Solos’ new smart glasses are the audio-only AirGo A6 and the second iteration of its camera-enabled glasses, the Solos AirGo V2. The latter was first announced last year as an effort to directly “outshine Meta.” These $299 glasses do just about everything you’d expect from Meta’s new $299 Meta Smartglasses, including photo and video capture, playing music, and interacting with an AI-powered assistant that can see what you see. They can be fitted with prescription lenses and have a 10- to 12-hour battery life.
The AirGo V2 glasses can also be paired with a new Privacy Kit, a set of clip-on accessories that let wearers control what their camera glasses can access. The clip-on privacy shield blocks the cameras from view and from recording the world, allowing you to keep wearing the glasses in audio-only mode. There’s also a clip-on polarized lens, and the full kit of modular options costs $79.
Selling a privacy kit as a clip-on accessory is perhaps not the most effective way to stave off concerns about people running around with small, discreet cameras on their faces. Having to buy a separate item, then clip it on and off every time you want to use or disable the camera, is a lot of extra steps that will likely keep people from bothering with privacy at all. Also, there isn’t anything stopping bad actors from removing the clip-on blockers later in an interaction—say, after entering an event that prohibits camera recording.
Courtesy of Solos Smartglasses
Solos’ first camera-enabled glasses, the Solos AirGo Vision, launched in 2024. WIRED put them in the “Don’t Bother” section of our Best Smart Glasses gallery, citing some decent design choices, albeit ones held back by middling media capture quality, frustrating touch controls, and a power-hungry app that demands too many permissions. All in all, the glasses haven’t quite reached the standard Meta has set with its popular smart glasses.
Meta has been the dominant force in the smart glasses market, but other big companies are trying to fill in the cracks. Google and Samsung have a partnership to build out Google’s Android XR platform, with new glasses arriving later this year from eyewear brands Warby Parker and Gentle Monster. Apple has reportedly been building its own smart glasses as well.
Some smaller companies are adjusting their target markets to counter Meta, like Even Realities and its camera-free glasses. Solos’ reemphasis on privacy comes after a period of widespread criticism of Meta’s glasses. The devices have been called creepy “pervert glasses” and were criticized after the company silently added face recognition code to its glasses, then quickly removed it after public outcry following a WIRED report. Meta hasn’t done itself any favors since then, announcing last week that it will start charging for features on its smart glasses that have previously been free.
Meta has acknowledged that a market for audio-only smart glasses exists, as CTO Andrew Bosworth said in a private Q&A session with media that he thinks there is “market demand for that product for sure.” But Meta hasn’t moved away from its camera-forward spectacles yet. It may very well make audio-only glasses in the future. Until then, companies like Solos are eager to chip away at that market.
Solos’ new smart glasses are the audio-only AirGo A6 and the second iteration of its camera-enabled glasses, the Solos AirGo V2. The latter was first announced last year as an effort to directly “outshine Meta.” These $299 glasses do just about everything you’d expect from Meta’s new $299 Meta Smartglasses, including photo and video capture, playing music, and interacting with an AI-powered assistant that can see what you see. They can be fitted with prescription lenses and have a 10- to 12-hour battery life.
The AirGo V2 glasses can also be paired with a new Privacy Kit, a set of clip-on accessories that let wearers control what their camera glasses can access. The clip-on privacy shield blocks the cameras from view and from recording the world, allowing you to keep wearing the glasses in audio-only mode. There’s also a clip-on polarized lens, and the full kit of modular options costs $79.
Selling a privacy kit as a clip-on accessory is perhaps not the most effective way to stave off concerns about people running around with small, discreet cameras on their faces. Having to buy a separate item, then clip it on and off every time you want to use or disable the camera, is a lot of extra steps that will likely keep people from bothering with privacy at all. Also, there isn’t anything stopping bad actors from removing the clip-on blockers later in an interaction—say, after entering an event that prohibits camera recording.
Courtesy of Solos Smartglasses
Solos’ first camera-enabled glasses, the Solos AirGo Vision, launched in 2024. WIRED put them in the “Don’t Bother” section of our Best Smart Glasses gallery, citing some decent design choices, albeit ones held back by middling media capture quality, frustrating touch controls, and a power-hungry app that demands too many permissions. All in all, the glasses haven’t quite reached the standard Meta has set with its popular smart glasses.
Meta has been the dominant force in the smart glasses market, but other big companies are trying to fill in the cracks. Google and Samsung have a partnership to build out Google’s Android XR platform, with new glasses arriving later this year from eyewear brands Warby Parker and Gentle Monster. Apple has reportedly been building its own smart glasses as well.
Some smaller companies are adjusting their target markets to counter Meta, like Even Realities and its camera-free glasses. Solos’ reemphasis on privacy comes after a period of widespread criticism of Meta’s glasses. The devices have been called creepy “pervert glasses” and were criticized after the company silently added face recognition code to its glasses, then quickly removed it after public outcry following a WIRED report. Meta hasn’t done itself any favors since then, announcing last week that it will start charging for features on its smart glasses that have previously been free.
Meta has acknowledged that a market for audio-only smart glasses exists, as CTO Andrew Bosworth said in a private Q&A session with media that he thinks there is “market demand for that product for sure.” But Meta hasn’t moved away from its camera-forward spectacles yet. It may very well make audio-only glasses in the future. Until then, companies like Solos are eager to chip away at that market.
#Smart #Glasses #Solos #Privacy #Shield #Camerascameras,design,smart glasses,wearables,artificial intelligence,meta">These New Smart Glasses From Solos Come With a Privacy Shield for the Cameras
Smart glasses company Solos has long focused on audio-only smart glasses. On Tuesday, it announced two new pairs of glasses, one of which has a camera—but you can buy a separate accessory to hide the camera for privacy’s sake.
Solos’ new smart glasses are the audio-only AirGo A6 and the second iteration of its camera-enabled glasses, the Solos AirGo V2. The latter was first announced last year as an effort to directly “outshine Meta.” These $299 glasses do just about everything you’d expect from Meta’s new $299 Meta Smartglasses, including photo and video capture, playing music, and interacting with an AI-powered assistant that can see what you see. They can be fitted with prescription lenses and have a 10- to 12-hour battery life.
The AirGo V2 glasses can also be paired with a new Privacy Kit, a set of clip-on accessories that let wearers control what their camera glasses can access. The clip-on privacy shield blocks the cameras from view and from recording the world, allowing you to keep wearing the glasses in audio-only mode. There’s also a clip-on polarized lens, and the full kit of modular options costs $79.
Selling a privacy kit as a clip-on accessory is perhaps not the most effective way to stave off concerns about people running around with small, discreet cameras on their faces. Having to buy a separate item, then clip it on and off every time you want to use or disable the camera, is a lot of extra steps that will likely keep people from bothering with privacy at all. Also, there isn’t anything stopping bad actors from removing the clip-on blockers later in an interaction—say, after entering an event that prohibits camera recording.
Courtesy of Solos Smartglasses
Solos’ first camera-enabled glasses, the Solos AirGo Vision, launched in 2024. WIRED put them in the “Don’t Bother” section of our Best Smart Glasses gallery, citing some decent design choices, albeit ones held back by middling media capture quality, frustrating touch controls, and a power-hungry app that demands too many permissions. All in all, the glasses haven’t quite reached the standard Meta has set with its popular smart glasses.
Meta has been the dominant force in the smart glasses market, but other big companies are trying to fill in the cracks. Google and Samsung have a partnership to build out Google’s Android XR platform, with new glasses arriving later this year from eyewear brands Warby Parker and Gentle Monster. Apple has reportedly been building its own smart glasses as well.
Some smaller companies are adjusting their target markets to counter Meta, like Even Realities and its camera-free glasses. Solos’ reemphasis on privacy comes after a period of widespread criticism of Meta’s glasses. The devices have been called creepy “pervert glasses” and were criticized after the company silently added face recognition code to its glasses, then quickly removed it after public outcry following a WIRED report. Meta hasn’t done itself any favors since then, announcing last week that it will start charging for features on its smart glasses that have previously been free.
Meta has acknowledged that a market for audio-only smart glasses exists, as CTO Andrew Bosworth said in a private Q&A session with media that he thinks there is “market demand for that product for sure.” But Meta hasn’t moved away from its camera-forward spectacles yet. It may very well make audio-only glasses in the future. Until then, companies like Solos are eager to chip away at that market.
Earlier this month, WIRED discovered code in the public-facing Meta AI app, suggesting that Meta was gearing up to debut a face recognition feature in its consumer smart glasses, technology that may have been trained by a company that builds surveillance tools for the US military and police departments. After WIRED’s report, Meta deleted the code, and none of this technology is present in the new Meta Glasses. Ankit Brahmbhatt, senior director of Product Management for AI Glasses at Meta, tells WIRED there are “no plans for facial recognition,” as it’s not the focus for what the company is building here.
Meta’s goal with these glasses is to get them onto more faces. “It’s more than just whether they fit—fit and comfort are extremely critical to get right—but it’s also your personal brand,” Bristol says. “It’s a really important decision if we want people to wear them as daily driver glasses.” If more people start wearing these Meta Glasses, that means more people are using Meta AI.
Bristol and Bosworth both lamented that with many of today’s AI tools, you have to supply the context manually, whether by providing a picture, document, or search query. With smart glasses, the AI assistant sees what you’re seeing, and that’s one less burden on your part. “It’s not that the thing isn’t smart enough—sometimes that’s a problem—it’s the amount of work I have to do to get it up to speed,” Bosworth says.
But making smart glasses comfier is just one step. Many people are still concerned about the privacy oversteps made possible by wearable cameras that can discreetly record the user’s surroundings. Bosworth believes such anxieties are akin to what happened when smartphones first put high-quality cameras in our pockets.
“There’s this social norming thing that has to happen,” he says. “The glasses are very popular … that doesn’t mean we aren’t worried about every corner case.”
The new Meta Glasses arrive at a turbulent time for the company’s relationship with its workforce. Bosworth himself sent an internal memo to employees last week promising better communication, stability, and workplace perks to improve morale, which is at an all-time low.
Earlier this month, WIRED discovered code in the public-facing Meta AI app, suggesting that Meta was gearing up to debut a face recognition feature in its consumer smart glasses, technology that may have been trained by a company that builds surveillance tools for the US military and police departments. After WIRED’s report, Meta deleted the code, and none of this technology is present in the new Meta Glasses. Ankit Brahmbhatt, senior director of Product Management for AI Glasses at Meta, tells WIRED there are “no plans for facial recognition,” as it’s not the focus for what the company is building here.
