone Noronha — Designer, Tori Hinn — Designer and Selman Design — Creative Studio.

Google has also invited all users who are interested in submitting their designs and drawings to help take their latest AI experiment AutoDraw to a higher level in order to make drawing fun for everyone and more accessible.

M Now Offers Suggestions to Make Your Messenger Experience More Useful, Seamless and Delightful

Today we’re excited to announce the launch of suggestions from M to everyone in the US. M is your helpful assistant in Messenger, powered by artificial intelligence.

 M offers suggestions by popping into an open conversation to suggest relevant content and capabilities to enrich the way people communicate and get things done.

When we announced M over a year ago, it was a small AI experiment powered by humans that could fulfill almost any request. We learned a lot and these interactions have enabled us to build a completely automated version of M that suggests helpful actions in your chat, exposing features people may not have known were available right in Messenger. Suggestions from M has been testing with a small percentage of users for the past few months — and it has been a great success — today we’re expanding it to all Messenger users in the US.

Suggestions from M appear when it recognizes intent in a conversation and initially will include the following actions:

• Sending stickers: M shares fun sticker suggestions for your daily life interactions like “Thank you” or “Bye-bye.”
• Paying or requesting money: M recognizes when people are discussing payments and gives them the option of easily sending or requesting money.
• Sharing your location: M can suggest an option to share your location during a conversation.
• Making plans: If people are talking about getting together, M helps coordinating a plan.
• Starting a poll (in group conversations only): Have a hard time making decisions in a group? M lets you set a poll topic and vote in group conversations.
• Getting a Ride: Talking about going somewhere? M suggests “Get A Ride” and shares an option of Lyft or Uber.

M relies on AI machine learning techniques. It suggests relevant actions to help manage conversations or help get things done. We are bringing the power of M’s AI technology to support and enhance the Messenger experience and make it more useful, personal and seamless. To experience M, simply chat with a friend or a group as you normally would. M may make a suggestion in a conversation relevant to one of the core actions listed above, and then the M logo and suggestion will appear — it’s that simple. And M learns: the more you use it, the more it can help. You always have the option to ignore or dismiss a suggestion if it’s not helpful, and if you don’t want M’s assistance you can easily mute it in M settings.

As suggestions from M start to roll out to users in the US, Messenger users across the globe will also start to see a redesigned way to compose messages. This update offers an easier way to access and discover Messenger features like our rich visual messaging tools and the ability to quickly share content like video and images directly from the text composer with a long press. We’re also adding a “More” tab to more easily access Messenger features such as Games, Payments, Share Location and Rides.

M is launching today to all iOS and Android users in the US and will eventually roll out to other countries. But this is just the beginning for M… expect to see more and more AI-powered, delightful and relevant experiences improving Messenger for you, every day. We hope that suggestions from M are just the start of what a proactive, helpful and useful assistant can offer to the 1 billion people who use Messenger each month.

‘Spider-Man: Homecoming’ trailer: Tony Stark and Michael Keaton’s Vulture school Peter Parker

The official trailer for this summer’s “Spider-Man: Homecoming” has landed, and as we saw in last year’s “Captain America: Civil War,” 

Tom Holland’s frisky Peter Parker is being mentored with an iron-firm hand by Robert Downey Jr.’s Tony Stark. And the central theme of this nearly three-minute sneak peek, naturally, is the growing pains involved in a boy becoming a Spider-Man.

This Peter Parker is so eager to join the Marvel big boys in Stark Tower that he even watches Avengers videos on his laptop (we glimpse him watching an old-school “Captain America’s Fitness Challenge”).

“Can’t you be just a friendly neighborhood Spider-Man?” Stark replies when Peter eagerly asks how he can become an Avenger. Stark also advises: “Just stay close to the ground” in Queens before trying to save the world. (Never mind that Stark himself drafted Peter into a huge Avengers melee in Europe in “Captain America: Civil War.”)

But then Michael Keaton’s Adrian Toomes — a.k.a. the Vulture — drops in to declare: “The rich and the powerful, like Stark, they don’t care about us!”

