Meta is eliminating its diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs because of the “legal and policy landscape surrounding diversity, equity and inclusion efforts” in the US, according to a memo to employees seen by Axios. Meta will also roll back representation goals and end its “diverse slate approach” to hiring.

The memo, which was written by Janelle Gale, Meta’s vice president of human resources, said the company would replace DEI programs with ones “that focus on how to apply fair and consistent practices that mitigate bias for all, no matter your background,” as reported by Axios. The company will also “end efforts to source business suppliers from diverse-owned businesses.”

“The Supreme Court of the United States has recently made decisions signaling a shift in how courts will approach DEI,” Gale wrote. “The term ‘DEI’ has also become charged, in part because it is understood by some as a practice that suggests preferential treatment of some groups over others.”

Meta spokesperson Tracy Clayton confirmed to The Verge that Axios’ reporting is accurate.

The news follows Meta’s appointment of the Trump-friendly policy chief Joel Kaplan. Meta also recently announced its plans to replace third-party fact-checking with a Community Notes system similar to Elon Musk’s X.

Meta also overhauled its Hateful Conduct Policy, making changes that now “allow allegations of mental illness or abnormality when based on gender or sexual orientation,” among other horrible things, and announced plans to move its moderation teams from California to Texas due to concerns about “bias.”

Update, January 10th: Added confirmation from Meta.

Automattic, the company that runs WordPress.com, is scaling back its contributions to the WordPress open-source project, according to an announcement on Thursday. The company says it’s decreasing contributions to “match” the amount of time companies like WP Engine spend on the ecosystem, further escalating the tension between Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg and the community.

Now, instead of spending 3,988 hours per week developing the WordPress project, Automattic says it will now contribute around 45 hours as part of Five for the Future — a program that encourages companies to give back five percent of their resources to WordPress.org. “These hours will likely go towards security and critical updates,” Automattic says.

Mullenweg, who also co-founded WordPress, criticized the third-party host WP Engine for contributing 40 hours a week to the ecosystem and called it a “cancer” to the community. On the Five for the Future page that tracks contributions, the number of hours contributed by Automattic is already dwindling.

Automattic blames the cutback on the “significant time and money” related to the ongoing legal battle with WP Engine. It also points to the “intense criticism” it has faced “from members of the ‘community’ who want Matt and others to step away” from the WordPress project:

We’ve made the decision to reallocate resources due to the lawsuits from WP Engine. This legal action diverts significant time and energy that could otherwise be directed toward supporting WordPress’s growth and health. We remain hopeful that WP Engine will reconsider this legal attack, allowing us to refocus our efforts on contributions that benefit the broader WordPress ecosystem.

WP Engine sued Automattic and Mullenweg last year after the co-founder waged a public campaign against the company and took over its ACF plugin. A judge later granted a preliminary injunction in favor of WP Engine, saying Mullenweg’s “conduct is designed to induce breach or disruption.”

A number of employees also left Automattic last year after the company offered to buy out staff who didn’t agree with its fight against WP Engine. The company also shuttered its sustainability team this week, with a screenshotted Slack message from Mullenweg saying, “it’s probably a good time to officially dissolve the team entirely,” adding that “it doesn’t seem like creating a team around this was able to further any of its goals.” The move has sparked criticism from the community, including journalist Kara Swisher.

When Elon Musk launched his own AI startup, xAI, he touted a key advantage over his competitors: access to the vast trove of data from his newly acquired social media platform Twitter. By implementing new API fees on the network he quickly renamed X, Musk locked out other AI companies, maintaining exclusive access for his own models. And he began using X’s millions of users to test the results.

Musk has been using this distribution channel since xAI launched its first version of the Grok large language model, adding features like trending story summaries and AI-generated questions on posts as well as releasing the Grok chatbot (initially) to X users exclusively. Now, a slew of new AI features is coming. Per the findings of reverse engineer Nima Owji, the platform appears to be developing AI-powered post enhancements, including a feature that lets Grok modify your tweets. The chatbot also appears to be adding location-based queries, letting users ask about things nearby, like grocery stores.

xAI’s takeover of the platform once known as Twitter is so unmistakable that even its branding has crept into X’s most visible real estate, with “xAI Grok” now commanding prominent placement...

Read the full story at The Verge.

Fortnite Festival, the game’s Rock Band-like music mode where you play along with real songs, is getting local multiplayer for up to four people on PlayStation and Xbox on January 14th.