Meta’s goal with these glasses is to get them onto more faces. “It’s more than just whether they fit—fit and comfort are extremely critical to get right—but it’s also your personal brand,” Bristol says. “It’s a really important decision if we want people to wear them as daily driver glasses.” If more people start wearing these Meta Glasses, that means more people are using Meta AI.
Bristol and Bosworth both lamented that with many of today’s AI tools, you have to supply the context manually, whether by providing a picture, document, or search query. With smart glasses, the AI assistant sees what you’re seeing, and that’s one less burden on your part. “It’s not that the thing isn’t smart enough—sometimes that’s a problem—it’s the amount of work I have to do to get it up to speed,” Bosworth says.
But making smart glasses comfier is just one step. Many people are still concerned about the privacy oversteps made possible by wearable cameras that can discreetly record the user’s surroundings. Bosworth believes such anxieties are akin to what happened when smartphones first put high-quality cameras in our pockets.
“There’s this social norming thing that has to happen,” he says. “The glasses are very popular … that doesn’t mean we aren’t worried about every corner case.”
The new Meta Glasses arrive at a turbulent time for the company’s relationship with its workforce. Bosworth himself sent an internal memo to employees last week promising better communication, stability, and workplace perks to improve morale, which is at an all-time low.
#Metas #Smart #Glasses #Sale #Todaymeta,smart glasses,design,wearables,cameras">Meta’s Very Own Smart Glasses Go on Sale Today for $299
Speaking of, Bosworth says Meta has heard feedback that some folks don’t care for the camera capabilities on its smart glasses and would prefer audio-only glasses. “There’s a market demand for that product for sure.” Bosworth then said, “one thing at a time.”
The Meta Fury.
Photograph: Julian Chokkattu
Earlier this month, WIRED discovered code in the public-facing Meta AI app, suggesting that Meta was gearing up to debut a face recognition feature in its consumer smart glasses, technology that may have been trained by a company that builds surveillance tools for the US military and police departments. After WIRED’s report, Meta deleted the code, and none of this technology is present in the new Meta Glasses. Ankit Brahmbhatt, senior director of Product Management for AI Glasses at Meta, tells WIRED there are “no plans for facial recognition,” as it’s not the focus for what the company is building here.
Meta’s goal with these glasses is to get them onto more faces. “It’s more than just whether they fit—fit and comfort are extremely critical to get right—but it’s also your personal brand,” Bristol says. “It’s a really important decision if we want people to wear them as daily driver glasses.” If more people start wearing these Meta Glasses, that means more people are using Meta AI.
Bristol and Bosworth both lamented that with many of today’s AI tools, you have to supply the context manually, whether by providing a picture, document, or search query. With smart glasses, the AI assistant sees what you’re seeing, and that’s one less burden on your part. “It’s not that the thing isn’t smart enough—sometimes that’s a problem—it’s the amount of work I have to do to get it up to speed,” Bosworth says.
But making smart glasses comfier is just one step. Many people are still concerned about the privacy oversteps made possible by wearable cameras that can discreetly record the user’s surroundings. Bosworth believes such anxieties are akin to what happened when smartphones first put high-quality cameras in our pockets.
“There’s this social norming thing that has to happen,” he says. “The glasses are very popular … that doesn’t mean we aren’t worried about every corner case.”
The new Meta Glasses arrive at a turbulent time for the company’s relationship with its workforce. Bosworth himself sent an internal memo to employees last week promising better communication, stability, and workplace perks to improve morale, which is at an all-time low.
Meta has cut Manus off from its internal systems, Bloomberg reported, preventing employees from using Manus tools for internal projects as the two companies move toward a full separation.
Meanwhile, according to May reports, the co-founders of Manus have held preliminary discussions about raising approximately $1 billion from outside investors to reclaim the startup from Meta, a move that could pave the way for a Chinese joint venture structure and an eventual listing in Hong Kong, a venue that has seen a surge in AI listings this year for Chinese AI startups like MiniMax and Zhipu.
What was supposed to be a landmark exit for Chinese AI is quickly unraveling. The move underscores Beijing’s determination to retain control over strategically sensitive technology, regardless of a company’s offshore incorporation.
In addition to the forced divestiture, Chinese authorities have since expanded travel restrictions to researchers and executives at private firms, requiring government approval before heading abroad. China is also tightening its grip on foreign capital, with reports indicating that top AI firms, including Moonshot AI, StepFun, and ByteDance, will need government sign-off before accepting U.S. investment, adding another layer to Beijing’s sweeping effort to control its AI sector.
Even as Meta moves to sever ties with Manus, the agentic AI startup has continued to ship new features, rolling out integrations with Similarweb and Shopify.
Manus drew widespread attention with a viral agent demo relocated its staff to Singapore in mid-2025 before announcing a $2 billion acquisition by Meta in December. Chinese regulators moved to scrutinize the transaction earlier this year, citing potential violations of technology export controls and foreign investment rules.
Manus investors, including California-based venture firm Benchmark, have already received their proceeds from the acquisition, while Asian backers, including Tencent, HSG, and ZhenFund, have indicated they will cooperate with the unwinding process, according to the WSJ.
Manus’ Chinese origins with parent company Butterfly Effect drew scrutiny on both sides of the Pacific, with Senator John Cornynquestioning whether American capital should flow to a Chinese-linked firm.
Meta and Manus did not immediately respond to a request for comment outside regular business hours.
When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. This doesn’t affect our editorial independence.
Meta has cut Manus off from its internal systems, Bloomberg reported, preventing employees from using Manus tools for internal projects as the two companies move toward a full separation.
Meanwhile, according to May reports, the co-founders of Manus have held preliminary discussions about raising approximately $1 billion from outside investors to reclaim the startup from Meta, a move that could pave the way for a Chinese joint venture structure and an eventual listing in Hong Kong, a venue that has seen a surge in AI listings this year for Chinese AI startups like MiniMax and Zhipu.
What was supposed to be a landmark exit for Chinese AI is quickly unraveling. The move underscores Beijing’s determination to retain control over strategically sensitive technology, regardless of a company’s offshore incorporation.
In addition to the forced divestiture, Chinese authorities have since expanded travel restrictions to researchers and executives at private firms, requiring government approval before heading abroad. China is also tightening its grip on foreign capital, with reports indicating that top AI firms, including Moonshot AI, StepFun, and ByteDance, will need government sign-off before accepting U.S. investment, adding another layer to Beijing’s sweeping effort to control its AI sector.
Even as Meta moves to sever ties with Manus, the agentic AI startup has continued to ship new features, rolling out integrations with Similarweb and Shopify.
Manus drew widespread attention with a viral agent demo relocated its staff to Singapore in mid-2025 before announcing a $2 billion acquisition by Meta in December. Chinese regulators moved to scrutinize the transaction earlier this year, citing potential violations of technology export controls and foreign investment rules.
Manus investors, including California-based venture firm Benchmark, have already received their proceeds from the acquisition, while Asian backers, including Tencent, HSG, and ZhenFund, have indicated they will cooperate with the unwinding process, according to the WSJ.
Manus’ Chinese origins with parent company Butterfly Effect drew scrutiny on both sides of the Pacific, with Senator John Cornynquestioning whether American capital should flow to a Chinese-linked firm.
Meta and Manus did not immediately respond to a request for comment outside regular business hours.
When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. This doesn’t affect our editorial independence.
Meta has begun dismantling its $2 billion acquisition of Manus, completing an operational separation from the Chinese-founded AI startup and halting data sharing between the two companies. This is the most concrete step yet toward complying with a divestiture order Beijing issued roughly two months ago on national security grounds.
Meta has cut Manus off from its internal systems, Bloomberg reported, preventing employees from using Manus tools for internal projects as the two companies move toward a full separation.
Meanwhile, according to May reports, the co-founders of Manus have held preliminary discussions about raising approximately $1 billion from outside investors to reclaim the startup from Meta, a move that could pave the way for a Chinese joint venture structure and an eventual listing in Hong Kong, a venue that has seen a surge in AI listings this year for Chinese AI startups like MiniMax and Zhipu.
What was supposed to be a landmark exit for Chinese AI is quickly unraveling. The move underscores Beijing’s determination to retain control over strategically sensitive technology, regardless of a company’s offshore incorporation.
In addition to the forced divestiture, Chinese authorities have since expanded travel restrictions to researchers and executives at private firms, requiring government approval before heading abroad. China is also tightening its grip on foreign capital, with reports indicating that top AI firms, including Moonshot AI, StepFun, and ByteDance, will need government sign-off before accepting U.S. investment, adding another layer to Beijing’s sweeping effort to control its AI sector.
Even as Meta moves to sever ties with Manus, the agentic AI startup has continued to ship new features, rolling out integrations with Similarweb and Shopify.
Manus drew widespread attention with a viral agent demo relocated its staff to Singapore in mid-2025 before announcing a $2 billion acquisition by Meta in December. Chinese regulators moved to scrutinize the transaction earlier this year, citing potential violations of technology export controls and foreign investment rules.
Manus investors, including California-based venture firm Benchmark, have already received their proceeds from the acquisition, while Asian backers, including Tencent, HSG, and ZhenFund, have indicated they will cooperate with the unwinding process, according to the WSJ.
Manus’ Chinese origins with parent company Butterfly Effect drew scrutiny on both sides of the Pacific, with Senator John Cornynquestioning whether American capital should flow to a Chinese-linked firm.
Meta and Manus did not immediately respond to a request for comment outside regular business hours.
When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. This doesn’t affect our editorial independence.
Its initial success hasn’t gone unnoticed, either. Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses have pulled Google, Samsung, and potentially even Apple into the mix, with the former two companies planning to release their own pair this year. And that’s not even counting the various other upstarts that have managed to carve out a niche already.
The interest in face-worn wearables is palpable, and in a lot of ways, smart glasses, for all of their obvious flaws, feel concrete. But as concrete as the interest is, the category also feels as nebulous as ever, and Meta, for all its popularity, is a perfect example.
Take apps, for instance. Meta has made some strides since the launch of the Meta Ray-Ban Display last year to try to add more functionality, but for the most part, it still feels like there’s not a ton to do once they’re on your face. You can get notifications, you can get directions, and you can swipe through Instagram Reels, and sure, it’s novel to be doing those things on a small screen on your face, but they don’t necessarily add up to a game-changing experience.
Meta clearly knows that those “core” apps aren’t enough, which is why it recently opened up its developer program for the Meta Ray-Ban Display so that people can make apps that use both the built-in screen as well as the included Neural Band, the wristband you use to control the UI inside the smart glasses.
While the apps being built are in early stages and aren’t being made generally available to people who own the smart glasses yet, initial results are… something? There are people making speedometers, apps that control your smart home, and Doom (because, of course). Someone even made the bold choice of making an app that can unlock your car. Again, they’re interesting ideas, but I’m not sure that any of them will have people rushing out to spend $800 on a pair of smart glasses.
