New Facebook update brings automatic sound to videos in your news feed, picture-in-picture mode and more

Facebook has been very diligent in its attempts to stimulate video consumption among its many users. The latest update from the social media giant is a continuation of that effort, as it adds some new features that aim to make watching video on Facebook a more rich and flexible experience.

Starting this week, any video on Facebook can be played in a minimized picture-in-picture mode that can be dragged to any corner of the screen, effectively allowing users to keep watching while scrolling through their news feed.

The videos that appear in the news feed will also automatically be played with sound, which fades in and out as one scrolls past them. If this feature becomes annoying or inconvenient, you can disable it by either putting your phone on silent mode, or opting out entirely by switching off the "Videos in News Feed Start With Sound" option in the settings menu.

A dedicated Video app is also rolling out soon to Samsung Smart TV, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, and other platforms. This endeavor can be seen as an expansion to last year's update that allowed videos to be streamed from Facebook to Chromecast and Apple TV devices. The app will allow users to watch top live videos from around the world based on their interests. It can also be used for watching videos that users have already uploaded, shared or viewed.