Currently, you can only play Fortnite Festival multiplayer online, but with this change, you’ll be able to get your former Rock Band back together and jam out on the same TV screen — well, with a major asterisk. Fortnite Festival currently only supports certain Rock Band guitar controllers, so if you’re on vocals or drums, you’ll be relegated to playing on a controller.

Epic Games didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment about when drum kit or microphone support might be added to Fortnite Festival.

The new local multiplayer mode is being added as part of season 7 of Fortnite Festival. The featured artist for the season is rumored to be virtual pop star Hatsune Miku — and Epic Games is has already dropped a hint that she might be joining Fortnite soon.

Tesla issued a recall for over 200,000 electric vehicles due to an issue with its latest computer hardware that can short circuit and disable some safety features including the rearview camera.

Tesla submitted the recall on January 6th, which acknowledges faulty computers are in some of the most recent builds of Model 3, Model Y, Model S, and Model X vehicles. It includes ones with manufacturing dates ranging as early as January 25th, 2023 for some Model Xs, and as late as December 16th, 2024 for some Model Ys (with other models overlapping in between).

The latest recall is due to non-compliance with the National Highway and Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), which has stringent rules on rearview camera reliability. Tesla issued a separate recall for problematic rearview cameras in January 2024 and one for Cybertrucks with laggy rearview cameras in October. Both were fixed with over-the-air (OTA) software updates.

Tesla is again leveraging its OTA abilities to remedy this new recall, which started rolling out on December 18th and was added to newly manufactured vehicles on December 16th, according to the safety recall report.

But as Electrek reports, the update can’t fix the broader computer issue, which has been identified in 887 warranty claims and 68 field reports as of December 30th. The issues are reportedly affecting Tesla’s latest HW4 (also known as AI4) computers, which are supposed to support the company’s transition to full autonomy.

Tesla says it will replace computers in cars that don’t get fixed with the OTA update. But the company will undoubtedly need to replace them soon, especially if CEO Elon Musk wants to build out the robotaxi service he has promised for years.

Godox, a company known for its professional photography gear like flashes and reflective umbrellas, has announced a new lighting product for smartphones. Its MA5R is a magnetic power bank with an array of diffused color-changing LEDs on the back that can improve phone photography while keeping battery anxiety in check. It’s priced at $49, and while you can preorder it through online specialty stores, official availability isn’t known.

The MA5R attaches to MagSafe-compatible iPhones, smartphones supporting the Qi2 wireless standard, or mobile devices upgraded with a magnetic ring on the back. It can also be used handheld, but Godox didn’t include a standard tripod mount for attaching it to stands — an odd omission given the company’s lineup of pro gear.

Image: Godox

The accessory can be controlled through the Godox mobile app over Bluetooth, which allows its color temperature to be adjusted across a wide range — from 1800K (warmer) to 10000K (cooler) — so you can match the lighting in almost any environment. You can also opt for a wide range of colors if you’re looking for a more dramatic lighting effect or choose one of “14 pre-programmed special effects,” which could be useful when shooting video.

Image: Godox

On the other side of the MA5R, next to its magnetic mount, is a small display showing battery life and lighting brightness. There’s also a smaller front-facing LED light that can be used to improve selfies by rotating the accessory while it’s attached to a phone. It offers a smaller range of color temperature adjustments between 2800K and 6500K.

The added lights mean the MA5R is 13 millimeters thick, so it’s not exactly going to disappear when attached to your phone. And it’s only got a 5,000mAh battery inside. That’s enough to keep its LEDs running for up to three hours, 40 minutes at full brightness or up to seven hours, 20 minutes at half brightness, but not quite enough to fully recharge many smartphones more than once.

Wireless charging also stops while the LEDs are turned on, so maybe think of the MA5R’s charging capabilities as a bonus feature for what looks like a solid portable lighting solution.

Sure, President-elect Donald Trump is probably going to try to blow up efforts to tackle climate change as soon as he steps into office. There still isn’t enough renewable energy available to reach US climate goals or even meet skyrocketing electricity demand from AI. And time is running out to spend down climate funds from the Inflation Reduction Act before the Trump administration can attempt to claw it back. Despite it all, Joe Biden’s top adviser on climate change, Ali Zaidi, isn’t sweating it.

He’s managed to keep the perhaps cloyingly upbeat optimism that’s become a trademark of the Biden and Harris camp even when that enthusiasm doesn’t necessarily reflect sentiment on the ground. The Verge spoke with White House national climate adviser Zaidi this week about what he sees ahead for clean energy technologies and where there might still be room for progress.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

You have a background in law. How did climate change become your thing?