Meta’s non-display smart glasses face similar issues. While I like the fact that you can use them as an open-ear audio device—they’re great for calling and listening to music while you’re riding a bike or exercising—some of the banner features of Meta’s “AI glasses” feel less-than-useful, and one of them is the AI itself.
Features like computer vision, which uses the camera on the smart glasses to answer questions about the world around you, are somewhat novel, but maybe not altogether useful for most. Don’t get me wrong, I think it could be great for accessibility purposes—people who have vision impairments could use computer vision to parse their surroundings. But for a general audience, the AI part of AI glasses can feel underwhelming, and I’m not the only one who thinks so.
“The biggest hurdle to success that I see so far for Meta is the quality of Meta AI and the slow nature of getting third-party apps onboard,” says Anshel Sag, principal analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy, which follows the consumer tech space closely. “The ways that they enhance my life in their most simple form, as smart glasses, are still pretty much paired to just Meta apps.”
Outside of translating a menu or telling you about items in your surroundings, I’ve yet to see lots of practical uses for computer vision, and that’s not even factoring in the bad habit that Meta AI has of getting things wrong, which is a real issue in my experience using the Ray-Ban Meta AI glasses.
I get that not every new gadget has to have a purpose right off the bat. Take the Apple Watch, for example, which entered the scene as a frivolous accessory to your iPhone. In many ways, you can write off smart glasses for the same reasons that people wrote off the Apple Watch at first. Yes, it delivers notifications and comes in a wearable form factor, but it mostly duplicates the experience of using your phone. And not only that, it’s utterly dependent on your phone to work, same as Meta’s Ray-Bans and Oakleys.
Those criticisms didn’t hold up forever, though. Eventually, the Apple Watch found health tracking features like heart rate monitoring and crash detection, and now it’s a device unto itself that also acts as an accessory to your iPhone. The thing is, health features aren’t exactly up for grabs anymore, though Meta has tried to introduce nutrition tracking as a feature, which uses the camera on the smart glasses to log what you eat and then gives you AI-powered recommendations. Whether that gets any traction remains to be seen, but I personally don’t envision loads of people lining up to have Meta AI shame them for their diets.
So, smart glasses will have to find their own niche, just like the Apple Watch, though whether such a niche really exists is anyone’s guess. It’s not that smart glasses can’t be useful at times—they can—but as it stands, even Meta lacks a “killer app” to drive adoption. Sure, people like recording stuff, but that is an entire can of worms from a privacy perspective, and for as many people that want smart glasses for their recording abilities, there are just as many that hate them for it.
Millions of units sold or not, smart glasses like Meta’s still feel like they’re a long way from the proverbial Apple Watch moment—a holy grail that is never guaranteed to arrive.
Its initial success hasn’t gone unnoticed, either. Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses have pulled Google, Samsung, and potentially even Apple into the mix, with the former two companies planning to release their own pair this year. And that’s not even counting the various other upstarts that have managed to carve out a niche already.
The interest in face-worn wearables is palpable, and in a lot of ways, smart glasses, for all of their obvious flaws, feel concrete. But as concrete as the interest is, the category also feels as nebulous as ever, and Meta, for all its popularity, is a perfect example.
Take apps, for instance. Meta has made some strides since the launch of the Meta Ray-Ban Display last year to try to add more functionality, but for the most part, it still feels like there’s not a ton to do once they’re on your face. You can get notifications, you can get directions, and you can swipe through Instagram Reels, and sure, it’s novel to be doing those things on a small screen on your face, but they don’t necessarily add up to a game-changing experience.
Meta clearly knows that those “core” apps aren’t enough, which is why it recently opened up its developer program for the Meta Ray-Ban Display so that people can make apps that use both the built-in screen as well as the included Neural Band, the wristband you use to control the UI inside the smart glasses.
While the apps being built are in early stages and aren’t being made generally available to people who own the smart glasses yet, initial results are… something? There are people making speedometers, apps that control your smart home, and Doom (because, of course). Someone even made the bold choice of making an app that can unlock your car. Again, they’re interesting ideas, but I’m not sure that any of them will have people rushing out to spend $800 on a pair of smart glasses.
Meta’s non-display smart glasses face similar issues. While I like the fact that you can use them as an open-ear audio device—they’re great for calling and listening to music while you’re riding a bike or exercising—some of the banner features of Meta’s “AI glasses” feel less-than-useful, and one of them is the AI itself.
Features like computer vision, which uses the camera on the smart glasses to answer questions about the world around you, are somewhat novel, but maybe not altogether useful for most. Don’t get me wrong, I think it could be great for accessibility purposes—people who have vision impairments could use computer vision to parse their surroundings. But for a general audience, the AI part of AI glasses can feel underwhelming, and I’m not the only one who thinks so.
“The biggest hurdle to success that I see so far for Meta is the quality of Meta AI and the slow nature of getting third-party apps onboard,” says Anshel Sag, principal analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy, which follows the consumer tech space closely. “The ways that they enhance my life in their most simple form, as smart glasses, are still pretty much paired to just Meta apps.”
Outside of translating a menu or telling you about items in your surroundings, I’ve yet to see lots of practical uses for computer vision, and that’s not even factoring in the bad habit that Meta AI has of getting things wrong, which is a real issue in my experience using the Ray-Ban Meta AI glasses.
I get that not every new gadget has to have a purpose right off the bat. Take the Apple Watch, for example, which entered the scene as a frivolous accessory to your iPhone. In many ways, you can write off smart glasses for the same reasons that people wrote off the Apple Watch at first. Yes, it delivers notifications and comes in a wearable form factor, but it mostly duplicates the experience of using your phone. And not only that, it’s utterly dependent on your phone to work, same as Meta’s Ray-Bans and Oakleys.
Those criticisms didn’t hold up forever, though. Eventually, the Apple Watch found health tracking features like heart rate monitoring and crash detection, and now it’s a device unto itself that also acts as an accessory to your iPhone. The thing is, health features aren’t exactly up for grabs anymore, though Meta has tried to introduce nutrition tracking as a feature, which uses the camera on the smart glasses to log what you eat and then gives you AI-powered recommendations. Whether that gets any traction remains to be seen, but I personally don’t envision loads of people lining up to have Meta AI shame them for their diets.
So, smart glasses will have to find their own niche, just like the Apple Watch, though whether such a niche really exists is anyone’s guess. It’s not that smart glasses can’t be useful at times—they can—but as it stands, even Meta lacks a “killer app” to drive adoption. Sure, people like recording stuff, but that is an entire can of worms from a privacy perspective, and for as many people that want smart glasses for their recording abilities, there are just as many that hate them for it.
Millions of units sold or not, smart glasses like Meta’s still feel like they’re a long way from the proverbial Apple Watch moment—a holy grail that is never guaranteed to arrive.
#Metas #Smart #Glasses #Long #Ways #Eureka #MomentMeta,Ray-Ban Meta,smart glasses,The Next Interface,Wearables">Meta’s Smart Glasses Are Long Ways From Their ‘Eureka’ Moment
Smart glasses have come a long way since the days of Google Glass. For one, they actually exist in a way that has been commercially viable, thanks mostly to Meta. With the help of Ray-Ban branding, Meta has sold millions of smart glasses, and, if recent reporting is any indication, it already has several more pairs on the way this year alone.
Its initial success hasn’t gone unnoticed, either. Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses have pulled Google, Samsung, and potentially even Apple into the mix, with the former two companies planning to release their own pair this year. And that’s not even counting the various other upstarts that have managed to carve out a niche already.
The interest in face-worn wearables is palpable, and in a lot of ways, smart glasses, for all of their obvious flaws, feel concrete. But as concrete as the interest is, the category also feels as nebulous as ever, and Meta, for all its popularity, is a perfect example.
Take apps, for instance. Meta has made some strides since the launch of the Meta Ray-Ban Display last year to try to add more functionality, but for the most part, it still feels like there’s not a ton to do once they’re on your face. You can get notifications, you can get directions, and you can swipe through Instagram Reels, and sure, it’s novel to be doing those things on a small screen on your face, but they don’t necessarily add up to a game-changing experience.
Meta clearly knows that those “core” apps aren’t enough, which is why it recently opened up its developer program for the Meta Ray-Ban Display so that people can make apps that use both the built-in screen as well as the included Neural Band, the wristband you use to control the UI inside the smart glasses.
While the apps being built are in early stages and aren’t being made generally available to people who own the smart glasses yet, initial results are… something? There are people making speedometers, apps that control your smart home, and Doom (because, of course). Someone even made the bold choice of making an app that can unlock your car. Again, they’re interesting ideas, but I’m not sure that any of them will have people rushing out to spend $800 on a pair of smart glasses.
Meta’s non-display smart glasses face similar issues. While I like the fact that you can use them as an open-ear audio device—they’re great for calling and listening to music while you’re riding a bike or exercising—some of the banner features of Meta’s “AI glasses” feel less-than-useful, and one of them is the AI itself.
Features like computer vision, which uses the camera on the smart glasses to answer questions about the world around you, are somewhat novel, but maybe not altogether useful for most. Don’t get me wrong, I think it could be great for accessibility purposes—people who have vision impairments could use computer vision to parse their surroundings. But for a general audience, the AI part of AI glasses can feel underwhelming, and I’m not the only one who thinks so.
“The biggest hurdle to success that I see so far for Meta is the quality of Meta AI and the slow nature of getting third-party apps onboard,” says Anshel Sag, principal analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy, which follows the consumer tech space closely. “The ways that they enhance my life in their most simple form, as smart glasses, are still pretty much paired to just Meta apps.”
Outside of translating a menu or telling you about items in your surroundings, I’ve yet to see lots of practical uses for computer vision, and that’s not even factoring in the bad habit that Meta AI has of getting things wrong, which is a real issue in my experience using the Ray-Ban Meta AI glasses.
I get that not every new gadget has to have a purpose right off the bat. Take the Apple Watch, for example, which entered the scene as a frivolous accessory to your iPhone. In many ways, you can write off smart glasses for the same reasons that people wrote off the Apple Watch at first. Yes, it delivers notifications and comes in a wearable form factor, but it mostly duplicates the experience of using your phone. And not only that, it’s utterly dependent on your phone to work, same as Meta’s Ray-Bans and Oakleys.
Those criticisms didn’t hold up forever, though. Eventually, the Apple Watch found health tracking features like heart rate monitoring and crash detection, and now it’s a device unto itself that also acts as an accessory to your iPhone. The thing is, health features aren’t exactly up for grabs anymore, though Meta has tried to introduce nutrition tracking as a feature, which uses the camera on the smart glasses to log what you eat and then gives you AI-powered recommendations. Whether that gets any traction remains to be seen, but I personally don’t envision loads of people lining up to have Meta AI shame them for their diets.
