Facebook Messenger's huge update: how to watch F8 event live

New features including a ‘teleportation station’ set to be announced

Andrew Griffin
Wednesday 25 March 2015 12:45 EDT
Comments
Facebook's new Messenger app has come under fire for its intrusive settings
Facebook's new Messenger app has come under fire for its intrusive settings (Getty)

Your support helps us to tell the story

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.

At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.

The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.

Your support makes all the difference.

Facebook is set to launch huge changes to Messenger, as well as to WhatsApp, Instagram and other products, this evening. The announcements are set to happen at the company’s F8 conference, held today and tomorrow, and which will be live-streamed online.

Messenger is rumoured to be receiving updates that will allow users to search through conversations and make changes to photos. Updates could also be introduced that will allow users to speak through Messenger on third-party sites — a change that seemed to be referenced in a leak this morning.

Some of the changes were leaked in an update that was accidentally posted and spoke of “Messenger as a Platform”, as well as other changes. The company could also reveal virtual reality updates and the introduction of the internet of things.

It also comes a week after the company said it was rolling out the ability to send money to Facebook friends over the service.

Facebook Messenger is used within the main site on the desktop, and within its own app on mobile.

The Messenger event is set to begin at 10pm in the UK, or 3pm local time. The keynotes will begin at 5pm UK time, and will run every hour after that apart from 6pm when delegates will be eating lunch.

On Facebook’s devoted page for the event, users can sign up as online attendees and then receive a notification when the stream goes live. The site requires users to add their name and email addresses to register, or they can do so using their Facebook login.

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in