I came to the United States at the age of six, and for me, for my family, the story of America is the story of economic mobility. I really came to Washington wanting to work on putting more...

Read the full story at The Verge.

As wildfires continue to devastate parts of Los Angeles County, hundreds of thousands of residents are without power as utility crews work to restore connectivity. Mobile carriers are also taking action to keep their services online and provide relief to affected residents.

Here’s how major carriers are responding.

Verizon

In an update on Thursday, Verizon said it will waive call, text, and data usage incurred by prepaid and postpaid customers in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego, and Ventura counties from January 9th to the 18th. Verizon will automatically credit customers if they were billed for overages during this time.

Additionally, the company is extending service end dates for customers using prepaid services, including Straight Talk, Tracfone, Total Wireless, Simple Mobile, Walmart Family Mobile, Net10, GoSmart, and Page Plus, until January 18th, 2025. It’s also working with LA County officials to “aggressively deploy portable generators and mitigate impacts for those customers affected across the area.”

T-Mobile

T-Mobile is similarly offering unlimited talk, text, and data for T-Mobile and Assurance Wireless customers across Altadena, La Cañada Flintridge, Los Angeles, Palisades, Pasadena, and Sierra Madre from January 8th to January 15th.

Meanwhile, the T-Mobile-owned Mint Mobile will increase the available data for users on 5GB, 15GB, and 20GB plans to 50GB through their current billing cycle, while Mint Unlimited customers in the area can use up to 2TB of high-speed data with no hotspot restrictions.

T-Mobile is also teaming up with SpaceX’s Starlink to temporarily deploy an “early test version” of its direct-to-cell satellite service, allowing people in affected areas to receive wireless emergency alerts and send SMS texts. At the same time, T-Mobile is working to deploy and refuel portable generators to keep its network online.

AT&T

AT&T will waive overage charges for prepaid and postpaid customers affected by the wildfires through February 6th. The company notes that customers in parts of Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego, and Ventura counties may experience home phone and internet disruptions due to power outages in the area.

Along with continuously deploying and refueling generators, AT&T has dispatched its disaster response team to help keep its wireless and wireline communications up and running. Its FirstNet Response Operations Group — a team led by former first responders who help during emergencies — “have been deployed to support firefighters and other first responders on the front lines where they need connectivity the most,” according to AT&T.

Starlink

Image: Starlink

Though Starlink isn’t a mobile carrier, it’s still working to provide LA County residents with satellite internet connectivity. Residents impacted by the wildfires can access Starlink for free through February 10th by placing an order through starlink.com/residential and choosing the “Disaster Relief” service plan. However, users still need to purchase a Starlink kit to access the free service.

Customers who already use Starlink will receive a one-month service credit.

The Yeedi Cube doesn’t have the modularity and extremities of some of the cool new robot vacuums we’ve seen at CES 2025, but the self-emptying, self-cleaning mopping robovac is also much more reasonably priced. It’s even cheaper today at Amazon, where you can buy it for $299.99 ($260 off) when you clip an on-page coupon. That’s the lowest price we’ve seen yet on the budget robovac.

The Yeedi Cube can capably map and remember several rooms, including designated no-clean zones that you can set within the mobile app. While it doesn’t have AI-powered obstacle avoidance like some of the pricier robots we test, we found its laser-based navigation system works well enough to traverse floors that don’t have laundry, clothes, or pet waste strewn about. And if it does get stuck, you can easily pick it up and reposition it thanks to an integrated carrying handle and a dedicated spot clean button.

While we wish it had better brushes (it can get easily tangled with pet hairs), its 5,100Pa suction is good enough to lift loose dirt, cereal, and the like. It also has a one-liter fluid tank and vibrating microfiber pads that can mop hard flooring with great effectiveness. The do-it-all robovac can also empty its own dust bin and water tank, and clean and dry itself at the charging base.