So, smart glasses will have to find their own niche, just like the Apple Watch, though whether such a niche really exists is anyone’s guess. It’s not that smart glasses can’t be useful at times—they can—but as it stands, even Meta lacks a “killer app” to drive adoption. Sure, people like recording stuff, but that is an entire can of worms from a privacy perspective, and for as many people that want smart glasses for their recording abilities, there are just as many that hate them for it.
Millions of units sold or not, smart glasses like Meta’s still feel like they’re a long way from the proverbial Apple Watch moment—a holy grail that is never guaranteed to arrive.
Smart glasses have come a long way since the days of Google Glass. For one,…
Nearly a year after it was announced, Instagram says it’s delivering the ability to rearrange the posts in your profile grid. It had been available to some people in test groups, but as of June 8th, it’s rolling out widely via the Android and iPhone mobile apps.
Until now, the posts on your Instagram profile have been locked in chronological order beyond the ability to pin three posts at the top, but once the feature is live on your account, you can long-press and drag posts freely, no matter how old they are. Any posts that are pinned will remain at the top.
Nearly a year after it was announced, Instagram says it’s delivering the ability to rearrange the posts in your profile grid. It had been available to some people in test groups, but as of June 8th, it’s rolling out widely via the Android and iPhone mobile apps.
Until now, the posts on your Instagram profile have been locked in chronological order beyond the ability to pin three posts at the top, but once the feature is live on your account, you can long-press and drag posts freely, no matter how old they are. Any posts that are pinned will remain at the top.
#Instagram #finally #letting #reorganize #profile #gridApps,Instagram,Meta,News,Tech">Instagram is finally letting everyone reorganize their profile grid
Nearly a year after it was announced, Instagram says it’s delivering the ability to rearrange the posts in your profile grid. It had been available to some people in test groups, but as of June 8th, it’s rolling out widely via the Android and iPhone mobile apps.
Until now, the posts on your Instagram profile have been locked in chronological order beyond the ability to pin three posts at the top, but once the feature is live on your account, you can long-press and drag posts freely, no matter how old they are. Any posts that are pinned will remain at the top.
Nearly a year after it was announced, Instagram says it’s delivering the ability to rearrange…
Meta has a new app on the App Store, and it looks an awful lot like Reddit.
The app, called Forum, is “a dedicated space built for deeper discussions, real answers and communities you care about,” according to its App Store page.
In practice, it is just a standalone app version of Facebook’s existing Groups feature, in which Facebook users can join groups and participate in discussions. In the new standalone app, the feed is entirely focused on the conversations taking place in the groups you are already a part of on your existing Facebook account. Forum and Facebook are still linked, meaning that you can enter Forum with your Facebook login, and whatever you post on there will be visible in your groups on the Facebook app as well.
Some readers might be getting deja vu, and rightfully so, because this is Meta’s second attempt at launching a stand-alone Facebook Groups app. Then known as Facebook, the company launched a similar, dedicated app back in 2014 that was ultimately discontinued in 2017.
Perhaps to spice things up a bit, this time around, Meta is also including a dedicated AI assistant in the app. The “Ask” feature on the app will rely on the information posted on the group pages to respond to users looking for “opinions, advice or recommendations,” Meta said. There is also an additional AI assistant for group admins, which will supposedly assist them with tasks like content moderation.
Some financial analysts considered the app a direct threat to Reddit, causing the company’s stock to end the day down more than 5%, but the apps have vastly different existing user bases. Either way, it’s too soon to tell whether there will eventually be significant user migration from Reddit to Forum.
This isn’t Meta’s first attempt at making its own version of an already successful app or feature. The company released its Twitter competitor app Threads in 2023, and most recently, it debuted Instants, an Instagram app that aims to replicate the successes of Snapchat and BeReal with instant, disappearing photos.
Interestingly, this time around, Meta released this app with little fanfare. There was no major announcement or press release that we could find. The app just appeared on the App Store, and some eagle-eyed users noticed it. Which raises the question, could this be the start of an AI-enabled flood of new apps that Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg reportedly promised employees?
Late last month, the Wall Street Journal published a piece detailing a companywide meeting in which Zuckerberg talked about Meta’s AI overhaul that has been used to justify a brutal round of layoffs. According to the report, Zuckerberg touted the efficiency gains from infusing AI into workflows and how the company will “be able to spin up more new projects” now because of this. Those new projects, according to the report, include creating more apps.
“So like Chris [Cox, Meta’s chief product officer] and I have been talking about, ‘all right, well, can we build 50 new apps? Like, yeah, probably,” Zuckerberg is quoted to have said in the article. “But we probably should start by doing a few before we just, like, ramp up trying to do 50 all at once.”
Meta has a new app on the App Store, and it looks an awful lot like Reddit.
The app, called Forum, is “a dedicated space built for deeper discussions, real answers and communities you care about,” according to its App Store page.
In practice, it is just a standalone app version of Facebook’s existing Groups feature, in which Facebook users can join groups and participate in discussions. In the new standalone app, the feed is entirely focused on the conversations taking place in the groups you are already a part of on your existing Facebook account. Forum and Facebook are still linked, meaning that you can enter Forum with your Facebook login, and whatever you post on there will be visible in your groups on the Facebook app as well.
Some readers might be getting deja vu, and rightfully so, because this is Meta’s second attempt at launching a stand-alone Facebook Groups app. Then known as Facebook, the company launched a similar, dedicated app back in 2014 that was ultimately discontinued in 2017.
Perhaps to spice things up a bit, this time around, Meta is also including a dedicated AI assistant in the app. The “Ask” feature on the app will rely on the information posted on the group pages to respond to users looking for “opinions, advice or recommendations,” Meta said. There is also an additional AI assistant for group admins, which will supposedly assist them with tasks like content moderation.
Some financial analysts considered the app a direct threat to Reddit, causing the company’s stock to end the day down more than 5%, but the apps have vastly different existing user bases. Either way, it’s too soon to tell whether there will eventually be significant user migration from Reddit to Forum.
This isn’t Meta’s first attempt at making its own version of an already successful app or feature. The company released its Twitter competitor app Threads in 2023, and most recently, it debuted Instants, an Instagram app that aims to replicate the successes of Snapchat and BeReal with instant, disappearing photos.
Interestingly, this time around, Meta released this app with little fanfare. There was no major announcement or press release that we could find. The app just appeared on the App Store, and some eagle-eyed users noticed it. Which raises the question, could this be the start of an AI-enabled flood of new apps that Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg reportedly promised employees?
Late last month, the Wall Street Journal published a piece detailing a companywide meeting in which Zuckerberg talked about Meta’s AI overhaul that has been used to justify a brutal round of layoffs. According to the report, Zuckerberg touted the efficiency gains from infusing AI into workflows and how the company will “be able to spin up more new projects” now because of this. Those new projects, according to the report, include creating more apps.
“So like Chris [Cox, Meta’s chief product officer] and I have been talking about, ‘all right, well, can we build 50 new apps? Like, yeah, probably,” Zuckerberg is quoted to have said in the article. “But we probably should start by doing a few before we just, like, ramp up trying to do 50 all at once.”
#Metas #Latest #App #RedditForum,Meta,Reddit">Meta’s Latest App Looks Like Reddit
Meta has a new app on the App Store, and it looks an awful lot like Reddit.
The app, called Forum, is “a dedicated space built for deeper discussions, real answers and communities you care about,” according to its App Store page.
In practice, it is just a standalone app version of Facebook’s existing Groups feature, in which Facebook users can join groups and participate in discussions. In the new standalone app, the feed is entirely focused on the conversations taking place in the groups you are already a part of on your existing Facebook account. Forum and Facebook are still linked, meaning that you can enter Forum with your Facebook login, and whatever you post on there will be visible in your groups on the Facebook app as well.
Some readers might be getting deja vu, and rightfully so, because this is Meta’s second attempt at launching a stand-alone Facebook Groups app. Then known as Facebook, the company launched a similar, dedicated app back in 2014 that was ultimately discontinued in 2017.
Perhaps to spice things up a bit, this time around, Meta is also including a dedicated AI assistant in the app. The “Ask” feature on the app will rely on the information posted on the group pages to respond to users looking for “opinions, advice or recommendations,” Meta said. There is also an additional AI assistant for group admins, which will supposedly assist them with tasks like content moderation.
Some financial analysts considered the app a direct threat to Reddit, causing the company’s stock to end the day down more than 5%, but the apps have vastly different existing user bases. Either way, it’s too soon to tell whether there will eventually be significant user migration from Reddit to Forum.
This isn’t Meta’s first attempt at making its own version of an already successful app or feature. The company released its Twitter competitor app Threads in 2023, and most recently, it debuted Instants, an Instagram app that aims to replicate the successes of Snapchat and BeReal with instant, disappearing photos.
Interestingly, this time around, Meta released this app with little fanfare. There was no major announcement or press release that we could find. The app just appeared on the App Store, and some eagle-eyed users noticed it. Which raises the question, could this be the start of an AI-enabled flood of new apps that Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg reportedly promised employees?
Late last month, the Wall Street Journal published a piece detailing a companywide meeting in which Zuckerberg talked about Meta’s AI overhaul that has been used to justify a brutal round of layoffs. According to the report, Zuckerberg touted the efficiency gains from infusing AI into workflows and how the company will “be able to spin up more new projects” now because of this. Those new projects, according to the report, include creating more apps.
“So like Chris [Cox, Meta’s chief product officer] and I have been talking about, ‘all right, well, can we build 50 new apps? Like, yeah, probably,” Zuckerberg is quoted to have said in the article. “But we probably should start by doing a few before we just, like, ramp up trying to do 50 all at once.”
#Metas #Latest #App #RedditForum,Meta,Reddit
Meta has a new app on the App Store, and it looks an awful lot…
This follows an earlier case, settled by Snap and TikTok, in which a 19-year-old plaintiff claimed significant personal injury due to addictive social media apps. Google and Meta did not agree to a settlement in that suit, and it eventually went to trial, where a jury awarded the plaintiff $6 million. Meta also recently lost a suit brought by New Mexico’s Attorney General, to the tune of $375 million.
Beyond monetary awards, many, including New Mexico, are pushing for significant changes to social media apps to limit their harm to minors. And this is just the start of what’s shaping up to be a busy year for social media lawsuits. According to Bloomberg, lawyers representing school districts said their “focus remains on pursuing justice for the remaining 1,200 school districts who have filed cases.”
