Facebook’s ‘Photo Magic’ Makes Sharing Easier

BEACON TRANSCRIPT – The social media giant rolled out another update, and Facebook’s ‘Photo Magic’ makes sharing easier with your friends, by providing instant services. Simply snap a picture, and the software will recognize the faces of your Facebook friends in that photo. It sounds perhaps a bit worrying in terms of privacy, but it’s nonetheless an amazing progress.

Facebook aims to make their standalone Messenger app the biggest around there is. And they’re slowly reaching that ambitious goal. In fact, Facebook’s Messenger has seen to 9.5 billion photos shared last month, closing in on their main rival, Snapchat. If they succeed, it would put all other messengers to shame.

‘Photo Magic’ is their newest update which means to keep it in its upward path. It’s easy to use, and nearly instant, at least for Android users. After taking a picture, the add-on will instantly recognize the face of those within it. It will send a push notification for the user to send the photo to all their friends through the Messenger app.

The new update works similarly to the face tag that is already incorporated for the social media network. Whether you take the picture through your phone camera or any other app, Photo Magic will know. It will recognize everyone there, provided they are in your Facebook friends list. Meaning that snapping pictures of strangers will not be of great help.

According to Facebook product manager, Peter Martinazzi, this will take a matter of moments for Android devices. For iOS, however, it will take several minutes. Your iPhone, for example, will make “periodic” searches through your camera roll and then push out the sharing notification. This has raised some alarms in those paranoid about internet privacy.

While it is worrying to think that Facebook will be going through your private pictures, there is an upside. Photo Magic is an optional function. Meaning users can opt-in and opt-out of it as they please. Furthermore, if they have the tagging feature off their account, it’s likely that the new software will not work either.

However, it has been warned that most might have Photo Magic turned on by default. So, it pays to check before snapping pictures that might be meant to be private. It uses the same technology that makes suggestions and recognizes faces, so it could be naturally placed on. Turning off is available as long as you know where to look.

Photo Magic has already rolled out for Australian users, and it’s expected to launch globally over the following months. Provided it receives positive feedback.

Image source: itpro.co.uk