More Friday deals to shop

• The 3.1-channel Amazon Fire TV Soundbar Plus from 2024 is cheaper right now than it was during Black Friday, with Amazon dropping it to a new all-time low of $189.99 ($60 off). You can also get it with a subwoofer for a record low $299.99 ($75 off), or get the whole kit with two surround speakers for $414.99 ($75 off). Unlike the original Fire TV Soundbar, the system supports true spatial audio formats — both Dolby Atmos and DTS:X. You can select between preset modes for movies, music, sports, and night listening, and there’s also a setting that enhances dialogue. Its HDMI eARC port offers one-cable audio and control between the TV and soundbar, and you can use the remote of any Fire TV device to also control the soundbar’s power and volume.
• You can get a pair of AirPods Pro (second-gen) with a USB-C wireless charging case for $179.99 at Amazon and Best Buy, which is $70 off and only $26 more than the lowest price to date. While they’re no longer the only AirPods with noise cancellation in Apple’s lineup (you can get the AirPods 4 with that feature now), they’re still Apple’s best wireless earbuds, with effective noise cancellation, great sound quality, and voice isolation for clearer calls. They have spatial audio with head-tracking and adaptive audio with a very convincing transparency mode. You can even use the AirPods Pro 2 as hearing aids. Read our review.
• You can get the Anker PowerCore 548 Power Bank for $89.99 ($60 off) at Amazon and Walmart, which is matching the lowest price to date. The portable 192Wh (60,000mAh) power station charges at 87W speeds when using one of its two USB-C ports (it also has two USB-A ports), or you can split the power when using more than one port concurrently. You can charge the power bank using those ports, or harness the sun’s power with an optional solar panel. It’s ideal for camping and day trips with its retractable LED lamp that has adjustable brightness and an SOS mode that automatically turns the light on during a blackout when plugged in.

Schools across the US and Canada are warning parents that a data breach may have leaked information for students and employees. The K-12 operations platform PowerSchool, which supports over 60 million students and has over 18,000 customers worldwide, suffered a breach that could’ve exposed names and addresses of students and educators and, in some cases, more sensitive information like Social Security numbers, medical information, and grades.

As initially reported by Bleeping Computer, threat actors got into PowerSchool’s support platform using compromised credentials. PowerSchool told Bleeping Computer that only a “subset” of schools are affected but has not provided a count of affected school districts or people. Additionally, the outlet says that in a note provided to its customers, PowerSchool claimed it paid a ransom request and “...has received reasonable assurances from the threat actor that the data has been deleted and that no additional copies exist.”

PowerSchool’s website and social media channels have no mention of the data breach or directions for people who may have been affected.

In an email to The Verge, PowerSchool spokesperson Beth Keebler wrote that the company became aware of “a potential cybersecurity incident” on December 28th and has “taken all appropriate steps to prevent the data involved from further unauthorized access or misuse.” Keebler also wrote:

The incident is contained and we do not anticipate the data being shared or made public. PowerSchool is not experiencing, nor expects to experience, any operational disruption and continues to provide services as normal to our customers.

Valerion announced a new feature for its VisionMaster Max projector at CES 2025 that will improve setup flexibility. The company will offer alternate lenses for the projector — a feature typically only offered on professional-grade home theater hardware — that can be swapped by users to change the size of the image it produces or how far it can project. That will accommodate a wider range of installations, from smaller living rooms to spacious dedicated home theaters, without sacrificing image resolution.

The VisionMaster Max was originally announced at IFA 2024 by Valerion, which is a sister brand to AWOL Vision that focuses on ultrashort throw (UST) projectors. The brand’s VisionMaster line debuted through a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign last October, including the Max model, which offered an optical zoom feature that allows it to project images from 40 to 300 inches in size.

Image: Valerion

The swappable lenses are a new feature for the projector, which is now available for purchase for $3,999. Valerion hasn’t announced which additional lens options will be available for the VisionMaster Max or how much they’ll add to the price. The stock lens has a throw ratio of 0.9-1.5:1, while Valerion was showing off an alternative with a 1.3-2.1:1 throw ratio — better for use in larger rooms — at CES, according to New Atlas.

The upgraded version of the VisionMaster Max offers the same features and functionality as the one announced at IFA. It’s a 4K triple laser projector capable of producing 3,000 ISO lumens of brightness, according to Valerion, and has the ability to upscale lower-res content using AI. It supports the IMAX Enhanced, Dolby Vision, and HDR10 Plus standards and includes a low input lag mode for gamers with refresh rates up to 240Hz when stepping down to a 1080p resolution.

The VisionMaster Max is an all-in-one projector, so it includes a pair of 12-watt speakers with support for DTS:X and Dolby Audio. It’s got three HDMI ports, including one with eARC support. In addition to Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, it can be connected to the internet using an ethernet cable if the wireless internet signal in your home theater is problematic. And the projector runs Google TV, so you can install apps for various streaming services, including Netflix, Disney Plus, and Amazon Prime Video.

