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Twitter is currently testing a video feature that lets some videos play automatically when it's visible in someone's feed, according to an AdAge report. A small pool of U.S. users accessing the social network on an iOS device reported seeing videos start without hitting play earlier this week.



AdAge indicates that the test applies to Promoted Video ads, clips uploaded directly via Twitter's app and videos in its Amplify program, which helps brands like the NBA promote video clips with a teaser ad from a sponsor. Twitter is experimenting with two versions of the test: In one case, some users will see an entire video play on a loop, while others will see six seconds of a video teaser play in a loop.

However, videos posted from Twitter's six-second Vine app won't automatically play in feeds.

The move is part of an effort to take on sites like Google and more recently, Facebook

The move is part of an effort to take on sites like Google and more recently, Facebook, which dominate the online video space. Autoplay is an easy way for companies to grab a user's attention. It allows brands to no longer have to rely on a person clicking on a video to get the message across to users.

Facebook, which rolled out its own autoplay strategy in 2013, has seen big success with the concept. CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently said the site gets 3 billion video views each day. A video is considered "watched" if it plays for three seconds.

Amazon-owned game streaming service Twitch was hacked, the company announced in a blog post Monday. The attackers gained access to users' account information.



Users will be notified that their passwords have been reset the next time they log in

he company also sent an email to users, warning that their account information may have been compromised, including email addresses, passwords (cryptographically protected, according to Twitch), IP addresses and limited credit card information. Full credit card numbers aren't stored by Twitch, but other personal data is, such as card type, truncated card number and expiration date.

"We are writing to let you know that there may have been unauthorized access to some Twitch user account information. For your protection, we have expired passwords and stream keys and have disconnected accounts from Twitter and YouTube," Twitch's blog post read.

Users will be notified that their passwords have been reset the next time they log in, and will be prompted to choose a new password. Furthermore, those who connected their Twitter, YouTube or Facebook accounts with Twitch will have to reconnect those accounts to the service again.

Twitch provided no further information about the nature of the attack or the measures it is undertaking to identify the hackers. Representatives for Twitch didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
Twitch, which lets users watch other people play games, was acquired by Amazon for $970 million in August 2014. In January of this year, the company launched a music library, as well as music as an entirely new category.

Facebook may be trying to take over your phone app.

The social network is testing a voice-calling app that can screen your calls and show you information about who is calling, according to an image obtained by Android Police.



The app, called "Phone," will display information about those who call you —presumably based on their Facebook profiles — and automatically block calls that come from numbers that have been previously identified as spam, according to the description in the screenshot. Facebook is known to test new features with small groups of users first, but the leaked image suggests the testing for this app may be limited to internal tests at the moment as it has an "FB-Only" note.

A Facebook spokesperson told Mashable "we are always testing things," but declined to comment specifically on the Phone app.



This isn't the first time Facebook has experimented with voice calling. The company introduced voice calls to Messenger a few years ago and has been testing the feature on the Android version of WhatsApp, both of which rely on either a Wi-Fi or a data connection.

It's not clear whether the Phone app would be an expansion of these existing voice-calling features or a standalone service, but the description suggests it would work for all voice calls, not just those made over a Wi-Fi or data connection.

Facebook Messenger is slated to get a big overhaul.

Vepsh has learned Facebook plans to announce that it's opening up Facebook Messenger to third-party apps during its upcoming F8 Developer Conference in San Francisco next week.



The social network is set to announce about 20 third-party services, whose apps will work on top of Messenger when the integration rolls out, according to a person familiar with the matter. It's not yet clear who the early partners are or what the integration will look like, but Facebook will likely expand the capability to more developers following the initial rollout.

Facebook has previously announced major new features at its F8 Developer Conference and typically offers guidance, in the form of workshops and talks on the new features to developers during the event.
The upcoming update to Messenger, first reported Thursday, is the company's latest in a series of moves that have vastly expanded the reach of Messenger over the last year.
Facebook declined Mashable's request for comment.

Facebook first launched Messenger as a standalone app back in 2011. But last summer the company announced it would be shifting mobile messages out of the main Facebook app entirely — a move that angered many users at the time.

Since then,

Facebook has been steadily beefing up Messenger's feature set

Facebook has been steadily beefing up Messenger's feature set, most recently with the addition of mobile payments.

But opening up the service to third-party developers will make Messenger its own platform, rather than a supplement to Facebook's main's service. The company's motives for doing this are unclear but the success of apps like WeChat and Line in Asia, which also support third-party apps and services, has demonstrated the potential of such a platform.

Much more will be revealed during F8 next week — CEO Mark Zuckerberg will likely deliver the opening keynote — so stay tuned as Mashable will be reporting live from the event in San Francisco.