According to the report from the US, Meta is seeking to raise the funds at a yield 1.4% above the equivalent US Treasury bonds, translating to an annual interest rate of nearly 6%. The proceeds are intended to ramp up investments in data centers, with a particular focus on artificial intelligence infrastructure.

The announcement triggered investor concerns that Meta may be lagging behind in the AI race, prompting fears that it must now catch up with competitors. The steep drop in Meta's stock reflects those worries.

In a late-night earnings call, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the company planned to be significantly more aggressive in its AI investment strategy over the coming year. His comments appeared to reinforce concerns that Meta is playing catch-up in this rapidly growing sector. Investors are also worried that failure to scale up AI capabilities could ultimately threaten Meta's core business lines.

"We want to make sure we're not underinvesting in AI," Zuckerberg said during the call with analysts, adding that even if it meant taking on new debt, the long-term returns from AI investment would be worth it.

The company also released its latest financial results overnight, showing a 26% jump in quarterly revenue to $51.2 billion. Advertising remained the main driver of revenue, and Meta said it was increasingly using AI tools to optimize ad performance across its platforms.

Still, some investors voiced concerns that overinvestment in computing infrastructure could burden the company. In response, Zuckerberg argued that even if Meta ends up with excess computing power, it could later sell or repurpose it to generate profits.

Regardless, Meta is betting that its advanced computing resources will ultimately boost its bottom line through improved AI-driven advertising efficiency.

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Bloomberg reveals that Apple is poised to redefine iPhone interaction with a powerful upgrade to Siri's App Intents, slated for release in spring 2026 alongside a comprehensive Siri revamp. This advancement will enable users to navigate apps entirely through voice commands, executing tasks like photo editing, social media engagement, or online shopping without touching the screen. Currently in testing with apps like Uber, YouTube, and Apple's own software, the feature aims to deliver precise, hands-free control – a vision Siri has promised since its inception. However, Bloomberg indicates that Apple may restrict Siri's functionality in sensitive areas like banking to ensure flawless performance.

The postponement of Siri's next-generation features, highlighted at the 2024 Worldwide Developers Conference, triggered significant internal changes at Apple, including leadership shifts, and exposed its AI shortcomings, according to Bloomberg. While the delayed personal context feature – enabling Siri to access texts or photos for tailored responses – garnered attention, the App Intents upgrade is the real breakthrough. It positions Siri as a seamless app controller, laying the foundation for Apple's voice-first ecosystem, including a smart display in 2026 and a future tabletop robot.

To perfect this feature, Apple's global data operations team is conducting extensive testing to ensure compatibility and accuracy across numerous apps, Bloomberg reports. Engineers are particularly cautious about its reliability in critical domains like health or finance, where mistakes could have serious consequences, potentially leading to limited or excluded functionality in these areas initially.

On another front, Bloomberg details Apple's strategic response to political pressures. Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook recently announced that all iPhone and Apple Watch cover glass will be made in the US through a $2.5 billion partnership with Corning. This shift, while symbolically significant, is minor compared to Apple's broader $600 billion US investment plan, as most glass processing occurs abroad. During a meeting with President Donald Trump, Cook presented a gold bar, aligning with Apple's exemption from new chip tariffs, though no explicit connection was confirmed.

Apple is also nearing completion of iOS 26, set to debut with the iPhone 17 in September, per Bloomberg. The latest beta offers improved performance, enhanced battery life, and subtle enhancements like a lively unlock animation and an updated Dynamic Island for battery alerts. Yet, the Dynamic Island's lack of significant updates since its introduction three years ago underscores Apple's tendency to sidelined promised innovations.

Bloomberg highlights ongoing challenges in Apple's AI division, with engineer Yun Zhu joining Meta's Superintelligence Labs, marking the fifth departure from the AI models team. These exits, amid high compensation offers from Meta and internal frustrations, suggest Apple's struggle to maintain its AI talent pool.

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The largest Facebook group in Norway, dedicated to combating antisemitism, posted the video showing the condition of Israeli hostage Evyatar David, which had been published by Hamas. According to the group, Facebook removed the video and deleted the post, citing concerns that "the video may contain symbols, glorification, or support for individuals and organizations we define as dangerous."

According to members of the group, this has created a situation in which images of starving children and adults from Gaza are broadcast globally and widely shared on social media, while a video exposing the systematic and horrific starvation of Israeli hostages by Hamas was immediately deleted by Facebook.

"The Norwegian media refuses to show images or videos of Israeli hostages being starved by the Palestinian terrorist organizations in Gaza," said Elpeleg. "This is an attempt to silence us. It's been nearly a full day since the video was published and not a single major media outlet here has covered it. It's like North Korea, they only show what fits the agenda."

The group says the video remains visible on its Telegram channel.