For me, skateboarding has always been about getting into a flow state. Much like playing Tetris, I’m at my best when I’m skating almost subconsciously, not thinking and acting in the moment. It’s not an easy zone to get into, and music has always been my shortcut. So the greatest compliment I can give to Skate City: New York is that I’ve spent the past week fine-tuning the perfect playlist, all so that I can also perfect my runs in the game.

New York is a sequel to the original Skate City; both are available through Apple Arcade, though the first game was eventually ported to consoles as well. It comes from Snowman, the studio behind the Alto series, and the shift to New York is a lot like the move from Alto’s Adventure to Alto’s Odyssey. It’s not an entirely new experience but, rather, one that changes the setting and adds some seemingly small — but very impactful — tweaks.

What makes the series so well suited to mobile is the way it balances approachability and depth. Skate City is extremely easy to pick up. It’s a side-scrolling game, so you’re always moving left to right, and all of the various tricks and moves are performed either by a swipe, tap, or hold. It all feels...

Read the full story at The Verge.

One last chance before the divest-or-ban law takes effect on January 19th.

TikTok has just over a week before it’s forced to either separate from its Chinese parent company ByteDance or functionally cease operations in the US. An appeals court upheld a divest-or-ban law, but the Supreme Court offers one final chance for the company and its users to make their case. The court is expected to issue a decision quickly after its January 10th oral arguments on whether to at least temporarily block the law.

President Joe Biden signed the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act — which passed with bipartisan support — last year, but it will take effect just one day before he hands power to President-elect Donald Trump, who has made frequent but nebulous promises to avoid a ban. Trump filed a surprise brief urging the Supreme Court to delay enforcement until he could broker a deal — though it’s unclear if the Chinese government would approve one.

CES is a TV show. And a car show. And a wearables show. And this year, oddly, kind of a pool-vacuum show? It is the biggest, most elaborate, most bizarre tech show of the year, during which practically the whole industry flies to Las Vegas to show off new stuff and make big deals.

On this episode of The Vergecast, a special live edition of the show from the Brooklyn Bowl in Las Vegas, we talk through as much of it as we can. (Thanks to everyone who came out, by the way! So much fun to get to see and hang out with all of you.) We actually begin the show with a story that didn’t start at CES but took over the week anyway: Meta’s about-face on fact-checking and content moderation. After that, we get into Samsung’s new Frame Pro TV, the end of Dell’s XPS brand, Sony’s bizarrely expensive Afeela car, and more.

After that, The Verge’s Allison Johnson, Jennifer Pattison Tuohy, and Victoria Song join us onstage to talk about what they saw at the show. We talk about phone toasters, robot vacuums, smart locks, smart glasses, Max Ink Mode, and lots more. Will anything we saw this week ever ship, and will any of it be any good? Who knows! But that’s the fun of CES. It’s a fever dream, a...

Read the full story at The Verge.

An aircraft helping to fight wildfires that are raging across Los Angeles was struck by a civilian drone on Thursday. The collision damaged the wing of the aircraft — a CL-415 “Super Scooper” capable of scooping up 1,600 gallons of ocean water to drop onto nearby blazes — according to a statement by the LA County Fire Department posted on X, putting it out of service until it can be repaired.

Cal Fire spokesman Chris Thomas told The New York Times that grounding the aircraft will likely set back local firefighting efforts. Super Scoopers can typically refill in about five minutes. But even if it takes ten, that’s six water drops that are lost each hour according to Thomas. “So whose house is not going to get that water to protect it?” The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) says the Super Scooper landed safely after the drone impact, and that the incident is now under investigation.

Temporary flight restrictions have been implemented in the Los Angeles area that prohibit drones and other aircraft from flying without FAA authorization in an effort to protect firefighting efforts.

According to LA County Fire Chief Anthony Marrone, the drone was not assigned to help tackle the Palisades fires, and was destroyed in the collision. Marrone told the LA Times that the FBI is now planning to implement so-called “aerial armor” in the area to prevent further interference from drones.

Several people online have violated the FAA-enforced flight restrictions, posting viral drone photos and video footage across social media showing the devastation from what appears to be prohibited airspace. Fire response agencies are often forced to ground their own aircraft to avoid collisions when dummies fly drones near wildfires for online clout.