This follows an earlier case, settled by Snap and TikTok, in which a 19-year-old plaintiff claimed significant personal injury due to addictive social media apps. Google and Meta did not agree to a settlement in that suit, and it eventually went to trial, where a jury awarded the plaintiff $6 million. Meta also recently lost a suit brought by New Mexico’s Attorney General, to the tune of $375 million.
Beyond monetary awards, many, including New Mexico, are pushing for significant changes to social media apps to limit their harm to minors. And this is just the start of what’s shaping up to be a busy year for social media lawsuits. According to Bloomberg, lawyers representing school districts said their “focus remains on pursuing justice for the remaining 1,200 school districts who have filed cases.”
#Snap #YouTube #TikTok #settle #suit #harm #studentsCreators,Facebook,Law,Meta,News,Policy,Snapchat,Social Media,Streaming,Tech,TikTok,YouTube">Snap, YouTube, and TikTok settle suit over harm to students
Snap, YouTube, and TikTok have settled the first lawsuit of its kind, alleging that social media addiction has cost public schools massive amounts of money, according to Bloomberg. The suit, filed by the Breathitt County School District in Kentucky, claims that social media has disrupted learning and created a mental health crisis, straining budgets. The terms of the settlement have not been revealed yet, and Meta is still facing a trial in the same suit, which is viewed as a bellwether for over 1,000 similar lawsuits across the country
This follows an earlier case, settled by Snap and TikTok, in which a 19-year-old plaintiff claimed significant personal injury due to addictive social media apps. Google and Meta did not agree to a settlement in that suit, and it eventually went to trial, where a jury awarded the plaintiff $6 million. Meta also recently lost a suit brought by New Mexico’s Attorney General, to the tune of $375 million.
Beyond monetary awards, many, including New Mexico, are pushing for significant changes to social media apps to limit their harm to minors. And this is just the start of what’s shaping up to be a busy year for social media lawsuits. According to Bloomberg, lawyers representing school districts said their “focus remains on pursuing justice for the remaining 1,200 school districts who have filed cases.”
Beginning Monday, attorneys for Meta and New Mexico will return to a Santa Fe courthouse for a three-week public nuisance trial, where they’ll argue over the changes the AG wants the judge to order Meta make to Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. Those changes include adding age verification for New Mexico users, prohibiting end-to-end encryption for users under 18 and capping their use to 90 hours per month, limiting engagement-boosting features like infinite scroll and autoplay, and requiring Meta to detect 99 percent of new child sexual abuse material (CSAM).
“From the outset, our goal was to try and change the way the company’s doing business,” Torrez told The Verge on a recent visit to Washington, DC, to advocate for new kids safety legislation. “I recognize that even at $375 million for a company this big and this profitable, it’s not enough in and of itself to change the way they’re doing business. In fact, there’s probably some folks in that company who think of it as the cost of doing business.”
“Even at $375 million for a company this big and this profitable, it’s not enough in and of itself to change the way they’re doing business”
While any changes ordered by the judge would only apply to Meta and its operations in New Mexico, the company could apply the changes in other states for the sake of simplicity. Or, as it’s threatened to do, it could simply go dark in the state. A court order could send a message to other tech companies that courts may be willing to alter their businesses if they’re found liable.
During the trial, New Mexico will argue Meta has become a public nuisance by creating a public health hazard in the state. The AG’s office expects to call on about 15 witnesses, including experts who will testify to the feasibility of their proposed remedies, and fact witnesses who will testify about Meta’s alleged harms. After Meta makes its defense, Judge Bryan Biedscheid will evaluate which proposals are relevant and feasible — a process that could take some time, compared to the speedy turnaround of the jury verdict in March.
A sweeping win for New Mexico could energize Torrez and thousands of other plaintiffs currently pursuing cases against tech companies. Conversely, a limited order could be a significant blow. The outcome won’t directly impact other cases, but it will almost certainly color negotiations over potential settlements.
Several of Torrez’s requests are hot-button tech policy issues. Age verification would almost certainly require Meta or a third-party provider to collect more personal information on adults and minors alike, which privacy advocates have consistently warned can make users less safe. Don McGowan, who previously served on the board of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), said that barring encrypted communications on platforms like Facebook “is a great way to make sure that nobody uses Facebook Messenger anymore and just moves their activity to other platforms that aren’t touched by this lawsuit.”
The mandate may do little to change the reality of certain parts of the business — Meta recently announced it was getting rid of end-to-end encrypted messaging on Instagram that it said “very few people” actually used.
Peter Chapman, associate director of the Knight-Georgetown Institute, which works to connect policymakers and others with independent tech policy research, said there could be “significant tradeoffs” to a prohibition on encryption, and other changes may be more effective. For example, evidence presented by the state showed that Meta’s own profile recommendations were connecting adults and minors, a feature that poses a clearer danger of harm without much benefit, and which Torrez is also asking the court to stop. “There’s an opportunity to intervene at that level and try to prevent more of these harmful interactions from taking place without having to tackle encryption,” said Chapman.
No single feature change is likely to solve the entire child and teen safety problem, said Chapman, which is why it’s notable that Torrez plans to ask for several layers of changes. Still, the overall effectiveness of any given remedy will also depend on how it’s implemented and monitored. For instance, what would be the methodology Meta uses to report a 99 percent detection rate of new CSAM? How does it count or surmise what it hasn’t caught? The same goes for the accuracy and reliability of any mandated age verification.
Meta points to this potential issue in its argument against Torrez’s proposed remedies. “Regardless of where the accuracy threshold is set, Meta would never be able to prove that the system met that standard, because doing the calculation would require that Meta detect 100% of CSAM to use as the denominator,” the company wrote in a legal filing. Torrez’s chief deputy, James Grayson, said on a press call that the court and an appointed independent monitor would have some discretion over tracking; the office hasn’t yet identified who this monitor would be.
“The demands that are being made in New Mexico are ill-informed and provide massive additional exposure for other kinds of exploitation”
Meta and other groups that oppose the AG’s approach say the outcomes he’s seeking are counterproductive. “The demands that are being made in New Mexico are ill-informed and provide massive additional exposure for other kinds of exploitation,” said Maureen Flatley, president of Stop Child Predators, a group that advocates for more funding for enforcement of criminal laws against child predators, and has received funding from Meta-backed trade group NetChoice. “This notion that the platforms have to be responsible for pushing all these people out would be like saying to the US Bankers Association, ‘By the way, you are responsible for all the bank robberies from now on,’ which is ludicrous.”
“The New Mexico Attorney General’s focus on a single platform is a misguided strategy that ignores the hundreds of other apps teens use daily,” Meta spokesperson Chris Sgro said in a statement. “The state’s proposed mandates infringe on parental rights and stifle free expression for all New Mexicans. Regardless, we remain committed to providing safe, age-appropriate experiences and have already launched many of the protections the state seeks, including 13 safety measures this past year.”
But Torrez has taken aim at the broader tech industry, too. He recently visited Washington, DC, to advocate for new protections for kids online and an overhaul of Section 230, the law that protects tech platforms from being held liable for their users’ posts. “While we were able to prevail in our district court in Santa Fe, I still think the law as it currently exists creates a lot of ambiguity,” he told The Verge on that visit. “If Section 230 were not something that these companies could hide behind, then it increases the chances that they’re going to have to actually make their case to a jury.”
But Chapman said regulation through lawsuits isn’t an “uncommon sort of story” in the US. “Whether that’s tobacco, opioids, e-cigarettes, there is precedent for legal action moving a broader policy conversation.”
Follow topics and authors from this story to see more like this in your personalized homepage feed and to receive email updates.
Beginning Monday, attorneys for Meta and New Mexico will return to a Santa Fe courthouse for a three-week public nuisance trial, where they’ll argue over the changes the AG wants the judge to order Meta make to Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. Those changes include adding age verification for New Mexico users, prohibiting end-to-end encryption for users under 18 and capping their use to 90 hours per month, limiting engagement-boosting features like infinite scroll and autoplay, and requiring Meta to detect 99 percent of new child sexual abuse material (CSAM).
“From the outset, our goal was to try and change the way the company’s doing business,” Torrez told The Verge on a recent visit to Washington, DC, to advocate for new kids safety legislation. “I recognize that even at $375 million for a company this big and this profitable, it’s not enough in and of itself to change the way they’re doing business. In fact, there’s probably some folks in that company who think of it as the cost of doing business.”
“Even at $375 million for a company this big and this profitable, it’s not enough in and of itself to change the way they’re doing business”
While any changes ordered by the judge would only apply to Meta and its operations in New Mexico, the company could apply the changes in other states for the sake of simplicity. Or, as it’s threatened to do, it could simply go dark in the state. A court order could send a message to other tech companies that courts may be willing to alter their businesses if they’re found liable.
During the trial, New Mexico will argue Meta has become a public nuisance by creating a public health hazard in the state. The AG’s office expects to call on about 15 witnesses, including experts who will testify to the feasibility of their proposed remedies, and fact witnesses who will testify about Meta’s alleged harms. After Meta makes its defense, Judge Bryan Biedscheid will evaluate which proposals are relevant and feasible — a process that could take some time, compared to the speedy turnaround of the jury verdict in March.
A sweeping win for New Mexico could energize Torrez and thousands of other plaintiffs currently pursuing cases against tech companies. Conversely, a limited order could be a significant blow. The outcome won’t directly impact other cases, but it will almost certainly color negotiations over potential settlements.
Several of Torrez’s requests are hot-button tech policy issues. Age verification would almost certainly require Meta or a third-party provider to collect more personal information on adults and minors alike, which privacy advocates have consistently warned can make users less safe. Don McGowan, who previously served on the board of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), said that barring encrypted communications on platforms like Facebook “is a great way to make sure that nobody uses Facebook Messenger anymore and just moves their activity to other platforms that aren’t touched by this lawsuit.”
The mandate may do little to change the reality of certain parts of the business — Meta recently announced it was getting rid of end-to-end encrypted messaging on Instagram that it said “very few people” actually used.
Peter Chapman, associate director of the Knight-Georgetown Institute, which works to connect policymakers and others with independent tech policy research, said there could be “significant tradeoffs” to a prohibition on encryption, and other changes may be more effective. For example, evidence presented by the state showed that Meta’s own profile recommendations were connecting adults and minors, a feature that poses a clearer danger of harm without much benefit, and which Torrez is also asking the court to stop. “There’s an opportunity to intervene at that level and try to prevent more of these harmful interactions from taking place without having to tackle encryption,” said Chapman.
