Facebook F8 2018 Developer Conference

• The Facebook F8 2018 is scheduled for 10 a.m. on 1st May.
• The developer conference will most likely deal with privacy issues which remain in the mind of many thanks to the recent Cambridge Analytica scandal.
• However, it is also expected that the conference will discuss some topics which range in the realm of VR hardware used with Oculus.

In the light of the Cambridge Analytica incident, the past few weeks have been troublesome for Facebook, to say the least. The scandal has put data privacy on social platforms on a whole new map. And now it seems, with Facebook F8, the social media giant will have to address all those said concerns.

If you remember last year, the company focused on cutting-edge technology like VR, AR, and AI. This year, they were supposed to introduce the whole world to their new smart speaker, which is internally known by the name Portal. However, there is high chance that announcing the Portal will backfire as people might start fearing the company listening to what goes on in their customers’ households.

After the recent two days long congressional testimony given by the Company CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, it is expected that he will leverage this platform to talk more about the current privacy environment on their platform, after this CA incident. It is to be noted that much high profile APIs had been shut down and developers’ access got restricted in this period, and F8 present a great opportunity to touch on all those topics.

Image Courtesy of TechCrunch

But again, there is also no reason to think that Facebook will be dedicating the entire event to talk about privacy, security, and issues rooted in the CA scandal. For example, we already know that the social network has plans to talk more on VR hardware in regards to Oculus, and the company’s push towards Augmented Reality to go head to head against the likes of Google and Snapchat. 

Besides this, there might be more intel regarding the secretive Building 8 division which is supposedly a brain-computer interface. Since its initial announcement last year, Regina Dugan, Former DARPA director, has left her post where she headed Building 8. It is expected that Facebook will help serve our curiosity on this developer conference as to what other outlandish projects they are investing their resources into this year.

The Facebook F8 2018 Developer Conference Day 1 will start at 10 a.m. PT on May 1st.

Livestream links: Facebook and YouTube