Meta

Meta on Wednesday announced that it is expanding its AI features to 21 additional countries. Meta AI includes a chatbot that can be used for conversations or searches, as well a Studio to generate images based on text inputs.

Apple unveiled the first spatial computing product back at WWDC23 last June: Apple Vision Pro. It’s been over a year since that unveil, and just over 6 months since they actually shipped the product. Meta recently unveiled their new Orion AR glasses, and while that’s just a prototype, it does leave us wondering what Apple has in the pipeline for “spatial computing.”

Meta has been fined €91M ($101M) after it was discovered that to 600 million Facebook and Instagram passwords had been stored in plain text.

Some of those passwords had been unprotected since 2012, and were searchable by more than 20,000 Meta employees …

My colleague Filipe Espósito yesterday said that the prototype Meta Orion glasses are what he wants for the future of Apple Vision, and I agree that they are an incredible step in the right direction.

I’ve long said that an Apple Glasses product is what I really want to see, but as impressed as I am by what Meta has shown us, I still think it will be a few years before any of us will be wearing a pair of Apple Glasses …

Meta held a special event on Wednesday to announce updates for its platforms and also some new products. Among all the announcements, there was certainly one that caught all the attention: the Orion project. Orion is not a product coming soon to stores, but it’s a functional prototype of how Meta imagines AR glasses. And they’re exactly what I want for the future of Apple Vision.

In a new podcast interview this week, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg addressed how he believes his company differs from Apple. As noted by Business Insider, Zuckerberg said that he thinks Meta is “like the opposite of Apple” in a lot of ways, and pointed out multiple flaws with Apple’s strategy.

Meta announced Monday that it has banned RT and other Russian state media outlets from its platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, Threads, and WhatsApp, among others, citing ‘foreign interference activity’ in the US presidential election.

Meta has admitted to scraping all public Facebook and Instagram posts made since 2007 in order to train its generative AI model, adding to the privacy contrast with Apple Intelligence.

While the admission was made during a public enquiry in Australia, the company’s statement applies globally …

Apple has its share of frenemies, and Meta is certainly one of them. Though the two companies have a mutually beneficial relationship, they have often found themselves in deep points of conflict. The latest drama? Per The Wall Street Journal, Meta lobbied to make Apple a responsible party in a child safety bill, but Apple’s own lobbying got it off the hook.

Meta on Tuesday announced a major update coming to Instagram and its other apps. However, rather than adding a new feature, the company is removing one. That’s because Meta has confirmed that it will be shutting down its Spark platform, which lets anyone create AR filters that can be used on the camera within apps like Instagram and Facebook.

Meta began experimenting with an option for auto-archiving posts on Threads back in April, but the feature never came to fruition in that form. However, the company has now confirmed that they’re experimenting with a new ephemeral post format, where users can choose to have a post disappear after 24 hours.

Back in May, Meta started testing the ability to cross-post from Instagram to Threads, and the company is now rolling this out to everyone.

The feature also lets you cross-post from Facebook, continuing Meta’s integration of its three different social media platforms …

Meta has filed a patent for a method of replicating Vision Pro’s EyeSight feature in its own virtual reality headsets.

It’s not surprising that Meta is keeping a close eye on Vision Pro, and looking to see what lessons it can learn for its own Quest headsets; it’s somewhat more surprising that it would seek to copy a feature which has been poorly received, and that Apple is likely to drop …

Apple said last month that it would be withholding its upcoming AI features from EU countries, and now Meta has followed suit, and for exactly the same reason.

The iPhone maker cited “regulatory uncertainties” in the bloc, and Meta has given the same explanation for its own decision to hold back future AI models …

Meta Quest’s attempts to compete with Vision Pro using a headset costing a fraction of the price continues.

We reported last month that the company was experimenting with freeform window placement in an attempt to match the flexibility of visionOS, and Mark Zuckerberg has today shown-off the latest version of this, with six windows …

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As Meta ramps up its efforts to stay competitive in an industry dominated by artificial intelligence, users are becoming increasingly concerned after a significant update to its privacy policy. Beginning June 26, if you post or interact with chatbots on Facebook, Instagram, Threads, or WhatsApp, Meta may use your data to train its generative AI models–but you may be able to opt out depending on where you live.

Update: Both the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office and the European Commission have now launched investigations into the legality of making it opt-out instead of opt-in.

If you use Instagram or Facebook, Meta is using your data to train its AI models. The company uses posts as training material for its generative AI systems. Privacy legislation in the UK and European Union means that the company is forced to offer an opt-out option – but it is doing so in a rather sketchy way …

Meta is offering teenagers a strengthened version of its Instagram Limits tool. When set to its highest level, only Close Friends will be able to comment, reply, tag, mention, or message them.

It’s the latest development in the company’s protections for teens, after anti-grooming blocks and nudity blurring introduced earlier in the year …

Threads on Tuesday announced some important updates coming for its users. More specifically, the platform is rolling out two new features: an option to mute post notifications and also quote controls to limit re-shares. Read on as we go into more detail about these updates.