No single feature change is likely to solve the entire child and teen safety problem, said Chapman, which is why it’s notable that Torrez plans to ask for several layers of changes. Still, the overall effectiveness of any given remedy will also depend on how it’s implemented and monitored. For instance, what would be the methodology Meta uses to report a 99 percent detection rate of new CSAM? How does it count or surmise what it hasn’t caught? The same goes for the accuracy and reliability of any mandated age verification.
Meta points to this potential issue in its argument against Torrez’s proposed remedies. “Regardless of where the accuracy threshold is set, Meta would never be able to prove that the system met that standard, because doing the calculation would require that Meta detect 100% of CSAM to use as the denominator,” the company wrote in a legal filing. Torrez’s chief deputy, James Grayson, said on a press call that the court and an appointed independent monitor would have some discretion over tracking; the office hasn’t yet identified who this monitor would be.
“The demands that are being made in New Mexico are ill-informed and provide massive additional exposure for other kinds of exploitation”
Meta and other groups that oppose the AG’s approach say the outcomes he’s seeking are counterproductive. “The demands that are being made in New Mexico are ill-informed and provide massive additional exposure for other kinds of exploitation,” said Maureen Flatley, president of Stop Child Predators, a group that advocates for more funding for enforcement of criminal laws against child predators, and has received funding from Meta-backed trade group NetChoice. “This notion that the platforms have to be responsible for pushing all these people out would be like saying to the US Bankers Association, ‘By the way, you are responsible for all the bank robberies from now on,’ which is ludicrous.”
“The New Mexico Attorney General’s focus on a single platform is a misguided strategy that ignores the hundreds of other apps teens use daily,” Meta spokesperson Chris Sgro said in a statement. “The state’s proposed mandates infringe on parental rights and stifle free expression for all New Mexicans. Regardless, we remain committed to providing safe, age-appropriate experiences and have already launched many of the protections the state seeks, including 13 safety measures this past year.”
But Torrez has taken aim at the broader tech industry, too. He recently visited Washington, DC, to advocate for new protections for kids online and an overhaul of Section 230, the law that protects tech platforms from being held liable for their users’ posts. “While we were able to prevail in our district court in Santa Fe, I still think the law as it currently exists creates a lot of ambiguity,” he told The Verge on that visit. “If Section 230 were not something that these companies could hide behind, then it increases the chances that they’re going to have to actually make their case to a jury.”
But Chapman said regulation through lawsuits isn’t an “uncommon sort of story” in the US. “Whether that’s tobacco, opioids, e-cigarettes, there is precedent for legal action moving a broader policy conversation.”
Follow topics and authors from this story to see more like this in your personalized homepage feed and to receive email updates.
Lauren Feiner
#Metas #historic #loss #court #cost #lot #millionLaw,Meta,Policy,Privacy,Speech,Tech">Meta’s historic loss in court could cost a lot more than $375 million
New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez won a historic sum of $375 million in a landmark child safety case against Meta earlier this year. But the next stage of the fight could be even more consequential for Meta and the social media industry at large.
Beginning Monday, attorneys for Meta and New Mexico will return to a Santa Fe courthouse for a three-week public nuisance trial, where they’ll argue over the changes the AG wants the judge to order Meta make to Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. Those changes include adding age verification for New Mexico users, prohibiting end-to-end encryption for users under 18 and capping their use to 90 hours per month, limiting engagement-boosting features like infinite scroll and autoplay, and requiring Meta to detect 99 percent of new child sexual abuse material (CSAM).
“From the outset, our goal was to try and change the way the company’s doing business,” Torrez told The Verge on a recent visit to Washington, DC, to advocate for new kids safety legislation. “I recognize that even at $375 million for a company this big and this profitable, it’s not enough in and of itself to change the way they’re doing business. In fact, there’s probably some folks in that company who think of it as the cost of doing business.”
“Even at $375 million for a company this big and this profitable, it’s not enough in and of itself to change the way they’re doing business”
While any changes ordered by the judge would only apply to Meta and its operations in New Mexico, the company could apply the changes in other states for the sake of simplicity. Or, as it’s threatened to do, it could simply go dark in the state. A court order could send a message to other tech companies that courts may be willing to alter their businesses if they’re found liable.
During the trial, New Mexico will argue Meta has become a public nuisance by creating a public health hazard in the state. The AG’s office expects to call on about 15 witnesses, including experts who will testify to the feasibility of their proposed remedies, and fact witnesses who will testify about Meta’s alleged harms. After Meta makes its defense, Judge Bryan Biedscheid will evaluate which proposals are relevant and feasible — a process that could take some time, compared to the speedy turnaround of the jury verdict in March.
A sweeping win for New Mexico could energize Torrez and thousands of other plaintiffs currently pursuing cases against tech companies. Conversely, a limited order could be a significant blow. The outcome won’t directly impact other cases, but it will almost certainly color negotiations over potential settlements.
Several of Torrez’s requests are hot-button tech policy issues. Age verification would almost certainly require Meta or a third-party provider to collect more personal information on adults and minors alike, which privacy advocates have consistently warned can make users less safe. Don McGowan, who previously served on the board of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), said that barring encrypted communications on platforms like Facebook “is a great way to make sure that nobody uses Facebook Messenger anymore and just moves their activity to other platforms that aren’t touched by this lawsuit.”
The mandate may do little to change the reality of certain parts of the business — Meta recently announced it was getting rid of end-to-end encrypted messaging on Instagram that it said “very few people” actually used.
Peter Chapman, associate director of the Knight-Georgetown Institute, which works to connect policymakers and others with independent tech policy research, said there could be “significant tradeoffs” to a prohibition on encryption, and other changes may be more effective. For example, evidence presented by the state showed that Meta’s own profile recommendations were connecting adults and minors, a feature that poses a clearer danger of harm without much benefit, and which Torrez is also asking the court to stop. “There’s an opportunity to intervene at that level and try to prevent more of these harmful interactions from taking place without having to tackle encryption,” said Chapman.
No single feature change is likely to solve the entire child and teen safety problem, said Chapman, which is why it’s notable that Torrez plans to ask for several layers of changes. Still, the overall effectiveness of any given remedy will also depend on how it’s implemented and monitored. For instance, what would be the methodology Meta uses to report a 99 percent detection rate of new CSAM? How does it count or surmise what it hasn’t caught? The same goes for the accuracy and reliability of any mandated age verification.
Meta points to this potential issue in its argument against Torrez’s proposed remedies. “Regardless of where the accuracy threshold is set, Meta would never be able to prove that the system met that standard, because doing the calculation would require that Meta detect 100% of CSAM to use as the denominator,” the company wrote in a legal filing. Torrez’s chief deputy, James Grayson, said on a press call that the court and an appointed independent monitor would have some discretion over tracking; the office hasn’t yet identified who this monitor would be.
“The demands that are being made in New Mexico are ill-informed and provide massive additional exposure for other kinds of exploitation”
Meta and other groups that oppose the AG’s approach say the outcomes he’s seeking are counterproductive. “The demands that are being made in New Mexico are ill-informed and provide massive additional exposure for other kinds of exploitation,” said Maureen Flatley, president of Stop Child Predators, a group that advocates for more funding for enforcement of criminal laws against child predators, and has received funding from Meta-backed trade group NetChoice. “This notion that the platforms have to be responsible for pushing all these people out would be like saying to the US Bankers Association, ‘By the way, you are responsible for all the bank robberies from now on,’ which is ludicrous.”
“The New Mexico Attorney General’s focus on a single platform is a misguided strategy that ignores the hundreds of other apps teens use daily,” Meta spokesperson Chris Sgro said in a statement. “The state’s proposed mandates infringe on parental rights and stifle free expression for all New Mexicans. Regardless, we remain committed to providing safe, age-appropriate experiences and have already launched many of the protections the state seeks, including 13 safety measures this past year.”
But Torrez has taken aim at the broader tech industry, too. He recently visited Washington, DC, to advocate for new protections for kids online and an overhaul of Section 230, the law that protects tech platforms from being held liable for their users’ posts. “While we were able to prevail in our district court in Santa Fe, I still think the law as it currently exists creates a lot of ambiguity,” he told The Verge on that visit. “If Section 230 were not something that these companies could hide behind, then it increases the chances that they’re going to have to actually make their case to a jury.”
But Chapman said regulation through lawsuits isn’t an “uncommon sort of story” in the US. “Whether that’s tobacco, opioids, e-cigarettes, there is precedent for legal action moving a broader policy conversation.”
Follow topics and authors from this story to see more like this in your personalized homepage feed and to receive email updates.
New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez won a historic sum of $375 million in a…
Wednesday was a big day for the tech industry with Meta, Google, Amazon and Microsoft all reporting earnings at the same time in the afternoon. Out of the four, though, Meta was the clear loser with its shares down more than 7% even though revenue increased 33% this past quarter, the company’s fastest since 2021.
It’s probably because the company upped its already outrageous spending expectations for the year. Meta said that 2026 capital expenditures would be at least $10 billion more than expected and could top $145 billion. While emphasizing his “confidence in this investment,” CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that most of this increase was due to “higher component costs, particularly memory pricing.”
The AI boom has led to an unprecedented data center buildout that has constrained the global memory chip supply and increased prices for these valuable chips. The result has been a global memory crisis that has impacted not only Meta and the rest of the AI industry but also caused the prices of consumer electronics like laptops and smartphones to soar.
Meta’s $145 billion is a dramatic increase from the $72 billion capital expenditure it recorded just last year, and Zuckerberg is betting it all on an AI turnaround effort.
Meta has been left behind in the AI race as industry rivals like Google have soared past. Roughly 10 months ago, Zuckerberg acknowledged the situation and announced a major catch-up effort that saw him commit billions upon billions of dollars to research and development, and to poach talent from all over the industry, including bringing in Scale AI’s founder Alexandr Wang to lead the new Meta Superintelligence Labs AI division.
Many have been reasonably nervous about this commitment, considering that the company’s latest big bet in emerging tech, the Metaverse, has flopped dramatically. In Wednesday’s earnings report, Meta said that the Reality Labs division, which had helmed the Metaverse efforts, notched an operating loss of more than $4 billion, while only cashing in $402 million in sales. That adds to the whopping $80 billion and more the division has lost in the past six years.
But experts are somewhat more hopeful about the AI bet because, earlier this month, the tech giant debuted the first fruits of that investment with the AI model Muse Spark, a proprietary model that the company plans to open-source in the future. It’s a step in the right direction, but Meta still has to do more before it can confidently say the catch-up effort is successful.
“This was the first release from Meta Superintelligence Labs, and it shows that our work is on track to build a leading lab,” Zuckerberg assured investors in the company’s earnings call. “Now that we have a strong model, we can develop more novel products as well.”
Those novel products will include two agents, one for personal and the other for business uses, according to Zuckerberg.
