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.
Zuckerberg introduced a small video showing how Meta glasses will be able to zero in on conversations and amplify voices in loud areas. It’s not quite like a hearing aid feature, but it does remind everyone that the second-gen Ray-Bans are an audio-first device.
Meta has been investing a lot into AI as of late.
So says Mark Zuckerberg after showing a live feed of him walking onto the stage from AI glasses... with the hint of a display overlay. Note how he says AI glasses, not smart glasses.
He was wearing a new pair of glasses that, according to a live video, have a display in the lens. He says he’ll talk more about them later.
Victoria Song and I are here and ready to go. Mark Zuckerberg is set to take the stage at 8PM ET.
Taking a move straight from Apple’s playbook.
During Mark Zuckerberg’s keynote tonight at 8PM ET, we’re expecting some more glasses. Come back then, as Victoria Song and I will be covering the show live.
Mark Zuckerberg, via Meta, can now essentially spend unlimited money in California elections.
What to expect from Meta’s Connect 2025 conference.
The company’s success in the space hinges on whether it can continue to push the category forward.
Meta is tweaking how a string of posts looks on the platform, including adding labels that indicate if the post is one in a longer thread. This makes it much easier to see where the discussion continues, and is also a nice signal that someone’s thoughts go on longer than the first post. Now we need this on Bluesky...
The change should make it easier to not have your own comments get buried.
The platform has added a new “poke” button directly to users’ profiles, as spotted earlier by TechCrunch. You can track all your pokes and build up a “poke count” on a dedicated page that just reminded me of everyone who poked me in 2010.
Jian Zhang, Apple’s head AI researcher for robotics, is headed to Meta, Bloomberg reported, citing people with knowledge of the matter. The report also said that three other AI researchers are leaving Apple’s foundation models team, with two going to OpenAI and one to Anthropic — part of an increasing number of departures from that team in recent weeks.
Now, users with 100,000 followers or more can narrow down DMs with the addition of new filters and the ability to create folders. Creators can also customize shortcuts to navigate to certain categories of messages, such as requests.
Maybe this will help solve T-Pain’s missing messages problem.
The Meta-owned app announced a new AI-powered writing tool that can help you compose messages. Like some of WhatsApp’s other AI features, the writing tool is also built on the platform’s Private Processing technology, which is supposed to shield your AI interactions from Meta and WhatsApp.
Both were at Meta for less than a month, Wired reported. A third Superintelligence lab employee also left but did not specify where he was headed in a post on X.
The codenamed “Hypernova” glasses, as well as a third-generation pair of its glasses that only support voice, could debut at Meta’s Connect event in September, CNBC reports. The event takes place on September 17th and 18th.
That means no more scrolling through profiles to find the second half of a reel. If a creator links their videos, you can jump directly to the next one by tapping the “Watch Part 2” button beneath the reel’s caption.
So it’s no surprise Meta is supporting a new solar farm in South Carolina that’ll provide power for the first data center the tech company is building in the state. Developers also have to race to take advantage of Biden-era tax credits for renewables before they expire, a victim of Republicans’ big spending bill.
It’s ending its hiring spree with a sudden freeze, The Wall Street Journal reports. It’s spent big on superintelligence, hiring over 50 new AI researchers and engineers, with offers worth tens of millions of dollars, but all that expenditure has some investors spooked.
In his Power On newsletter, Bloomberg reporter Mark Gurman mentions that Meta has decided that when its smart glasses with a heads-up display debut later this fall, the starting price will be around $800 instead of the $1,000 price range previously rumored.