“It’s a federal crime, punishable by up to 12 months in prison, to interfere with firefighting efforts on public lands,” the FAA said in a statement. “Additionally, the FAA can impose a civil penalty of up to $75,000 against any drone pilot who interferes with wildfire suppression, law enforcement or emergency response operations. The FAA treats these violations seriously and immediately considers swift enforcement action for these offenses.”

Venu, the live sports streaming service from ESPN, Fox, and Warner Bros. Discovery, isn’t happening. In a joint statement on Friday, the three companies announced the decision “not to move forward with the contemplated joint venture:”

After careful consideration, we have collectively agreed to discontinue the Venu Sports joint venture and not launch the streaming service. In an ever-changing marketplace, we determined that it was best to meet the evolving demands of sports fans by focusing on existing products and distribution channels. We are proud of the work that has been done on Venu to date and grateful to the Venu staff, whom we will support through this transition period.

ESPN, Fox, and Warner Bros. Discovery first announced Venu last year, and it was supposed to launch in the fall of 2024. The service would’ve given viewers access to a swath of live games from the NFL, NBA, NHL, NCAA, and more from several linear channels, including ESPN, ABC, Fox, Fox Sports 1, Fox Sports 2, TNT, and others.

But then Venu hit a legal roadblock: an antitrust lawsuit from the live TV streaming service Fubo, accusing the trio of engaging in “a years-long campaign to block Fubo’s innovative sports-first streaming business” due to restrictive sports licensing agreements. Lawmakers also asked regulators to investigate Venu and its potential to become a monopoly in televised sports.

Last August, a federal judge sided with Fubo and temporarily blocked Venu’s launch. Things seemed to settle when Disney agreed to merge Hulu + Live TV with Fubo, leading Fubo to drop its lawsuit. However, DirecTV and EchoStar, both of which raised concerns about the launch of Venu, weren’t happy about Fubo’s decision to settle. When asked about what will become of the Fubo and Hulu + Live TV deal, Fubo spokesperson Jennifer Press said the companies have a “definitive agreement” to merge.

The new CPUs, GPUs, and laptops announced at CES this week set the tone for Windows computers in the year to come — and so far, 2025 is looking pretty promising. There are a bunch of new notebooks I’m excited to test out when they come around, many of which are gaming-focused since the launch of Nvidia’s RTX 50-series cards is ushering in an onslaught of graphics-heavy refreshes and upgrades.

There are many new laptops coming from Dell, Alienware, Asus, Acer, Lenovo, MSI, and Razer. Many may just boil down to chip bumps and slight refreshes, but there are some that are betting big on new ideas, thinness, raw power, and over-the-top accouterments. Here are the ones I’m most excited for.

Lenovo ThinkBook Plus Gen 6

Photo by Antonio G. Di Benedetto / The Verge

I’ve already written and said a lot about Lenovo’s concept-turned-buyable-product that is the ThinkBook Plus Gen 6. It’s the coolest laptop we saw. It’s our outright best in show for CES 2025. And it’s also possible when it comes time to review one later in the year that the challenges of Lenovo trying to graft software functionality for its rollable display onto Windows may be a bridge too far.

But the...

Read the full story at The Verge.

Meta’s popular messaging app WhatsApp is testing a new design that gives prominent space to a suite of AI chatbots. The design, currently only accessible through the app’s Android beta, adds a dedicated tab for AIs on the app’s homescreen.

WABetaInfo spotted the change, which devotes one of WhatsApp’s four tabs solely to its AI features. It includes a selection of “Popular AI characters” to talk to, along with others organized by subject matter. Other AI-powered features within WhatsApp include AI-generated images and stickers and a search tool using Meta AI.

These AI tools and chatbots aren’t new to WhatsApp, though they’re only available in the US and certain other countries, and a limited selection of languages. They’re currently accessed through the app’s primary Chats tab, but this update looks to give them more prominence.

Image: WABetaInfo

The app is also experimenting with expanding the range of AI bots by adding the option to create personalized AI characters, which WABetaInfo found in a separate beta update today. Meta already offers the ability to create custom AI bots, but only through an AI Studio on the Instagram website. Adding the option directly into an app is a significant simplification of the process.

The new AI tab replaces the existing Communities tab, though that functionality isn’t going anywhere. A previous beta version earlier this week introduced a “streamlined” version of Community creation within the Chats tab.

The WhatsApp beta is available through Google Play, though tester numbers are limited and the option to join is currently unavailable. We don’t know if or when the AI tab will be added to the app’s live build, but the change is likely to be limited only to those countries where the AI features are already available.