“We’re already testing an early version of business AIs and weekly conversations have grown 10x since the start of this year,” Zuckerberg said.
One way that AI is clearly showing up to benefit Meta is internally. Meta CFO Susan Li said that over half a billion users weekly on Facebook and Instagram each are now watching videos translated and dubbed by AI. The company is also incorporating the new AI model into parts of its core business, like ads, and particularly into its recommendation system. The goal is to have the AI hyper-personalize feeds for users.
“Since our recommendation systems are operating at such large scale, we’ll phase in this new research and technology over time,” Zuckerberg said. “But the trend over the last few years seems clear that we are seeing an increasing return on the amount that we can improve engagement for people and value for advertisers.”
AI is also taking over internally at Meta. The company is laying off 10% of its workforce and reportedly offering voluntary buyouts to 7% of its U.S. staff, in what seems to follow a purportedly AI-driven trend that has taken Silicon Valley by storm.
On the call, executives wouldn’t say if the layoffs had to do with automation of jobs, but Li did say that a “leaner operating model” would help “offset the substantial investments we’re making.”
Wednesday was a big day for the tech industry with Meta, Google, Amazon and Microsoft all reporting earnings at the same time in the afternoon. Out of the four, though, Meta was the clear loser with its shares down more than 7% even though revenue increased 33% this past quarter, the company’s fastest since 2021.
It’s probably because the company upped its already outrageous spending expectations for the year. Meta said that 2026 capital expenditures would be at least $10 billion more than expected and could top $145 billion. While emphasizing his “confidence in this investment,” CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that most of this increase was due to “higher component costs, particularly memory pricing.”
The AI boom has led to an unprecedented data center buildout that has constrained the global memory chip supply and increased prices for these valuable chips. The result has been a global memory crisis that has impacted not only Meta and the rest of the AI industry but also caused the prices of consumer electronics like laptops and smartphones to soar.
Meta’s $145 billion is a dramatic increase from the $72 billion capital expenditure it recorded just last year, and Zuckerberg is betting it all on an AI turnaround effort.
Meta has been left behind in the AI race as industry rivals like Google have soared past. Roughly 10 months ago, Zuckerberg acknowledged the situation and announced a major catch-up effort that saw him commit billions upon billions of dollars to research and development, and to poach talent from all over the industry, including bringing in Scale AI’s founder Alexandr Wang to lead the new Meta Superintelligence Labs AI division.
Many have been reasonably nervous about this commitment, considering that the company’s latest big bet in emerging tech, the Metaverse, has flopped dramatically. In Wednesday’s earnings report, Meta said that the Reality Labs division, which had helmed the Metaverse efforts, notched an operating loss of more than $4 billion, while only cashing in $402 million in sales. That adds to the whopping $80 billion and more the division has lost in the past six years.
But experts are somewhat more hopeful about the AI bet because, earlier this month, the tech giant debuted the first fruits of that investment with the AI model Muse Spark, a proprietary model that the company plans to open-source in the future. It’s a step in the right direction, but Meta still has to do more before it can confidently say the catch-up effort is successful.
“This was the first release from Meta Superintelligence Labs, and it shows that our work is on track to build a leading lab,” Zuckerberg assured investors in the company’s earnings call. “Now that we have a strong model, we can develop more novel products as well.”
Those novel products will include two agents, one for personal and the other for business uses, according to Zuckerberg.
“We’re already testing an early version of business AIs and weekly conversations have grown 10x since the start of this year,” Zuckerberg said.
One way that AI is clearly showing up to benefit Meta is internally. Meta CFO Susan Li said that over half a billion users weekly on Facebook and Instagram each are now watching videos translated and dubbed by AI. The company is also incorporating the new AI model into parts of its core business, like ads, and particularly into its recommendation system. The goal is to have the AI hyper-personalize feeds for users.
“Since our recommendation systems are operating at such large scale, we’ll phase in this new research and technology over time,” Zuckerberg said. “But the trend over the last few years seems clear that we are seeing an increasing return on the amount that we can improve engagement for people and value for advertisers.”
AI is also taking over internally at Meta. The company is laying off 10% of its workforce and reportedly offering voluntary buyouts to 7% of its U.S. staff, in what seems to follow a purportedly AI-driven trend that has taken Silicon Valley by storm.
On the call, executives wouldn’t say if the layoffs had to do with automation of jobs, but Li did say that a “leaner operating model” would help “offset the substantial investments we’re making.”
#Meta #Spend #Billion #Year #DueArtificial intelligence,Mark Zuckerberg,Meta">Meta Could Spend $145 Billion This Year Due to AI
Wednesday was a big day for the tech industry with Meta, Google, Amazon and Microsoft all reporting earnings at the same time in the afternoon. Out of the four, though, Meta was the clear loser with its shares down more than 7% even though revenue increased 33% this past quarter, the company’s fastest since 2021.
It’s probably because the company upped its already outrageous spending expectations for the year. Meta said that 2026 capital expenditures would be at least $10 billion more than expected and could top $145 billion. While emphasizing his “confidence in this investment,” CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that most of this increase was due to “higher component costs, particularly memory pricing.”
The AI boom has led to an unprecedented data center buildout that has constrained the global memory chip supply and increased prices for these valuable chips. The result has been a global memory crisis that has impacted not only Meta and the rest of the AI industry but also caused the prices of consumer electronics like laptops and smartphones to soar.
Meta’s $145 billion is a dramatic increase from the $72 billion capital expenditure it recorded just last year, and Zuckerberg is betting it all on an AI turnaround effort.
Meta has been left behind in the AI race as industry rivals like Google have soared past. Roughly 10 months ago, Zuckerberg acknowledged the situation and announced a major catch-up effort that saw him commit billions upon billions of dollars to research and development, and to poach talent from all over the industry, including bringing in Scale AI’s founder Alexandr Wang to lead the new Meta Superintelligence Labs AI division.
Many have been reasonably nervous about this commitment, considering that the company’s latest big bet in emerging tech, the Metaverse, has flopped dramatically. In Wednesday’s earnings report, Meta said that the Reality Labs division, which had helmed the Metaverse efforts, notched an operating loss of more than $4 billion, while only cashing in $402 million in sales. That adds to the whopping $80 billion and more the division has lost in the past six years.
But experts are somewhat more hopeful about the AI bet because, earlier this month, the tech giant debuted the first fruits of that investment with the AI model Muse Spark, a proprietary model that the company plans to open-source in the future. It’s a step in the right direction, but Meta still has to do more before it can confidently say the catch-up effort is successful.
“This was the first release from Meta Superintelligence Labs, and it shows that our work is on track to build a leading lab,” Zuckerberg assured investors in the company’s earnings call. “Now that we have a strong model, we can develop more novel products as well.”
Those novel products will include two agents, one for personal and the other for business uses, according to Zuckerberg.
“We’re already testing an early version of business AIs and weekly conversations have grown 10x since the start of this year,” Zuckerberg said.
One way that AI is clearly showing up to benefit Meta is internally. Meta CFO Susan Li said that over half a billion users weekly on Facebook and Instagram each are now watching videos translated and dubbed by AI. The company is also incorporating the new AI model into parts of its core business, like ads, and particularly into its recommendation system. The goal is to have the AI hyper-personalize feeds for users.
“Since our recommendation systems are operating at such large scale, we’ll phase in this new research and technology over time,” Zuckerberg said. “But the trend over the last few years seems clear that we are seeing an increasing return on the amount that we can improve engagement for people and value for advertisers.”
AI is also taking over internally at Meta. The company is laying off 10% of its workforce and reportedly offering voluntary buyouts to 7% of its U.S. staff, in what seems to follow a purportedly AI-driven trend that has taken Silicon Valley by storm.
On the call, executives wouldn’t say if the layoffs had to do with automation of jobs, but Li did say that a “leaner operating model” would help “offset the substantial investments we’re making.”
.jpg?ssl=1 "These New Smart Glasses From Solos Come With a Privacy Shield for the CamerasSmart glasses company Solos has long focused on audio-only smart glasses. On Tuesday, it announced two new pairs of glasses, one of which has a camera—but you can buy a separate accessory to hide the camera for privacy’s sake.Solos’ new smart glasses are the audio-only AirGo A6 and the second iteration of its camera-enabled glasses, the Solos AirGo V2. The latter was first announced last year as an effort to directly “outshine Meta.” These 9 glasses do just about everything you’d expect from Meta’s new 9 Meta Smartglasses, including photo and video capture, playing music, and interacting with an AI-powered assistant that can see what you see. They can be fitted with prescription lenses and have a 10- to 12-hour battery life.The AirGo V2 glasses can also be paired with a new Privacy Kit, a set of clip-on accessories that let wearers control what their camera glasses can access. The clip-on privacy shield blocks the cameras from view and from recording the world, allowing you to keep wearing the glasses in audio-only mode. There’s also a clip-on polarized lens, and the full kit of modular options costs .Selling a privacy kit as a clip-on accessory is perhaps not the most effective way to stave off concerns about people running around with small, discreet cameras on their faces. Having to buy a separate item, then clip it on and off every time you want to use or disable the camera, is a lot of extra steps that will likely keep people from bothering with privacy at all. Also, there isn’t anything stopping bad actors from removing the clip-on blockers later in an interaction—say, after entering an event that prohibits camera recording.Courtesy of Solos SmartglassesSolos’ first camera-enabled glasses, the Solos AirGo Vision, launched in 2024. WIRED put them in the “Don’t Bother” section of our Best Smart Glasses gallery, citing some decent design choices, albeit ones held back by middling media capture quality, frustrating touch controls, and a power-hungry app that demands too many permissions. All in all, the glasses haven’t quite reached the standard Meta has set with its popular smart glasses.Meta has been the dominant force in the smart glasses market, but other big companies are trying to fill in the cracks. Google and Samsung have a partnership to build out Google’s Android XR platform, with new glasses arriving later this year from eyewear brands Warby Parker and Gentle Monster. Apple has reportedly been building its own smart glasses as well.Some smaller companies are adjusting their target markets to counter Meta, like Even Realities and its camera-free glasses. Solos’ reemphasis on privacy comes after a period of widespread criticism of Meta’s glasses. The devices have been called creepy “pervert glasses” and were criticized after the company silently added face recognition code to its glasses, then quickly removed it after public outcry following a WIRED report. Meta hasn’t done itself any favors since then, announcing last week that it will start charging for features on its smart glasses that have previously been free.Meta has acknowledged that a market for audio-only smart glasses exists, as CTO Andrew Bosworth said in a private Q&A session with media that he thinks there is “market demand for that product for sure.” But Meta hasn’t moved away from its camera-forward spectacles yet. It may very well make audio-only glasses in the future. Until then, companies like Solos are eager to chip away at that market.#Smart #Glasses #Solos #Privacy #Shield #Camerascameras,design,smart glasses,wearables,artificial intelligence,meta")
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![Meta’s Latest App Looks Like Reddit
Meta has a new app on the App Store, and it looks an awful lot like Reddit. The app, called Forum, is “a dedicated space built for deeper discussions, real answers and communities you care about,” according to its App Store page. In practice, it is just a standalone app version of Facebook’s existing Groups feature, in which Facebook users can join groups and participate in discussions. In the new standalone app, the feed is entirely focused on the conversations taking place in the groups you are already a part of on your existing Facebook account. Forum and Facebook are still linked, meaning that you can enter Forum with your Facebook login, and whatever you post on there will be visible in your groups on the Facebook app as well. Some readers might be getting deja vu, and rightfully so, because this is Meta’s second attempt at launching a stand-alone Facebook Groups app. Then known as Facebook, the company launched a similar, dedicated app back in 2014 that was ultimately discontinued in 2017.
