Facebook just released a new app that aims to compete directly with Snapchat, but it's only officially available in Brazil at the moment. The app, called "Flash," is so much like Snapchat that it's not even the slightest bit of a stretch to call it a clone.

Welcome to Flash!
Share all your everyday moments with friends! Take selfies, send videos and chat.
Easily add fun face masks, draw and send disappearing messages.
It's fast and works great on most phones.
Get the new app now on Android and send flashes with friends!

Flash on Google Playstore.

Even though Flash is only officially available in Brazil, you can try it right now on any Android device in any country. All you have to do is enable "Unknown sources" in Settings, then download and install the following APK.

Download Facebook's Flash app from APKMirror (.apk)

Once you've done that, just sign in with your Facebook account, then you'll be ready to try it out. If you've ever used Snapchat, you'll feel right at home here—there's a chat screen on the left, a "Your Story" screen on the right, and a camera interface in the middle.

Really, the only difference between Flash and Snapchat are the filters, which are so outlandishly terrible that they're actually pretty funny. In one, a flock of birds stands on your head and picks at your hair, while Flash's face-tracking algorithm applies bird crap to your face in real time. Others show a marked Brazilian flair, with Carnival-style whimsy and colors.

Facebook's making absolutely no effort to hide its motive here: They're coming for Snapchat. There's no news yet on an official worldwide rollout for Flash, but once you've got the APK installed, there aren't any restrictions on using the app.

You more likely than not been into a circumstance where, while utilizing Facebook, in an attack of annoyance or because of the dissatisfaction you composed the most noticeably bad content ever and after that squeezed the send catch. What's more, later thought twice about it.

At present, there is no CTRL+ Z for a message that you send on Facebook Messenger. When you have sent a content, it will undoubtedly convey. The focal point of Facebook says: contingent upon the individual's notice settings, they may likewise get your message as an email notification.(sic)

At present, you can just erase a sent message from your inbox (yet not from the beneficiary's inbox). This, in any case, may soon be evolving. Facebook has late included another patent, 20160182434, to its patent portfolio that uncovers a technique in which you can ask for Facebook to erase an officially sent message from a collector's inbox.


How Facebook will Unsend a Sent Message:

• When Facebook’s message server detects your request to withdraw a message, the server will first determine if the message has already been sent from the message server or not.
• If the message has not been sent, it will terminate the process. And the intended receiver will not receive the message. If the message was sent, the messaging server will put the sent text on the blacklist so that the recipient can no longer retrieve it.
• You won’t have to press here and click there to request Facebook to withdraw a sent message. All you have to do is rapidly shake you smartphone, disclose one of the embodiments of the patent.
• Other than shaking, FB will show an animation representing that your message is being sent. Tapping on the animation will help you cancel sending a text.
• Also, the patent discloses a timeout period within which you can make a request to cancel sending a text. The timeout period will depend on multiple factors like how many times you contacted the recipient, number of mutual friends, social affinity, etc.

Thus, you may get a higher timeout period in case of your girlfriend, or best friend than a person you became friend five minutes ago.

One more thing to note is that the timeout period for a message will expire automatically as soon as you send another text. This is to say that if you have 10 seconds to make a request to withdraw a text, and you sent a kissing smiley to your crush and then a text saying “sorry”, then you are in trouble my mate as you can cancel the “sorry” from being sent within next 10 seconds, but not the smiley!

Not all patents turn into a product/feature, but there is a good case for this to see the light of the day. In fact, the patent itself might get rejected as the use case isn’t exactly new. The ‘shake the phone to unsend’ is probably the only unique thing here. If at all Facebook manages to get the patent granted, we can see them stopping others from implementing such a feature.
Source: techpp

Facebook is making some changes to user profiles. The Menlo Park company announced that you will soon be able to use a 7-second looping video as your profile picture. To keep its decade-old social network lively, Facebook is introducing five big changes to user profiles, which are viewed 4 billion times per day:

• The option to pin Featured Photos to the top of the profile
• Temporary profile pics
• Easier visibility controls for About info, including a new 100 character Bio field
• A mobile-centric design with centered profile photos plus big sections for photos and friends
• The ability to use a 7-second looping video as your profile pic.

GIF Showing Facebook Profile Video:


Image showing temporary profile picture:

Improved Profile Controls


You might want to see such profile and get right? Check out these profile.
Joanna Chao: https://www.facebook.com/joannachao
Jeremy Friedland: https://www.facebook.com/jeremyfriedland
Aaron Carambula: https://www.facebook.com/aaron.carambula
Tony Hsieh: https://www.facebook.com/tony.c.hsieh
Jing Chen: https://www.facebook.com/ckekebit
Rajat Gupta: https://www.facebook.com/rajat.nebula
Rajat Kansal: https://www.facebook.com/rajatag12
Ian Werris: https://www.facebook.com/iwerris
Ryan Houx: https://www.facebook.com/ryan.houx
Aryeh Selekman: https://www.facebook.com/selekman
Aigerim Shorman: https://www.facebook.com/aigerim.shorman

Well these features are not available for everyone, It's being rolled out in California and UK for some users. But we hope this will be available in India soon.
Source: Facebook Newsroom