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Facebook F8 event live: Messenger chatbots, live video and virtual reality

And that's it from us. You can read more about Facebook Messenger launching a chat bot economy to rival apps here. Thank you for reading, and good evening.

The Facebook Surround 360 camera can shoot up to 8K in each eye, apparently. They've used it on shoots with professional teams, and are not planning on getting into the camera business, so will opensource the software and hardware through GitHub, apparently. Decent.

One thing that could get incredibly annoying is brands sending you messages. Hell. On. Earth.

If you fancy taking a look at the Messenger Platform website, it's up here: https://www.messenger.com/platform

Time to hear some more about Facebook M, the company's digital assistant...

Can't be bothered to watch the weather forecast? No worries, Facebook's weather-predicting cat Poncho can help you out. Suitably surreal

Marcus calls shopping over a bot "addictive". Surely making heaps of money is  just a fortunate side effect...

Bots can receive images, text, 'bubbles' and 'calls to action' Marcus says. What does that mean? 

Developers can now build bots for Messenger from this afternoon, Marcus says. The crowd is whooping

David Marcus spoke to the Telegraph late last year about how Messenger could eventually kill off apps. Read it here.

And it's back to Messenger, with David Marcus taking to the stage wearing a fetching Messenger logo t-shirt

Facebook has built a 360-degree camera called Facebook Surround 360. It sports 14 embedded cameras and is shaped a bit like a UFO

Only 55 of 7,000 commonly-spoken languages are supported online. That's quite a figure

Ime Archibong up now, Facebook's manager of partnerships. He's talking about lack of internet connection worldwide - still more than 4 billion people are without the internet, and billions only have 2G coverage, he says.

There is a Save to Facebook button on its way. Items saved show up within the app, a bit like Pocket.

Ooh she just pronounced gif  'jiff'. We know this is technically correct, but it still sounds jarring.

Zuckerberg has left the stage. A Facebook exec has announced a new feature called Account Kit, which lets people sign into apps using their email or phone number, no password required. You don't even need a Facebook account, apparently. This is quite similar to Twitter Digits.

If you've forgotten that infamous picture of Zuckerberg striding among his minions, here's a reminder:

"Everyone here is going to get a Gear VR, and a Samsung phone to power it," says Zuck. All attendees to Samsung's MWC presentation during Mobile World Congress in February were also given Gear VRs, but not phones.

Oculus Rift's long-delayed controllers will be released this year, he adds. No mention of shipping units being delayed until June, then. "I think that VR has the potential to be the most social platform, because you feel you're right there with another person."

Moving on to visual and augmented reality. The response to VR has been "amazing", Zuck says. He doesn't sound convinced...

Advances in AI can save people's lives, Zuckerberg says, giving the example of detecting skin cancer. Programs could help to detect disease to aid doctors, he says.

Moving onto artificial intelligence. "Our Moments app uses the best facial recognition software in the world," Zuck says. Facebook built a tool to understand what is in photos, and read the contents aloud to the visually impaired.

Zuck is talking about Free Basics, Facebook's initiative to help connect the two-thirds of the world's population without internet access. It's available in 37 countries, and has provided connectivity to more than 25 million people. 

Availability, affordability and awareness are the three key reasons behind people not being connected to the interest

Connecting everyone to the internet, artificial intelligence and virtual reality are Facebook's three main areas of interest

There's a DJI drone in the room!

This could have huge implications for how we interact with businesses - for example, will we still see people attempting to publicly shame companies over Twitter for poor service, if we're given a much more personal level of service via chat?

A platform for natural-language services, for companies and news services, cool. Basically, you can chat to businesses via Messenger instead of having to download a separate app or call them.

"I've never met anyone who likes calling a business," Zuck says. Is he about to announce something interesting?

Facebook was the fastest-growing app of 2015, with Facebook in second place apparently. Processing more messages than SMS ever did

Today's announcements will help developers build, grow and monetise their apps, says Zuck

Zuckerberg wants to capture his adorable daughter Max's first steps in a 360 degree video to be watched via VR. Woah

Facebook wants to "give everyone the power to share anything with anyone".

Lots of platitudes about building bridges and bringing people together. Come on Mark, make some announcements!

"We are one global community," says Zuck. He's talking about "the young boy in Syria who wants to find the best way to move forward".

"We stand for connecting every person. For a global community, for bringing people together. For giving all people a voice," he says. "This idea of connecting the world has got stronger over the past century".

"We're gonna walk through our road map for the next 10 years," he says. "Messaging and private communication will unlock platforms for all kinds of connectivity".

Facebook Messenger has already begun to integrate "bots" - programs that let you chat with them via Messenger and respond to you, just like a customer service assistant would.

The recent KLM bot sends your KLM flight confirmation, your boarding pass, check-in reminders, flight status updates, and access to customer service agents, all to Messenger.

In a fraction of the time, you should be able to just text back to change or cancel and get live notifications when you need to board your flight. 

Mark Zuckerberg showed off a yellow version of the Facebook app during a Live Video demonstration this week. The yellow app is a beta version that the company uses to test out new updates. 

Zuckerberg's demo revealed a change in the way users post to Facebook, making it easier to share gifs and music. 

"Not everything there's going to launch," said Zuckerberg. "Some of it will over time." 

Major ticketing websites are following their users onto Facebook. In a move designed to boost sales, Ticketmaster and Eventbrite will start selling directly on Facebook by the end of April. 

Initially general admission tickets for a limited number of events will be sold on the site, with an eventual plan to expand the listings. 

"By putting the ability to by tickets directly within Facebook we hope that we're going to provide a more seamless purchase experience and sell more tickets," said Dan Armstrong, vice president of Ticketmaster, in an interview with BuzzFeed. 

Facebook, which is already working with Uber, Lyft and Everlane, is expected to open up to even more brands at F8. 

Today Facebook started testing its weather integration for some UK users. The addition to the Android and iOS apps comes up as a card with a greeting depending on the time of day and a weather update for your area.

Clicking on the greeting card pulls up a more detailed weather forecast for the day, similar to those available to native weather apps on smartphones. 

Facebook has already made some key updates to its services ahead of today's conference.

This week the company announced a Dropbox extension for Messenger, which means you can now send photos, videos and files straight from your Dropbox to whoever you’re chatting with.

The team-up removes the clunky process of leaving the app to locate files when you want to share external documents. 

We'll be bringing you the latest updates as Facebook opens F8, its annual conference for developers in San Francisco, at which the social media giant announces its latest updates and innovations.