Perhaps to spice things up a bit, this time around, Meta is also including a dedicated AI assistant in the app. The “Ask” feature on the app will rely on the information posted on the group pages to respond to users looking for “opinions, advice or recommendations,” Meta said. There is also an additional AI assistant for group admins, which will supposedly assist them with tasks like content moderation.
Some financial analysts considered the app a direct threat to Reddit, causing the company’s stock to end the day down more than 5%, but the apps have vastly different existing user bases. Either way, it’s too soon to tell whether there will eventually be significant user migration from Reddit to Forum. This isn’t Meta’s first attempt at making its own version of an already successful app or feature. The company released its Twitter competitor app Threads in 2023, and most recently, it debuted Instants, an Instagram app that aims to replicate the successes of Snapchat and BeReal with instant, disappearing photos.
Interestingly, this time around, Meta released this app with little fanfare. There was no major announcement or press release that we could find. The app just appeared on the App Store, and some eagle-eyed users noticed it. Which raises the question, could this be the start of an AI-enabled flood of new apps that Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg reportedly promised employees? Late last month, the Wall Street Journal published a piece detailing a companywide meeting in which Zuckerberg talked about Meta’s AI overhaul that has been used to justify a brutal round of layoffs. According to the report, Zuckerberg touted the efficiency gains from infusing AI into workflows and how the company will “be able to spin up more new projects” now because of this. Those new projects, according to the report, include creating more apps. “So like Chris [Cox, Meta’s chief product officer] and I have been talking about, ‘all right, well, can we build 50 new apps? Like, yeah, probably,” Zuckerberg is quoted to have said in the article. “But we probably should start by doing a few before we just, like, ramp up trying to do 50 all at once.” #Metas #Latest #App #RedditForum,Meta,Reddit](https://i0.wp.com/gizmodo.com/app/uploads/2026/05/GettyImages-2243527585-e1779485911551-1280x853.jpg?ssl=1 "Meta’s Latest App Looks Like Reddit
Meta has a new app on the App Store, and it looks an awful lot like Reddit. The app, called Forum, is “a dedicated space built for deeper discussions, real answers and communities you care about,” according to its App Store page. In practice, it is just a standalone app version of Facebook’s existing Groups feature, in which Facebook users can join groups and participate in discussions. In the new standalone app, the feed is entirely focused on the conversations taking place in the groups you are already a part of on your existing Facebook account. Forum and Facebook are still linked, meaning that you can enter Forum with your Facebook login, and whatever you post on there will be visible in your groups on the Facebook app as well. Some readers might be getting deja vu, and rightfully so, because this is Meta’s second attempt at launching a stand-alone Facebook Groups app. Then known as Facebook, the company launched a similar, dedicated app back in 2014 that was ultimately discontinued in 2017.
Perhaps to spice things up a bit, this time around, Meta is also including a dedicated AI assistant in the app. The “Ask” feature on the app will rely on the information posted on the group pages to respond to users looking for “opinions, advice or recommendations,” Meta said. There is also an additional AI assistant for group admins, which will supposedly assist them with tasks like content moderation.
Some financial analysts considered the app a direct threat to Reddit, causing the company’s stock to end the day down more than 5%, but the apps have vastly different existing user bases. Either way, it’s too soon to tell whether there will eventually be significant user migration from Reddit to Forum. This isn’t Meta’s first attempt at making its own version of an already successful app or feature. The company released its Twitter competitor app Threads in 2023, and most recently, it debuted Instants, an Instagram app that aims to replicate the successes of Snapchat and BeReal with instant, disappearing photos.
Interestingly, this time around, Meta released this app with little fanfare. There was no major announcement or press release that we could find. The app just appeared on the App Store, and some eagle-eyed users noticed it. Which raises the question, could this be the start of an AI-enabled flood of new apps that Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg reportedly promised employees? Late last month, the Wall Street Journal published a piece detailing a companywide meeting in which Zuckerberg talked about Meta’s AI overhaul that has been used to justify a brutal round of layoffs. According to the report, Zuckerberg touted the efficiency gains from infusing AI into workflows and how the company will “be able to spin up more new projects” now because of this. Those new projects, according to the report, include creating more apps. “So like Chris [Cox, Meta’s chief product officer] and I have been talking about, ‘all right, well, can we build 50 new apps? Like, yeah, probably,” Zuckerberg is quoted to have said in the article. “But we probably should start by doing a few before we just, like, ramp up trying to do 50 all at once.” #Metas #Latest #App #RedditForum,Meta,Reddit")
![Meta’s Latest App Looks Like Reddit
Meta has a new app on the App Store, and it looks an awful lot like Reddit. The app, called Forum, is “a dedicated space built for deeper discussions, real answers and communities you care about,” according to its App Store page. In practice, it is just a standalone app version of Facebook’s existing Groups feature, in which Facebook users can join groups and participate in discussions. In the new standalone app, the feed is entirely focused on the conversations taking place in the groups you are already a part of on your existing Facebook account. Forum and Facebook are still linked, meaning that you can enter Forum with your Facebook login, and whatever you post on there will be visible in your groups on the Facebook app as well. Some readers might be getting deja vu, and rightfully so, because this is Meta’s second attempt at launching a stand-alone Facebook Groups app. Then known as Facebook, the company launched a similar, dedicated app back in 2014 that was ultimately discontinued in 2017.
Perhaps to spice things up a bit, this time around, Meta is also including a dedicated AI assistant in the app. The “Ask” feature on the app will rely on the information posted on the group pages to respond to users looking for “opinions, advice or recommendations,” Meta said. There is also an additional AI assistant for group admins, which will supposedly assist them with tasks like content moderation.
Some financial analysts considered the app a direct threat to Reddit, causing the company’s stock to end the day down more than 5%, but the apps have vastly different existing user bases. Either way, it’s too soon to tell whether there will eventually be significant user migration from Reddit to Forum. This isn’t Meta’s first attempt at making its own version of an already successful app or feature. The company released its Twitter competitor app Threads in 2023, and most recently, it debuted Instants, an Instagram app that aims to replicate the successes of Snapchat and BeReal with instant, disappearing photos.
Interestingly, this time around, Meta released this app with little fanfare. There was no major announcement or press release that we could find. The app just appeared on the App Store, and some eagle-eyed users noticed it. Which raises the question, could this be the start of an AI-enabled flood of new apps that Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg reportedly promised employees? Late last month, the Wall Street Journal published a piece detailing a companywide meeting in which Zuckerberg talked about Meta’s AI overhaul that has been used to justify a brutal round of layoffs. According to the report, Zuckerberg touted the efficiency gains from infusing AI into workflows and how the company will “be able to spin up more new projects” now because of this. Those new projects, according to the report, include creating more apps. “So like Chris [Cox, Meta’s chief product officer] and I have been talking about, ‘all right, well, can we build 50 new apps? Like, yeah, probably,” Zuckerberg is quoted to have said in the article. “But we probably should start by doing a few before we just, like, ramp up trying to do 50 all at once.” #Metas #Latest #App #RedditForum,Meta,Reddit](https://gizmodo.com/app/uploads/2026/05/GettyImages-2243527585-e1779485911551-1280x853.jpg "Meta’s Latest App Looks Like Reddit
Meta has a new app on the App Store, and it looks an awful lot like Reddit. The app, called Forum, is “a dedicated space built for deeper discussions, real answers and communities you care about,” according to its App Store page. In practice, it is just a standalone app version of Facebook’s existing Groups feature, in which Facebook users can join groups and participate in discussions. In the new standalone app, the feed is entirely focused on the conversations taking place in the groups you are already a part of on your existing Facebook account. Forum and Facebook are still linked, meaning that you can enter Forum with your Facebook login, and whatever you post on there will be visible in your groups on the Facebook app as well. Some readers might be getting deja vu, and rightfully so, because this is Meta’s second attempt at launching a stand-alone Facebook Groups app. Then known as Facebook, the company launched a similar, dedicated app back in 2014 that was ultimately discontinued in 2017.
Perhaps to spice things up a bit, this time around, Meta is also including a dedicated AI assistant in the app. The “Ask” feature on the app will rely on the information posted on the group pages to respond to users looking for “opinions, advice or recommendations,” Meta said. There is also an additional AI assistant for group admins, which will supposedly assist them with tasks like content moderation.
Some financial analysts considered the app a direct threat to Reddit, causing the company’s stock to end the day down more than 5%, but the apps have vastly different existing user bases. Either way, it’s too soon to tell whether there will eventually be significant user migration from Reddit to Forum. This isn’t Meta’s first attempt at making its own version of an already successful app or feature. The company released its Twitter competitor app Threads in 2023, and most recently, it debuted Instants, an Instagram app that aims to replicate the successes of Snapchat and BeReal with instant, disappearing photos.
Interestingly, this time around, Meta released this app with little fanfare. There was no major announcement or press release that we could find. The app just appeared on the App Store, and some eagle-eyed users noticed it. Which raises the question, could this be the start of an AI-enabled flood of new apps that Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg reportedly promised employees? Late last month, the Wall Street Journal published a piece detailing a companywide meeting in which Zuckerberg talked about Meta’s AI overhaul that has been used to justify a brutal round of layoffs. According to the report, Zuckerberg touted the efficiency gains from infusing AI into workflows and how the company will “be able to spin up more new projects” now because of this. Those new projects, according to the report, include creating more apps. “So like Chris [Cox, Meta’s chief product officer] and I have been talking about, ‘all right, well, can we build 50 new apps? Like, yeah, probably,” Zuckerberg is quoted to have said in the article. “But we probably should start by doing a few before we just, like, ramp up trying to do 50 all at once.” #Metas #Latest #App #RedditForum,Meta,Reddit")
