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Facebook announces chatbots for Messenger and more

Facebook's F8 developer conference kicks off Tuesday morning in San Francisco, and the world's largest social network is expected to announce a bunch of new products and features.

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Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg took he stage at 10am Pacific Time. You can watch a live stream video of Zuck's keynote, featuring other top Facebook execs, right here:

The news so far:

  • As expected, Zuckerberg revealed "Messenger Platform," a tool for app developers to build intelligent chatbots for people to interact with businesses straight in Facebook Messenger. He showed it off by ordering flowers via 1-800-Flowers, in Messenger, without picking up a phone. 
  • Zuckerberg announced that the company's 10-year roadmap is to "Give everyone the power to share anything with anyone." That means getting more people online — and building the tools to share new kinds of content, like virtual reality, with friends and family. 
  • WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger handle 60 billion messages a day — three times the number of traditional text messages.
  • Facebook is opening up the Facebook Live API, so that developers can stream Facebook Live video from other apps and devices. Zuckerberg showed it off with a quadcopter drone streaming video live to Facebook.
  • Zuckerberg teased Aries and Terragraph, two new cutting-edge solutions for delivering internet services to underserved areas like subsaharan Africa. 
  • In the future, Zuckerberg says, Facebook will use artificial intelligence to read news articles and display the most relevant ones to you in the News Feed.
  • All attendees of the F8 conference are getting a free Samsung Gear VR virtual reality headset and Samsung phone with which to use it. 

Setting the scene

Here's what the scene is like at San Francisco's Fort Mason center, where developers from all  over the world are gathering for the big event. 

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The lines started early:

F8 2016
BI

 

Here's the stage where Zuckerberg and other execs will soon appear:

F8 2016
Jillian D'Onfro

Mark Zuckerberg posted this pic to his timeline as he readies himself for the big event:

For the second year in a row, Facebook is holding its developer conference at San Francisco's scenic Fort Mason center, a former military base that's right on the waterfront. It's a pretty nice spot:

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F8 2016
Jillian D'onfro

There are light breakfast treats available to stave off any hunger pangs:

F8 2016
Jillian D'onfro

The most popular attraction so far is the Four Barrel coffee kiosk, where attendees can order lattes, cappuccinos and even an old fashioned, regular cup of joe:

F8 2016
Jillian D'Onfro

Here's where guests pick up their badges and other material for the big event:

F8 2016
Jillian D'Onfro
Facebook Mark Zuckerberg Chatbots
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