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Oculus Adds New ‘Hey Facebook’ Wake Prompt for Voice Commands

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oculus adds new hey facebook wake prompt for voice commands

Will ‘Hey Facebook’ become the next ‘Siri’ or ‘Alexa’?

Voice commands are becoming increasingly common, as more people buy up smart speaker devices, and enable voice activation in different ways. And now, Facebook’s adding a new way to activate its Oculus VR devices, by using ‘Hey Facebook’ as the wake prompt.

Hey Facebook

As explained by Oculus:

“Starting this week, we’ll begin rolling out “Hey Facebook” to people using Quest 2. This will be a gradual rollout, but you can find and enable the wake word via our Experimental Features settings – and then say “Hey Facebook, take a screenshot,” “Hey Facebook, show me who’s online,” “Hey Facebook, open Supernatural,” or any of our other voice commands to get started. Note that Quest doesn’t listen for the “Hey Facebook” wake word when the microphone is turned off, or when the headset is asleep or powered down.”

So the device is definitely not listening to your everyday conversations, as goes the common Facebook advertising myth.

Oculus first added voice commands last year, but in its initial iteration, it still required users to press a button to activate the option. The new ‘Hey Facebook’ activation is designed to make it easier to take action without leaving the immersion of the VR environment – which makes a lot of sense, but still, it will also, no doubt, lead to some increased concerns.

In this sense, it’s interesting that Facebook has gone with ‘Hey Facebook’ on Oculus, instead of ‘Hey Oculus’, as the VR headset is not a Facebook-branded device. As we saw recently, with the backlash over WhatsApp potentially sharing more user data with Facebook, there’s clearly a lingering level of concern around Facebook’s data-gathering and utilization processes, and by underlining the Oculus linkage to Facebook, that could serve as a reminder of such, and stoke concerns. 

But then again, Facebook wants to own the VR space, and it’s looking to keep Facebook as a key part of it, through the next stage of social media interaction within the virtual environment. As such, by using ‘Hey Facebook’, it also serves as a branding exercise, which could help to strengthen the linkage between the two worlds.

Interestingly, however, Facebook didn’t go with ‘Hey Facebook’ for its Portal smart speaker device.

On Portal, users can activate voice commands by saying ‘Hey Portal’, which avoids the potential association with the company. Which makes sense, given the initial concerns people had around adding a Facebook-owned recording device into their homes.

Facebook Portal

So it is interesting in this context to see Facebook going with ‘Hey Facebook’ on Oculus. I would assume that, eventually, this will become the main command on all of its voice-activated devices.

Given the various criticisms leveled at the company, it seems logical that Facebook would be at least somewhat hesitant to include the company name within its voice commands, but it could eventually become as common as ‘Siri’ or ‘Alexa’, and further embed Facebook within our lives. Starting with Oculus might be a first step, which could eventually normalize the command, and help build that mental association to bridge the online and virtual worlds.

It may seem like a small addition, and a small consideration in the broader scheme. But given the amount of times that people will use such commands, it is important, and it will play a role in bridging the connection between the platform and the real world.    

Oculus notes that “Hey Facebook” is an opt-in experience, which will be rolled out gradually to Quest 2, and later, to all Quest devices.

Socialmediatoday.com

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Musk regrets controversial post but won’t bow to advertiser ‘blackmail’

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Elon Musk's comments at the New York Times' Dealbook conference drew a shocked silence

Elon Musk’s comments at the New York Times’ Dealbook conference drew a shocked silence – Copyright GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP Slaven Vlasic

Elon Musk apologized Wednesday for endorsing a social media post widely seen as anti-Semitic, but accused advertisers who are turning away from his social media platform X of “blackmail” and said anyone who does so can “go fuck yourself.”

The remark before corporate executives at the New York Times’ Dealbook conference drew a shocked silence.

Earlier, Musk had apologized for what he called “literally the worst and dumbest post that I’ve ever done.”

In a comment on X, formerly Twitter, Musk on November 15 called a post “the actual truth” that said Jewish communities advocated a “dialectical hatred against whites,” which was criticized as echoing longtime conspiracy theory among White supremacists.

The statement prompted a flood of departures from X of major advertisers, including Apple, Disney, Comcast and IBM who criticized Musk for anti-semitism.

“I’m sorry for that tweet or post,” Musk said Wednesday. “It was foolish of me.”

He told interviewer Andrew Ross Sorkin that his post had been misinterpreted and that he had sought to clarify the remark in subsequent posts to the thread.

But Musk also said he wouldn’t be beholden to pressure from advertisers.

“If somebody’s gonna try to blackmail me with advertising, blackmail me with money?” Musk said. “Go fuck yourself.”

But the billionaire acknowledged that there were business implications to the advertiser actions.

“If the company fails… it will fail because of an advertiser boycott” Musk said. “And that will be what will bankrupt the company.”

Musk, who met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a visit to Israel earlier this week, insisted in the interview that he holds no discrimination against Jews, calling himself “philo-Semitic,” or an admirer of Judaism.

During the interview, Musk wore a necklace given to him by a parent of an Israeli hostage taken in the Hamas attack on October 7. The necklace reads, “Bring Them Home.”

Musk told Sorkin that the Israel trip had been planned earlier and was not an “apology tour” related to the controversial tweet.

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TikTok Encourages Creators To Make Longer Videos, With Focus On Ad Revenue 11/30/2023

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TikTok Encourages Creators To Make Longer Videos, With Focus On Ad Revenue 11/30/2023

With a need to expand its advertising business, TikTok is now fully focused on the output of long-form videos.

A new report by The Information shows the company’s recent efforts to convince
creators to put out longer videos in order to provide more room for ad placements.

According to the …



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X Adds Option To Embed Videos in Isolation From Posts

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X Adds Option To Embed Videos in Isolation From Posts

Next time you go to embed an X post, you may notice a new step:

Now, X will enable you to choose whether you want to embed the video element in isolation, or the whole post, as normal.

And if you do choose to embed just the video (or GIF), it’ll look like this:

Which could be a helpful way to present X-originated video on third-party websites, and add context to, say, your blog post, without the clutter of the full X framing.

But it could also reduce brand exposure for X, which is likely why Twitter didn’t enable this before, though it did once provide an “embedded video widget” which essentially served the same purpose.

X embeds

Twitter gradually seemed to phase that out as the platform evolved, and there’s no specific reason that I can find as to why it removed it as an option. But either way, now, it’s back, so you have more options for using X-originated content, and putting more focus on video elements specifically.

Though I don’t know why they didn’t also take the opportunity to remove the ‘Tweet’ reference. Since the re-brand to X, the platform seems to have gone to little effort to weed out all the tweet and bird terminology, but then again, with 80% fewer staff, that’s probably understandable as well.



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