Facebook Launches New Feature For Disabled Users

No one can say now that Facebook doesn't care about its users; it recently launched a new feature for impaired users.

On April 5, 2016 Facebook Inc. announced that it launched its latest feature, the automatic alternative text (AAT). This new feature can create and come up with simple captions that are put under photos on the social media website. This can be considered as yet another milestone achieved by the social media network as it offers additional support to those Facebook users who use screen readers on the website.  

With the help of this latest software that has been used in AAT, users will be able to hear audible descriptions that have been made under photos (or captions) as the software will read those descriptions out loud. This will be an opportunity for visually impaired users as they will be able to hear the comments and captions made by their friends on the social media network. Facebook experience for such users will just be enhanced with the addition of this latest feature.

Previously, there was an option of audible description however it would only read out the name of the person, or mention that a photo has been posted by someone or read out the text out loud if it would appear on the user’s News Feed. That has changed with the introduction on AAT, as with the help of artificial intelligence, the users with such disabilities will be able to better communicate with their friends on the social media platform.

The main function performed by the artificial intelligence assistance is that it reads the text on the photos and comes up with catchy and simple self-made phrases for it. This object recognition feature on Facebook can detect a number of objects on the site vehicles including motorcycles, cars, buses and boats, natural things such as mountains, suns, waves etc, food objects that the AI can detect include ice cream, sushi etc.

Presently, the service has been activated for the English version of Facebook on the iOs; these users can simply activate their AAT to enjoy the new experience, they don’t have to be physically disabled to use the feature, anyone can avail this new feature on the social platform. Furthermore, this feature can point out stuff on the website which is not understood by users, for instance if a person does not understand what’s wrong or funny about a certain picture, the AI will help them identify it; it will simply say it out loud.

This push into the specific technology emphasizes on how Facebook is a philanthropic company as with the latest feature it is using technology to help disabled people. Furthermore, the Free Basic Program by the company was another effort it was making to help people in the world by providing free internet to people in rural areas who do not have access to the internet, with the help of airborne Aquila Drone.

In addition to that, this move also shows how easily the company has taken up and used artificial intelligence and integrated it into its system. It has quite rapidly adopted and progressed in the specific tech category.

Should Google Inc Acquire Twitter?

Analysts believe that the tech giant would want to take over Twitter but might not be in a position to do so.

The recent Google news update has been entertaining rumors about the tech giant having plans for acquiring Twitter Inc. This news has been made a little more legit as it was heard that the media company was seen to have hired Goldman Sachs, an equity firm, for the purpose of handling attempts of other giants of the industry who are trying to take over or buy the company. This step taken by the social networking company confirmed the analysts and shareholders that the company was in fact threatened by other giants of the industry who had serious plans for acquisitions.

Twitter has always been in the news related to acquisition plans that other companies are usually making to take over the social media company. Taking the history into consideration, it can be seen that in 2009, Google made its first attempt to acquire the company for $250 million but the deal did not get completed for some reasons unknown. In 2011, the networking firm was again offered a takeover by none other than Facebook for a massive $10 million but this request also got ignored by the company owners. This time around, however, the search engine giant has made an offer to the media company of a much higher amount than before.

The fact that Google wishes to buy Twitter clearly shows that the tech giant wishes to make it big in the social media industry as the previous attempts of the company was either deemed unsuccessful or were belittled by none other than social media giant Facebook Inc who has an extensive user base of around a 1.39 billion users.

Facebook has been enjoying revenue generation on a lot of platforms by offering various kinds of services to its users, beating Google Inc on many levels. By taking over Twitter, which is yet another social media giant and is the only site which is still capable of competing with the success and popularity of FB, the tech giant will be able to dust off its sluggish sales of the past few quarters and will be able to fight back with its competitors in the tech industry by a mile.

Even though Facebook is a lot of steps further from any of its competitors, Google Inc feels that it should yet not give up or get dominated by the giant. However, analysts believe that acquiring Twitter might just not be easy for the android store giant as over the period of time, the share value of the media company has increasingly risen upwards and to buy such a company might turn out to be very expensive for Silicon Valley Company.