In response, Meta Israel said: "Hamas is designated by the US government as a foreign terrorist organization and is similarly defined by our Dangerous Individuals and Organizations policy at Meta. This means that any content produced and disseminated by Hamas is banned from our platforms, and we remove it accordingly."

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Meta is preparing to undertake its most ambitious infrastructure project to date – a privately owned subsea fiber-optic cable that will span over 25,000 miles around the globe, according to sources familiar with the matter who spoke to TechCrunch. The project, which could cost upwards of $10 billion, would mark the first time Meta has fully owned a subsea cable system, representing a significant shift in the company's infrastructure strategy, TechCrunch has learned.

While the project remains in early planning stages, sources close to Meta told TechCrunch that the company intends to officially announce details of the cable's route, capacity, and strategic importance in early 2025. The planned route would create a "W" shape around the globe, connecting the US east coast to India via South Africa, then linking to the US west coast through Australia.

"There's a real tight supply on cable ships," Ranulf Scarborough, a submarine cable industry analyst, told TechCrunch. "They're expensive at the minute and booked out several years ahead. Finding the available resources to do it soon is a challenge." Scarborough noted that a segmented construction approach might be necessary. The initiative emerges as Meta's platforms – Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp – drive approximately 10% of global fixed internet traffic and 22% of mobile traffic. The company's infrastructure work falls under the oversight of Santosh Janardhan, Meta's head of global infrastructure and co-head of engineering, with the project being developed primarily through its South Africa operation, according to sources who spoke to TechCrunch.

Sunil Tagare, founder of Flag Telecom and a pioneer in subsea cable development, first reported Meta's plans in October. He told TechCrunch that while the initial budget is set at $2 billion, the total investment could exceed $10 billion as the project extends over multiple years. The cable's planned route deliberately avoids politically sensitive areas, including the Red Sea, South China Sea, Egypt, Marseilles, the Straits of Malacca, and Singapore – regions that sources close to Meta described to TechCrunch as "major single points of failure."

According to Telegeography data, Meta currently holds partial ownership in 16 subsea networks, including the recent 2Africa cable circling the African continent. This new venture would put Meta in league with Google, which maintains involvement in 33 different routes and solely owns several regional cables. The timing of the project coincides with increased global focus on subsea cable security. Recent incidents have highlighted the vulnerability of these critical infrastructure assets, with cables being damaged in the Red Sea amid ongoing conflicts and suspicious cable breaks occurring in European waters.

Tagare suggested to TechCrunch that Meta's choice of India as a key terminal point could be strategically significant, pointing to the country's lower compute costs and recent discussions about AI infrastructure development following Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang's meeting with Reliance Chairman Mukesh Ambani.

India represents Meta's largest user base, with Facebook counting over 375 million users, Instagram 363 million, and WhatsApp 536 million. Sources close to the project told TechCrunch that while AI capabilities remain a "long tail" consideration, along with potential third-party access to the cable's capacity, these details are still under discussion.

Meta declined to comment for the TechCrunch article.

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Instagram is set to launch a new initiative aimed at bolstering privacy and safety measures for its teenage users. The social media platform, owned by Meta, will begin automatically placing teens into "teen accounts" with built-in restrictions and enhanced parental controls.

Naomi Gleit, head of product at Meta, explained the rationale behind the move: "Everyone under 18, creators included, will be put into teen accounts," she told NBC News. "They can remain public if their parent is involved and gives them permission and is supervising the account. But these are pretty big changes that we need to get right."

The new accounts will limit messaging, tagging, and mentions to only those individuals the teen already follows. This represents Meta's most significant effort to date in managing how minors interact with the platform.

The initiative comes in the wake of recent controversies surrounding child safety on social media platforms. In January, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg issued an apology to parents during a Senate hearing on online child safety, where some testified that Instagram had contributed to their children's suicides or exploitation.

While Meta has previously introduced various opt-in restrictions for teen users, including parental supervision controls, their application has been inconsistent. Gleit acknowledged the feedback received from parents, citing simplicity, consistency, and increased control as key areas of focus for this launch.

The rollout of teen accounts will be gradual. New users under 18 will be automatically placed into these accounts upon sign-up, but existing teen users may not see immediate changes. According to Meta, many users worldwide won't be transitioned to teen accounts until next year.

Teen accounts will also feature the most restrictive content settings, limiting potentially sensitive material from unfollowed accounts. The Hidden Words feature will be activated by default, automatically filtering offensive words or phrases from comments and direct messages.

Users under 16 will require parental or guardian permission to modify their teen account settings, while those over 16 can adjust settings independently unless their accounts are linked to parental supervision.

Anticipating attempts to circumvent these measures, Meta plans to implement various age verification methods. These include requesting government IDs or video selfies when users attempt to create new accounts on the same device. The company is also developing AI technology to predict whether users claiming to be adults might actually be teens, based on behavioral signals such as account creation date, content interactions, and writing style.