Fluffy robots, portable TVs, and vacuums with arms and legs. This is what we come to CES for.

Read the full story at The Verge.

At CES, the next generation of eyewear was everywhere. It’s just no one seems to agree on why we want it or what the best approach is.

It’s the second day of CES, and I’m waiting in a line to see my 10th pair of smart glasses. I honestly don’t know what to expect: I’ve seen glorified sunglasses with dubious ChatGPT clones. I’ve sidled up to several booths where the glasses were almost carbon copy clones of the pairs a booth over. I’ve seen all manner of “displays” tacked onto the lenses: some washed out, others so tedious to calibrate as to make me walk away.

So when I slipped on the Rokid Glasses, I felt my brows raise. I could see what looked like a mini desktop. I swiped the arm and a horizontal list of apps appeared. Green writing appeared in front of me a bit like a monitor in The Matrix. A Rokid staffer began speaking to me in Chinese, and despite the surrounding din, I could see a text translation of what she was saying float in front of me. After a brief conversation — she asked whether I ate lunch, she hadn’t — she prompted me to try taking a picture. The display shifted to what looked like a camera’s viewfinder. I hit the multifunction button. An animation flashed. On her phone, I saw the picture I took.

“Holy crap,” I thought. “So this is what the Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses would be like with a display.” And then — “If this is possible, why doesn’t it have one yet?”

The three types of smart glasses

It seems that everyone is still trying to figure out what makes the perfect pair of smart glasses. I must have tried out 20 pairs over the course of the last week, but they all seemed to fall into one of three different buckets in how they balanced wearability and functionality.

The first bucket is the simple and stylish glasses. The more stylish and comfortable smart glasses are, the fewer features they tend to have. But for this group, that’s often a good thing.

Take the unassuming Nuance Audio. These smart glasses — made by EssilorLuxottica, Meta’s partner in making the Ray-Ban Meta eyewear — discreetly function as over-the-counter hearing aids. When you wear them, you can dampen some of the noise around you as well as amplify the voice of the person you’re speaking to. This would sound like science fiction if I hadn’t tried it myself.

But at a glance, you’d never know the Nuance Audio glasses can alter how you hear the world — and that’s precisely the point. They look like any pair of stylish glasses and come in two colors and three shapes. By “hiding” their smarts in a normal-looking pair of glasses, they’re essentially helping to reduce the discomfort some people feel when wearing visible hearing aids. It’s not flashy, but it’s a precise and clear use case.

The Chamelo glasses take a similar tack. The “smart” part of these electrochromic sunglasses can, depending on the model, change the color or tint with the swipe of a finger. Some models also have Bluetooth audio. Chamelo’s glasses aren’t new, and at CES, they weren’t suddenly adding in AI assistants, displays, or anything wild. This year’s update? Adding support for prescriptions so more people can use the device.

Neither of these glasses is trying to reinvent the wheel. They saw a simple problem worth fixing and decided to fix it. Nothing more, nothing less.

The face screens

On the other end of the spectrum, you’ll find longtime CES veterans Xreal and Vuzix.

When I arrive at Xreal’s booth, it’s jam-packed. There’s a station where people wear Xreal glasses as they “drive” in a BMW. (The car doesn’t move, but you can pretend you’re moving the wheel and tilt your head on a race course.) I don a pair of last year’s Xreal Air 2 Ultra glasses while seated at a desk with only a keyboard in front of me. The Air 2 Ultra are a bit like chunky sunglasses, with miniature screens hovering beneath the lenses. From afar, they look pretty normal. Up close, you can feel their bulk — and on the face, they protrude further than looks natural.

Inside the glasses, I see football players on a football field, information popping up over their heads. The virtual display switches to a panoramic video with avatars of friends watching alongside me. In another window, I’m prompted to type in a description of a fictional creature. I pick “monstrously fat cat with unicorn wings” and lo, it appears. I can pinch and pull with my hands to make it even bigger. The more recently launched Xreal One are also here, though it admittedly gets hard to tell which pair of Xreal glasses is which while elbowing past other eager onlookers.

Photo by Antonio G. Di Benedetto / The Verge

When I mosey on over to Vuzix’s booth, it’s less packed, but that’s likely because folks are gawping at a bizarre karaoke contest a few booths over. I, on the other hand, am wearing a pair of the company’s latest Ultralite Pro glasses. The glasses look a bit clunkier, but when you put them on, you can see an array of rainbow lights that culminate in a 3D display. I’m looking at a picture of nature, and there’s actual depth.

