Audio-only AI glasses arrive next month starting at $349, Meta VR glasses packing 5K micro-OLEDs launch next spring at $1,299
In a nutshell: Meta's Connect 2026 event aimed to address two of the biggest obstacles facing wearable smart devices: privacy for smart glasses and the size of VR and AR devices. The company's upcoming audio-only AI glasses look to put a digital assistant on the wearer's face while avoiding the surveillance concerns that have dogged previous models. Meanwhile, the company's latest VR device directly calls out Apple's failed Vision Pro.
Meta explored 60% team cuts in two waves before staff revolt forced a retreat
A hot potato: Meta set out to reorganize much of its workforce around AI at the beginning of this year, betting that agents could help the company move faster while reducing the need for larger teams. The company went ahead with 10% workforce cuts in May but ultimately dropped plans for a broader round of layoffs after its AI workplace "overhaul" ran into employee resistance and technical problems.
Two-hour daily caps, forced "pauses," and a midnight lockout are coming to teen accounts. Skeptics say it doesn't go far enough
Winners & losers: Meta has agreed to pay as much as $18 billion and overhaul how minors use Instagram and Facebook, settling a lawsuit that accused the company of designing its platforms to addict children. Court filings and a Meta blog post confirmed the deal this morning. The agreement ends a trial that began August 18 in Oakland, and was expected to run through early October. It also means Mark Zuckerberg won't have to take the stand as planned. Instagram head Adam Mosseri had already testified before the settlement landed.
Ripple effect: Amid growing talk of an AI bubble, a study by Japanese market analysts has found that five of the largest American technology companies are carrying a collective "hidden" debt of over $1.65 trillion, driven largely by massive spending on AI infrastructure. That undisclosed sum exceeds the $1.35 trillion the same companies have officially reported on their balance sheets, and it has grown eightfold over the past four years.
WhatsApp's desktop app turns your Windows or Mac into a full messaging hub. You can link up to four devices at once, make voice and video calls straight from your webcam, and type on a real keyboard instead of a phone screen. Your phone only needs to reconnect once every 14 days, so it's an easy way to stay on top of conversations while you actually get work done.
Through the looking glass: Meta launched a new AI image-generation model called Muse Image this week, letting users create, edit, and blend photos using natural language prompts inside Meta AI, with the tool already live on Instagram and WhatsApp and expected on Facebook and Messenger soon. However, the new feature is already raising privacy concerns, as it allows anyone to generate AI images using other people's Instagram photos.
People paid up to $100 in the "black market" to disable Meta glasses' recording light
A hot potato: The ability of smart glasses to record and photograph people without their knowledge or consent has long been one of the devices' most controversial aspects. Meta's glasses come with an LED light to show when they're recording, but some individuals have found ways to stop this indicator. Now, the social media giant says it will disable the onboard camera if someone tampers with the light.
Cutting corners: Faced with rising memory costs, Meta says it is reusing old DDR4 RAM in its servers rather than buying new hardware. The company revealed this week that it is repurposing DDR4 memory from decommissioned servers into its new DDR5-only machines, using a custom CXL ASIC that avoids the compatibility issues and major latency penalties that typically come with mixing memory generations. The design reportedly cuts AI inference server count by up to 25% and reduces job-restart and fragmentation overhead by 33%.
WhatsApp is rolling out unique usernames, letting users connect without sharing their phone number. To claim yours, update to the latestversion of WhatsApp, go to Settings > Account > Username, and pick an available handle. The feature is rolling out gradually, with broader availability expected later this year.