The Vulture is using his robotic winged suit to terrorize New York, with Bokeem Woodbine’s Herman Schultz/Shocker by his side. Spider-Man soon tries to stop him, as the Vulture aims to slice a ferry in half. Many would have been hurt if Iron Man hadn’t flown in to save the day.

Spider-Man (Tom Holland) and Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) in the new “Spider-Man: Homecoming.” (image from Sony trailer)

“Forget the flying monster guy,” the paternalistic Stark tells Peter about Vulture. “There are people who handle this sort of thing.”

“I was just trying to be like you,” Peter replies, looking up.

“If you’re nothing without this suit, then you shouldn’t have it!” snaps Tony of the Stark Industries-designed costume.

And with that, the dramatic dynamic is set into motion.

(Meanwhile, there are still no clues as to whether Zendaya’s “Michelle” is actually future Spidey flame Mary Jane Watson — but then again, a big surprise like that is unlikely to be revealed in a trailer.)

“Spider-Man: Homecoming” is Marvel Studios’s first attempt to mend Sony’s once-irresistible character, who lost some box-office luster with Andrew Garfield’s second outing. Now, the fate of the franchise rests with 20-year-old Tom Holland.

“Spider-Man: Homecoming” arrives July 7.

Spider-Man (Tom Holland) in the new “Spider-Man: Homecoming.” (image from Sony trailer)

More Ways to Share with the Facebook Camera

We want to make it fast, fun and easy for people to share creative photos and videos with whomever they choose, for however long they choose — and the more we share with each other, the more open and connected our community can be. 

Today we’re starting to roll out a new camera with effects and two additional ways to share the photos and videos you take.

Camera Effects: Let Your Camera Do the Talking
Starting this week on iOS and Android, you can tap on the camera icon on the top left corner of the Facebook app or swipe right from News Feed to try out the new in-app camera. The Facebook camera is packed with dozens of effects like masks, frames and interactive filters that you can apply to your photos and videos. Reactive effects let you interact with dynamic objects — like falling snow — and style effects apply an artistic filter to your video in real time, letting you turn your everyday selfie into a Picasso-style work of art.

We’re also partnering with brands to create masks for upcoming movies Alien: Covenant, Despicable Me 3, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Power Rangers, Smurfs: The Lost Village and Wonder Woman.

Masks for Alien: Covenant (left), Despicable Me 3 (middle) and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (right)

Masks for Power Rangers (middle), Smurfs: The Lost Village (left) and Wonder Woman (right)

Additionally, we’re including guest art from visual artists like Douglas Coupland and Hattie Stewart. We’ll regularly refresh the creative effects in the camera to give you fun new effects to explore.

Stories: Show Friends What You’re Up To 
The Instagram community has shown us that it can be fun to share things that disappear after a day, so in the main Facebook app we’re also introducing Facebook Stories, which lets you share multiple photos and videos as part of a visual collection atop News Feed. Your friends can view photos or videos from your story for 24 hours, and stories won’t appear on your Timeline or in News Feed unless you post them there, too.

To add to your story, tap on the “Your Story” icon in the Stories bar at the top of News Feed.Direct: Easily Share With Exactly Who You Want
In addition to sharing to your Story, we know you may want to share your photos and videos with specific friends. We’ve also added Direct, an option that’s designed for sharing individual photos and videos with specific friends for a limited time.

When you send a photo or video via Direct, your friends will be able to view it once and replay it or write a reply. Once the conversation on the photo or video ends, the content is no longer visible in Direct.Over the coming months, we plan to introduce new ways for the Facebook community to create their own frames and effects that can be used on any photo or video created with the new Facebook camera. Our goal is for the camera to be a home to hundreds of dynamic and fun effects that give you new ways to connect with friends, family, and your community.

We hope that with the new Facebook camera, Stories and Direct, it will be easier than ever to see the world through each other’s eyes, and we can’t wait to see the photos and videos you create. In the meantime, here’s one of my own in my tropical island disguise, hiding from work with my cat Ebi.