Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, counts more than 3 billion monthly users across its family of apps. Now, it’s trying to build the next generation of services in virtual reality and the metaverse through Meta Quest headsets and Horizon Worlds — all while dealing with antitrust pressures, privacy concerns, and younger users shifting to other platforms.
The agent initially launched earlier this month on iOS, Android, and the web, but now, you can use it on your Mac computer, as announced by CEO Mark Zuckerberg. With Muse on Mac, the agent can do things like organize files, fill out forms, and pull information from apps including Messages, Calendar, and Notes, Meta says.
As part of a few new podcast-focused features for Threads, there are new podcast cards that will show up in posts and profiles that make the podcast stand out. Could be useful for creators trying to promote their show.
The industry is in a panic, but it’s been claiming to want legal guardrails for years — with few meaningful results.
OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and Elon Musk have tentatively agreed to slow their roll, but Meta seemingly isn’t aligned. Mark Zuckerberg just tweeted each company has its own individual responsibility “to move at the pace required to train its models safely,” and claims Meta is already doing so.
He also prominently links to his manifesto from August, which contains this quote: “Any policy that slows American model releases -- even by a month -- could add significant risk to American leadership while letting foreign models race ahead.”
Tagged posts will appear in reverse-chronological order on your grid, but you can also reorder them if you want.
The developer of the iPhone app told Business Insider that he examined the Bluetooth signals emitted by popular smart glasses to establish corresponding fingerprints. The app can then alert users when a pair of potential “pervert glasses” are nearby.
With the launch of Meta’s new AI agent that it says can handle your life for you, the social network exec posted this video highlighting how secure, private, and trustworthy Muse is, and that it will get even more secure in the future. Trust.
Meta is back to adding AI labels on original photos, while not tagging AI images it should.
Sony’s new trailer for The Social Reckoning features a few brief snippets of Strong’s performance. The voice is pretty uncanny. The film debuts in theaters on October 9th.
It’s planning to run full-page ads in The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and New York Times on Thursday, according to NYT reporter Mike Isaac, on the heels of Meta’s $17 billion settlement with state AGs. Meta is using the settlement to urge its top competitors to take on similar restrictions.
A report from Reuters details Mark Zuckerberg’s “Project Organization Transformation” — a plan that involved having AI “take over much of the daily work performed by thousands of human employees.” Though Meta went through with layoffs affecting 10 percent of its workforce in May, Reuters reports that the company called off further cuts in November as employees began to revolt.
Android users will now see more information about non-contact callers, such as what country the number is from and if you have groups in common. Starting today, WhatsApp also lets you add full passwords to two-factor verification, and multiple passkeys to Android and iOS devices.
As Patentlyze reports, the company filed a patent earlier this year for a “hardware privacy mute circuit” for “consumer devices, such as augmented reality devices,” like Meta’s smart glasses. The patent says the mute switch would “provide tamper-resistant privacy controls that cannot be compromised through software exploits.”
[United States Patent Application Publication]
It would have been the next bellwether in the group of cases tried in a Los Angeles state court. In the first, Meta and YouTube were ordered to pay $6 million total. After settling with TikTok, the teen’s lawyer told The New York Times, she wanted to “resume her life.”
[The New York Times]
Public-facing workers are being filmed, harassed, and creeped out by AI-powered smart glasses.
The glasses “could unintentionally capture, record or transmit sensitive information, potentially compromising privacy and legal protections,” ICE acting director David Venturella said in a memo to staff, according to The New York Times. Staffers can’t wear the glasses in the “federal workspace.”
[The New York Times]
The company laid out its defense in the trial against a coalition of state AGs, previewing that it will call on their own public health officials to combat claims of social media addiction, and claiming that the states have pulled public statements out of context to claim it misled parents.
In an opening statement, California deputy AG Megan O’Neill accused Meta of doing “too little, too late” to curb teens’ problematic usage of Facebook and Instagram, while misleading the public. She also laid out the states allegations that Meta knew — but didn’t remove – many kids under 13 on its platforms.
Beginning at 11 AM Eastern, you can stream opening arguments in a trial where 29 attorneys general allege Meta harmed consumers through addictive design. Meta denies this, and warned damages could reach $1.4 trillion — nearing its market cap. The AGs say they’d likely be closer to $200 billion.
Semafor’s editor-in-chief on billionaire owners, news influencers, and the anti-scale era of media.
In the months since Australia’s social media ban, Meta says it has blocked 462,000 Instagram accounts and 294,000 Facebook accounts that appeared to belong to users under 16, according to Bloomberg.
Australia’s prime minister ramped up penalties for social media platforms in June after a study found that four in five teens under 16 in Australia were still using them.
