Facebook stuffs notifications with sports, weather, nearby news
Tech Industry
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Transcript
Your Facebook notifications are getting really personal and really busy.
I'm Bridget Carey.
This is your Cnet update.
Right now, Facebook notifications tell you when someone liked your post.
Or when a friend is having a birthday.
But Facebook is cramming more alerts into the notification bar.
For things it thinks you may be interested in, including sports scores for the teams you follow, and reminders about TV shows you like.
You also see weather alerts, followed by trending news in your area, and nearby restaurants and movies to see.
If you have location on, and you RSVP to an event, you may also see a card reminding you of when to leave to get there on time.
Does this remind you of anything?
Because it's exactly like Google Now.
On Facebook, each of these information chunks are a card, that's the same terminology that Google uses.
Facebook says it's slowly rolling this out to iPhone and Android apps for people in the U.S. This, of course, is the first time that Facebook is copying features you find in a smart phone.
Facebook is also working on a personal assistant called M. It would let you use Messenger to ask questions and it can complete some tasks on your behalf.
Like, book a restaurant or get a gift delivered to someone.
Facebook announced it was working on this back in August.
But as for Apple's personal assistant Siri, well she's being a bit rude to iPhone owners that don't subscribe to Apple Music.
She will not answer questions about music or what's hot right now in the charts unless you pay $10 a month for Apple's streaming music service.
She won't even at least give you web search results.
She can be so sensitive.
But here's a phone that's not easily hurt, Verizon's new Motorola Droid Turbo 2.
It was just revealed Tuesday.
And Motorola says it has a shatterproof display.
[SOUND] Look at that!
It's fine.
See, didn't shatter.
It also has a battery that lasts two days and you can get a 13 hour charge in just 15 minutes.
Verizon has been pushing out exclusive Droid phones since 2009 and only Verizon can call them Droids because.
Verizon paid Lucasfilm for the rights to use the Star Wars Droid name for its smart phones.
The turbo two starts at payments of $25 a month.
And switching from Droids to drones, Walmart is asking permission from the federal aviation administration to test drones for making deliveries to customers in parking lots and to customer homes.
This follows in Amazon's foot steps which have been talking about drone delivery dreams Since late 2013.
Amazon has done some small tests and so has Walmart.
But Walmart is looking to do outdoor tests now with DJI brand drones.
But it needs FAA permission.
Walmart is also looking to use drones as a surveillance tool for buildings and parking lots.
[MUSIC]
That's it for this tech news update, and there's more at cnet.com.
From our studios in New York, I'm Bridget Carey.
[MUSIC]
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