Facebook says it's moving to make life better with new technologies

Source: Facebook. Schroepfer.

At F8, the annual Facebook developer conference, Facebook’s Chief Technology Officer, Mike Schroepfer shared more announcements and projects in the pipeline that will result in systems that are more personalised and more intelligent than ever before. 

He announced that the iOS version of React Native — a framework for native environments — is open and available on GitHub. React Native allows developers to build iOS and Android user interfaces with no browser/WebView involved. React Native for Android will be coming soon. Much of the technology is open source, the company said.

He also shared that Facebook has successfully conducted the first test flight of its unmanned air vehicle (UAV) platform, which could help connect people in remote communities.

Facebook artificial intelligence (AI) researchers are working on a technology called Memory Networks, which enables a machine to answer relatively sophisticated questions, he added.

Oculus, which was acquired by Facebook, is working on virtual, shared experiences to change the way we communicate and collaborate. Michael Abrash, Chief Scientist at Oculus, said the shift to virtual reality is going to change the way we live.

View a video of the entire keynote here.