Facebook’s suicide-prevention tools are now going global

Going viral today is the first-ever Facebook Live Q&A, featuring none other than FB-CEO Mark Zuckerberg. The Q&A session, recorded yesterday, got off to an interesting start when one commenter asked Zuckerberg if the allegations that he is a lizard were actually true. Zuckerberg either feigned ignorance or wasn’t really aware of the silly rumor suggesting he is really a lizard in a human suit, so he was caught a little off-guard.

The social media King recovered pretty quickly, took a little jab at the commenter, and the Q&A steamed along for about 43 minutes, until a surprise appearance was made by none other than legendary comedian, Jerry Seinfeld. Apparently, Jerry was there for an Oculus Rift demonstration, and Zuckerberg hopped off camera to pull him into the room.

From there, Seinfeld talks a little about his first impressions of Oculus, then proceeds to grill Zuckerberg Comedians-in-Cars-Getting-Coffee style, where they discuss such pressing topics as morning routines. It’s a pretty fun watch, actually, though we’d suggest skipping to about 43 minutes in to catch the funny stuff.

As long as we’re on the Facebook train here, did you know Facebook has suicide prevention tools? They do, and now they are going to be made available to everyone. Soon, if you see a post from a friend or acquaintance that makes you concerned they may be contemplating hurting themselves or even committing suicide, you can flag that post from a drop-down menu, and from there share suicide hotline numbers anonymously, or even send a supportive message, with wording suggested by Facebook. To develop these resources, Facebook coordinated efforts with mental health professionals and organizations like Save.org. The new feature will be rolled out in every language Facebook supports.

Finally, Digital Trends’ own computing editor, Matt Smith, got his hands on a developer preview of the latest MacOS, Sierra, and while he notes there are some interesting new features on the way, as it stands, iOS integration and a rather sleepy Siri just aren’t enough to perk up MacOS. The good news is that the underlying operating system is unchanged, there’s really only one new addition, and that’s Siri. Siri can open apps, send messages and search the web just like on an iPhone, but now it can also search files on your Mac by voice, though the search feature is also available via Spotlight. The downside is that, right now, Siri is a little sluggish. Sometimes it took several seconds for her to wake up and recognize our request. We’re hoping that gets sorted by the time the full release is made public, but for now we’re a little concerned.

For a full rundown of what MacOS Sierra can do, watch Matt’s full video showing it all off.

from Planet GS via John Jason Fallows on Inoreader http://ift.tt/1UvJ5lY
Caleb Denison