Gleit declined to provide detailed information about this technology, citing concerns that teens might learn to bypass detection tools. The age prediction tools are scheduled for testing in the US early next year.

For parents utilizing supervision controls, new features will allow them to view their teens' messaging contacts – without reading the actual conversations – and see topics of interest selected by their teens for the Explore page.

Additional features include a "Sleep Mode" replacing the existing Quiet Mode and Night Nudges, which will silence notifications from 10 pm to 7 am. Teen accounts will also receive "Daily Limit" prompts encouraging app closure after 60 minutes of use.

To prevent misuse of parental controls, Meta will implement restrictions on teen account supervision and limit the number of teen accounts one person can oversee.

Gleit emphasized the company's approach: "We think parents know their teens best, and so I don't think that all of those controls are necessarily right for everyone, but we want to give parents the options to choose what's right for their child."

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The Oversight Board for Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, has concluded that the phrase "From the River to the Sea" is not automatically considered hate speech when used in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, reported NBC News. Recommendation gives backing to Meta's policy of allowing use of phrase.

The board's ruling stemmed from three separate cases on Facebook where users included the phrase in their content. In each instance, the post was reported for violating Facebook's hate speech policies, with complainants arguing that the phrase calls for the destruction of Israel. Facebook chose not to remove the posts, a decision that was ultimately upheld by the Oversight Board.

Considering how many, many Jews and Israelis view the phrase 'From the River to the Sea,' it's clear that harm is meant by using it as a slogan.

If you didn't mean harm, you'd use a different phrase.

Meta's Oversight Board got this one very wrong.https://t.co/wkilQU9CTq

— Jeremy Goldman (@jeremarketer) September 4, 2024

"The Board finds there is no indication that the comment or the two posts broke Meta's Hate Speech rules because they do not attack Jewish or Israeli people with calls for violence or exclusion, nor do they attack a concept or institution associated with a protected characteristic that could lead to imminent violence," the board stated in its 32-page decision. "Instead, the three pieces of content contain contextual signals of solidarity with Palestinians."

One of the cases involved a post that garnered approximately 8 million views, depicting the phrase created with floating watermelon slices, a symbol often associated with pro-Palestinian activism. This post alone received 951 reports from 937 users, according to the Oversight Board.

"From the river to the sea is an aspirational call for freedom, human rights, and peaceful coexistence, not death, destruction, or hate." pic.twitter.com/2kXWHP1Jbj

— ~Jachnun Supremacist~ נפתלי בן מתתיהו (@JachnunEmpire) December 31, 2023

 The phrase "From the River to the Sea" has been a subject of controversy, particularly in the wake of the October 7 Hamas attacks on Israel and the subsequent Israeli military campaign in Gaza. While Hamas leadership and some pro-Palestinian activists have used the phrase to advocate for a Palestinian state encompassing the entire region between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, others argue that it represents general solidarity or a call to return to pre-1967 borders.

The Oversight Board acknowledged the phrase's multiple interpretations in its ruling. "Because the phrase does not have a single meaning, a blanket ban on content that includes the phrase, a default rule towards removal of such content, or even using it as a signal to trigger enforcement or review, would hinder protected political speech in unacceptable ways," the board concluded.

However, the decision was not unanimous. A minority of the board's 21 members dissented, arguing that following the October 7 attacks, the phrase's use "should be presumed to constitute glorification of" Hamas "unless there are clear signals to the contrary."

Meta, responding to the ruling, stated, "We welcome the board's review of our guidance on this matter. While all of our policies are developed with safety in mind, we know they come with global challenges, and we regularly seek input from experts outside Meta, including the Oversight Board."

The decision comes amid ongoing controversies surrounding Meta's content moderation policies related to the Israel-Hamas war. Human Rights Watch has accused the company of censoring pro-Palestinian voices, while others have claimed that Meta has suppressed pro-Israel content.

The Oversight Board, created by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg in 2019, serves as an independent body to review content moderation decisions on Facebook and Instagram. Its rulings are generally binding on Meta-owned platforms.

The Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM) has slammed Meta's Oversight Board for its view that the phrase "From the River to the Sea" should not lead to content removal because it does "not break Meta's rules on Hate Speech, Violence and Incitement or Dangerous Organizations and Individuals."

"'From the River to the Sea' is a slogan created with the sole vision of destroying the national homeland of the Jewish people," CEO of CAM Sacha Roytman Dratwa said. "It is genocidal in intent and meaning, and is not a legitimate political or ideological vision, because it targets the one Jewish State and its inhabitants for destruction."