You’d be hard-pressed to find someone who’d wear glasses like these walking down the street. They look like glasses, sure, but they can also be bulky and sometimes have cords dangling for battery packs. These glasses show hints of what augmented reality is capable of — but they aren’t meant to be things you wear all day, every day.

The spyglasses

This divide between form and function isn’t new. What’s new is that there are far more smart glasses that lie somewhere in the middle. And they have some funky ideas.

Sharge’s Loomos.AI glasses, for example, look similar to the Meta glasses except they use ChatGPT and can shoot 4K photos and 1080p videos. They also add a bizarre neckband battery to account for the massive battery drain. Rayneo was back with smaller, more refined X3 Pro AR glasses. I could list dozens more, but to be frank, they were mostly iterations of the Meta glasses.

Photo by Antonio G. Di Benedetto / The Verge

Of the myriad smart glasses I saw, three stood out: Halliday, Even Realities G1, and the Rokid Glasses. All three feature a discreet design, with a hidden green monochrome heads-up display. Halliday projects its single display from the frame by shining a green light into your eye; the other two feature microetched displays on both lenses that are nigh invisible when viewed from the front. (All three companies told me they use green light because it’s easiest on the eyes, has the best contrast, and is less likely to get washed out in bright ambient lighting.)

There are slight hardware differences between all three, but in my demos, it was clear that, philosophically, they’re much more geared toward all-day productivity. They have AI assistants, can be used as teleprompters, and offer live translation. The Rokid Glasses even have a 12MP camera for taking photos and video.

Photo by Victoria Song / The Verge

In this vision of the smart glasses revolution, these devices are more like all-day companions that help you use your phone less. The display is something that’s only occasionally glanced at when it’s relevant and is done mostly in a productivity context. They offer more smarts than the very use-specific Chamelo and Nuance Audio glasses, but they offer more practicality (and wearability) to the average person than what Xreal and Vuzix are pursuing.

The smart glasses era

The more I talk to the people behind these products, the more it becomes clear that everyone believes smart glasses are the future. It’s also apparent that no one agrees on the best way to get to that future.

“We’ve chosen to optimize for something that is, we think, a great feature geared towards the actual use case of glasses,” says Chamelo CEO and cofounder Reid Covington. “You’re wearing them to see. You’re wearing them to block out light. A lot of the more forward-looking smart glasses have interesting features, but they’re not optimized for, you know, actual usability.”

But even among companies pursuing simpler smart glasses, function isn’t always the reason they choose more discreet or stylish designs. Smart glasses are “something that you need to feel are part of yourself,” says Davide D’Alena, global marketing director for Nuance Audio. Function is nice, but doing all the things isn’t worth it if you have to wear something hideous on your face. “For us, it’s just not enough to put out an ugly product, even if it’s working perfectly from a functional point of view. It must be something that is also a self-expression.”

Meanwhile, some longtime veterans in the space contend it isn’t a choice of form and function. It’s a split between AR and AI.

“I actually see two different directions going forward. One is AR glasses which will handle a lot of the XR content. The other one will be the AI glasses as a major kind of all-day wearable smart glasses,” says Chi Xu, Xreal founder and CEO. Xu says that everything will converge at some point — though we’ll be waiting a good while before it does. Right now, it’s a matter of every option being developed at once as companies try to figure out the best way to draw people in.

Xu isn’t wrong. While some companies like EssilorLuxottica and Chamelo are committed to one approach, others are happy to dabble. Rokid, for example, may have come out with AI-first smart glasses this year, but its array of more Xreal-like AR glasses was actually the bigger portion of its booth. Meta, apparently, is working on glasses with a display, too, targeting later this year — my colleague Alex Heath reports that the company will add its own twist to the formula by shipping a neural wristband that can be used to control them.

But for all the fragmentation, every company I spoke to said the same thing: they’ve seen renewed interest in this space within the last year and a half — and with that comes investors aplenty with deep wallets. The vast majority emphasized how rapid advancements in technology and AI have made things possible today that were impossible just two or three years ago. And every single one said that interest from the general public, not just first adopters, is also higher than in previous years.

This, they all say, proves that smart glasses are inevitable. It’s just a matter of getting everyone else to see the vision. And that’s sort of the problem. With smart glasses, you have to see it to believe it.