Meta

Facebook parent company Meta last week added new AI features to its camera-equipped Ray-Ban Meta Glasses. You can use the camera feature on the glasses to get information about what's around you and to remember things like where you parked. There's also now support for video for AI purposes, for "continuous real-time help." With all of these new features that involve the camera continually...

Facebook parent company Meta today unveiled "the most advanced pair of AR glasses ever made," called Orion. Meta claims Orion looks and feels like a regular pair of glasses, but with augmented reality capabilities. The glasses have been in development for over five years, and Meta describes them as lightweight and great for indoor and outdoor use. Unlike a VR headset, AR glasses augment the...

Meta has filed a patent for a feature that closely resembles Apple Vision Pro's EyeSight, Patently Apple reports. EyeSight is designed to reduce social isolation in VR by making the user's eyes visible to others on an external display. Meta's patent, titled "Embedded Sensors in Immersive Reality Headset to Enable Social Presence," suggests that the company is considering this kind of...

Apple turned down an AI partnership with Facebook parent company Meta due to privacy concerns, according to a report from Bloomberg. Meta and Apple had a brief discussion about a possible partnership in March, but the talks did not progress and Apple does not plan to integrate Meta's large language model (LLM) into iOS. Over the weekend, The Wall Street Journal suggested that Apple and...

Apple has held discussions with Meta about integrating the Facebook owner's AI model into iOS 18 as part of its Apple Intelligence feature set, according to a report over the weekend. Meta launched Llama 2, its large language model, in July 2023, and in April, the company released the latest versions of its AI models, called Llama 3. The Wall Street Journal reports that the two longtime...

Facebook parent company Meta today announced the upcoming expansion of Meta Horizon OS, a virtual and augmented reality operating system that will be available to third-party hardware manufacturers that want to design their own headsets. Right now, Meta sells the Quest line of headsets, but the company wants to provide the software for third-party VR and AR products in the future, much like...

Meta, Microsoft, X, and Match today joined Epic Games to protest the way Apple complied with a court ruling requiring it to walk back its anti-steering rules. In an amicus brief in support of ‌Epic Games‌ (via The Wall Street Journal), the four companies said that the fees Apple is charging are too high, and that there are too many restrictions on how developers link to their websites. "The Apple ...

Apple's first-generation Vision Pro headset is an "over-engineered devkit" that ships with more sensors than is necessary to deliver Apple's intended experience. That's according to Hugo Barra, former VP of Android and head of Meta's phased-out Oculus headset brand. Barra, who oversaw the Oculus team in 2017 after it was acquired by Facebook, has published a surprisingly balanced in-depth...

In October 2022, Apple updated its App Store Review Guidelines to clarify that sales of "boosted" posts in social media apps must use the App Store's in-app purchase system. Apple thereby receives up to a 30% cut of these sales. As a result of that clarification, Meta today announced that it will soon charge advertisers a 30% fee when they purchase boosted posts through the Facebook and...

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has criticized Apple's compliance with the EU's Digital Markets Act (DMA) regulation, which forces Apple to let third-party developers create alternative App Stores and use their own payment systems, amongst other things. Speaking to investors on Thursday during Meta's Q4 earnings call, Zuckerberg called Apple's new rules "so onerous" that he would not be surprised ...

The Meta Quest VR headset will soon be able to play spatial videos captured on an iPhone 15 Pro or ‌iPhone 15‌ Pro Max, Meta announced today. The upcoming v62 update will add support for the feature. Spatial videos can be uploaded to the Meta Quest headset using the Meta Quest mobile app, so that the stereoscopic videos captured on the ‌iPhone 15‌ Pro models can be relived on Meta's device...

Meta is "optimistic" that the launch of Apple Vision Pro will help reinvigorate the headset market and drive more users towards its Quest devices, according to Wall Street Journal report. Meta Quest 3 Formerly known as Facebook, Meta in 2021 changed its name in part to communicate its vision of a future "metaverse" in which people don its headsets and interact with each other in a completely...

Google, Meta, Qualcomm, Nothing, Lenovo, Opera and several other tech companies have announced a collaborative effort to push for "open digital ecosystems" in what appears to be a pointed move against Apple (via Reuters). The group, calling itself the Coalition for Open Digital Ecosystems (CODE), seeks to encourage more open platforms and systems in Europe. Other members include Motorola,...

Facebook parent company Meta today announced the upcoming launch of the $500 Meta Quest 3, its newest mixed reality headset that goes up against the much more expensive Vision Pro that Apple plans to launch next year. Meta claims that the Quest 3 was redesigned from the inside out, and it features "4K+ Infinite Display resolution" thanks to two displays with a 2064x2208 resolution per eye...

Meta today released its overhauled WhatsApp app for macOS, introducing support for group calls, dragging and dropping files, and more. The new native Mac app is optimized for large displays and desktop-class experiences like dragging and dropping files into chats and viewing more messages in chat histories. It also touts better performance and supports WhatsApp group calls from macOS for the ...

Meta today started rolling out a highly-requested "Following" tab in its Threads app, allowing users to view posts from accounts they follow in reverse-chronological order. The app continues to show algorithmically recommended posts under the "For you" tab. The addition of a "Following" tab brings Threads more in line with its rival Twitter, and it will make the app more useful for keeping...

The Threads social network from Meta today received its first significant update that introduces a range of new features that improve the functionality of the social network. Updates include a tab for seeing who follows you so you can follow them back, an option to subscribe to unfollowed users, improvements to activity feed loading times, and translation option to translate posts that are in a...

In a companywide meeting with employees today, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg responded to Apple's announcement of the Vision Pro, according to The Verge's Alex Heath. Zuckerberg said the Vision Pro has no "magical solutions" that Meta has not thought of, and "costs seven times more" than its recently-announced Quest 3 headset. Zuckerberg added that Apple's announcement "really showcases the...

Facebook parent company Meta today announced the Quest 3, its next-generation mixed reality headset launching later this year. The announcement comes just days ahead of WWDC, where Apple is expected to unveil its own long-awaited AR/VR headset. Meta said the Quest 3 features a 40% slimmer and more comfortable design, a higher-resolution display, and up to twice the graphics performance as...

Facebook owner Meta has been hit with a record $1.3 billion (€1.2 billion) fine by European Union regulators for mishandling user information, and has been ordered to suspend the transfer of data from users in the EU to the United States. The fine was issued by Ireland's Data Protection Commission, which regulates Facebook across the EU, after it ruled that the social network's data...