Meta just launched the Ray-Ban Meta (Gen 2) smart glasses starting at $379, packing double the battery life up to 8 hours and upgrading cameras to 3K Ultra HD at 60 fps. The new frames also add German and Portuguese to live translation, alongside an upcoming conversation focus audio feature. Why it matters: Meta is aggressively addressing its hit hardware's biggest battery and camera limits.
Meta just revealed the Meta Ray-Ban Display smart glasses and the Meta Neural Band, adding an in-lens color display and wrist-based gesture control to its wearable lineup. Instead of looking down at your phone, subtle finger twitches let you scroll through messages, check walking directions, and prompt Meta AI on the fly.
Snap just rolled out Snap OS 2.0, giving its AR smart glasses a software overhaul ahead of a wider launch. The update revamps the Spectacles browser with WebXR support, adds a floating Spotlight Lens for vertical videos, and introduces a Travel Mode. Why it matters: Snap plans to launch lighter, Snapdragon-powered Specs in 2026 to take on Meta's Ray-Bans.
Meta just dropped MobileLLM-R1, a lightweight edge reasoning family spanning 140M to 950M parameters on Hugging Face. The 950M version delivers up to 5x higher accuracy on math benchmarks than larger open models while training on just 4.2T tokens. Why it matters: It proves sub-billion models can handle serious reasoning, though non-commercial licensing keeps it out of production for now.
Apple's top AI and search executive Robby Walker is planning to leave the company next month, according to Bloomberg. Walker, who joined in 2013 and previously led Siri, follows several other high-profile departures to Meta as Apple struggles to catch up in generative AI and delays major Siri upgrades.
Levita Magnetics just performed the world's first gallbladder surgery using an AI-guided autonomous camera on its MARS robotics platform in Chile. The system automatically tracks surgical instruments to keep the field of view stable without a camera assistant. It is not yet cleared by the FDA or available for sale.
Meta just signed a two-year deal worth $140 million with German startup Black Forest Labs to license its Flux image generation technology. The contract is backloaded, with Meta paying $35 million in year one and $105 million in year two. Why it matters: Following its recent Midjourney pact, Meta is pouring serious cash into leading visual labs to supercharge its creative tools.
Mark Zuckerberg just promised Donald Trump at least $600 billion in U.S. AI spending through 2028, but a hot mic later caught him apologizing and admitting he "wasn't sure what number you wanted to go with." Zuckerberg quickly clarified on Threads that he wasn't sure which timeframe Trump meant, so he shared the lower estimate. It is a telling glimpse into tech's political maneuvering.
Rokid just raised over $1M in pre-orders in under 72 hours for its new Rokid Glasses, challenging Meta's Ray-Ban monopoly. Despite weighing just 49g, the frames pack a built-in heads-up display, native ChatGPT support, and 89-language live translation. Why it matters: It shows a growing appetite for smart glasses that offer actual visual interfaces without ballooning into bulky headsets.
Donald Trump hosted top tech leaders at the White House on Thursday to highlight AI research and push for domestic spending. Meta and Apple executives claimed $600 billion in U.S. investments while Microsoft committed up to $80 billion annually, with OpenAI's Sam Altman at the table and Elon Musk absent.
Meta just rolled out Environment Generation to all creators in the Worlds Desktop Editor and teased upcoming fully-embodied conversational LLM NPCs. The new NPC system lets creators build characters that respond to voice input with custom personalities in VR and mobile. It basically makes building virtual worlds as easy as typing a prompt.
Ming-Chi Kuo revealed that Meta's Hypernova AI glasses are expected to enter mass production in 3Q25, with shipments projected at just 150,000 to 200,000 units over two years. The $800 device leans on AI as its core selling point, but hardware hurdles and an early AR ecosystem make it more of an experimental hedge against Apple.
Meta’s new superintelligence lab is already bleeding talent, with at least three AI researchers resigning just two months after its launch. Two of them returned to OpenAI after less than a month at Meta, alongside a veteran product director heading to the ChatGPT maker. Despite massive pay packages, internal reorganizations appear to be stalling Meta’s aggressive hiring push.
AI chatbots' tendency to constantly validate users and mimic human emotion isn't just an accident—experts now label it a manipulative dark pattern designed to boost engagement. Mental health researchers warn that as models blindly agree with delusional prompts and adopt first-person personas, they increasingly risk triggering AI-related psychosis.
Meta just brought its $1 billion Kansas City data center online, marking a key milestone in its global computing buildout. Powered by 100% renewable energy, the facility sets the stage for Meta's next-gen, AI-optimized data centers slated to launch in 2026.
Meta just expanded its AI translation tool for Facebook and Instagram Reels, letting creators auto-dub videos in their own voice while matching lip movements to the translated audio. The feature starts with English and Spanish for public Instagram accounts and eligible Facebook creators.
Meta is reportedly preparing to reveal its new Hypernova smart glasses in September, lowering the starting price from $1,000 to $800. The device features a screen on one lens for apps and alerts, paired with wrist controls and a voice AI query tool. It marks Meta's clearest attempt yet at creating hardware that could eventually challenge the smartphone.
HTC just jumped into the smart glasses ring with the Vive Eagle, taking direct aim at Meta's Ray-Bans. The 49-gram frames pack a 12MP ultrawide camera, Zeiss lenses, and an onboard AI assistant capable of 13-language visual translation. For now, they are only available in Taiwan for around $520.
Microsoft is aggressively targeting Meta's AI talent, offering multimillion-dollar packages to match rival compensation. Leaked internal documents reveal Microsoft built a hit list of target employees across Reality Labs and AI teams, while introducing a 24-hour fast-track approval process for critical AI candidates.
Meta FAIR just won first place at the Algonauts 2025 brain modeling competition with TRIBE, a 1B-parameter multimodal model. By fusing Llama 3.2, V-JEPA 2, and audio features, it accurately predicts complex fMRI brain activity while people watch movies. The full code and research paper are already available.
