Facebook, Uber testing Messenger app

The new feature recognizes your Facebook friends in the photos you take, and Messenger can create a group thread for you to share the photos with those people very easily.

Moreover, users are in full control and can turn the feature off at any time and even control being identified in their friends’ photos in the timeline and tagging section of their Facebook settings.

The facial recognition software will be deployed in the Facebook messenger application to make it convenient to share photos with family and friends. Facebook will highlight Photo Magic in a Messenger update that will start rolling out on Thursday to users of Apple’s iPhones and smartphones running on Google’s Android software.

Similar to how they’re proceeding with anything new, users might now see a prompting to make good use of Photo Magic.

The new Photo Magic feature can be turned off/on at any time. The social networking company has made its Photo Magic face recognition tool available worldwide, to help ensure that the right photos are sent to the right people.

Since Facebook is still testing the “transportation” feature on its messenger, the service is only available to users in the US cities where Uber operates. “Photo Magic will help you keep your promise to send the pictures you take without forgetting, or worse, leaving someone out”, Peter Martinazzi, Director of Product Management, and Lexy Franklin, Product Manager said in an online post.

According to Facebook, photo sharing in Messenger has been growing at a fast rate, with more than 9.5 billion photos sent each month. As part of the Messenger upgrade, Facebook is also including an option that will allow users to change the colours of their exchanges with different friends, and switch the formal name of a recipient to a nickname, such as “mom” or “dad”. The move mirrors when it broke out Messenger from the main Facebook app. Moments however remains unavailable in Europe.