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Meta Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg caused a stir on social media Wednesday by revealing an imposing statue of his wife, Priscilla Chan, on Instagram. The towering sculpture, standing approximately 7 feet (2.1 meters) tall, was commissioned by the Facebook founder as a tribute to what he described as "the Roman tradition of making sculptures of your wife."

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A post shared by Mark Zuckerberg (@zuck)

Crafted by New York-based artist Daniel Arsham, the statue features a striking silver and blue color scheme. The piece, which appears to be situated in a residential garden beneath a tree, depicts Chan with a flowing silver garment draped over and behind a teal-colored figure.

The unveiling quickly captured the internet's attention, with users drawing comparisons to characters from the film "Avatar" and playfully commenting on Zuckerberg's reputation as a devoted husband. Chan herself responded to her husband's Instagram post with a lighthearted comment: "The more of me the better?" accompanied by a heart emoji.

In the shared image, the real-life Chan is seen standing beside her statuesque counterpart, sipping from a mug that matches the light blue hue of the sculpture. The juxtaposition of the living Chan with her larger-than-life likeness added to the buzz surrounding the piece.

While Zuckerberg cited Roman traditions as inspiration for the commission, experts note that statues in ancient Rome often served to honor deceased loved ones or "to refer to significant relatives and to make meaningful associations," according to the National Museums Liverpool.

Zuckerberg and Chan, who tied the knot in 2012, are parents to three daughters. The couple's relationship has often been a subject of public interest, given Zuckerberg's high-profile role in the tech industry.

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Meta Platforms Inc. (Facebook's parent company) has been in negotiations with high-profile Hollywood celebrities like Awkwafina, Judi Dench, and Keegan-Michael Key to secure the rights to use their voices for AI projects, including a potential digital assistant called MetaAI and AI tools across platforms.

The company reportedly offered potential fees in the millions of dollars for the celebrities' voice recordings, with plans to finalize deals before its Connect conference in September.

The negotiations faced concerns from various parties over issues such as usage rights, conditions, project duration, job displacement, the impact on the entertainment industry, voice manipulation, deepfakes, and intellectual property rights.

According to a New York Post report, Meta ended its failed celebrity AI chatbots after users ignored them.

Sources: Bloomberg, NYTimes, The Verge, PCMag, Engadget, Times of India, Benzinga, NYPost, The Hindu, Mashable, Daily Star, Cape Town Etc, AceShowbiz, ABP Live, Headtopics, elBlog.

This article was written in collaboration with Generative AI news company Alchemiq.

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Facebook integrated Meta AI into WhatsApp. Meta AI can translate sentences, adapt to different communication styles, generate and edit images based on text descriptions or reference photos, animate previously created images, and provide accurate weather data and recommendations based on the user's location.

To activate Meta AI on WhatsApp, users need to update the app to the latest version and access it by clicking on a blue and purple icon or mentioning "@Meta AI" before making a query or request in group or private chats. No third-party apps or programs are required.

Meta AI currently does not summarize YouTube videos from links or directly. Unlike Google and OpenAI, it does not allow prompt editing once sent.

Meta AI can retrieve information from sources like Wikipedia, offer concise summaries of webpage content, solve mathematical equations, and provide programming assistance. However.

When asked to speak in 'argentino,' Meta AI on WhatsApp responds with Argentinean slang and offers assistance in a friendly manner, without mentioning a specific character or Argentinean dish.

Some users find the AI chat bar labeled "Meta AI" appearing above their chats annoying.

Sources: Clarin, Record, Rosario3, El Comercio, Debinero, Cronica

This article was written in collaboration with Generative AI news company Alchemiq.

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Meta Platforms (formerly Facebook) is in advanced negotiations to acquire a roughly 5% stake in EssilorLuxottica, valued at around 4.33-4.5 billion euros or several billion dollars. A deal will strengthen a partnership for developing Ray-Ban smart glasses and ensure exclusivity in design and distribution for Meta's future products in the wearable tech and metaverse market.

Meta is working with Morgan Stanley on the deal. EssilorLuxottica and Meta have not commented on the potential deal.

The potential deal could give Meta further control over the roadmap for smart glasses, a cutting-edge gadget based on augmented- and mixed-reality technologies that tech giants like Apple are investing in. Market analysts are optimistic about the growth potential of Ray-Ban smart glasses.

Meta is focusing on developing wearable AI devices, including Ray-Ban smart glasses with heads-up display and wristband control. The company is also developing Orion, AR glasses with holographic display, and has restructured its Reality Labs into Metaverse and Wearables divisions.

Meta has previously collaborated with EssilorLuxottica to release two generations of Ray-Ban smart glasses, and the investment could provide EssilorLuxottica with a financial boost to alleviate pressures like global inflation and rising costs affecting profit margins.

Google is reportedly in talks with EssilorLuxottica about integrating its Gemini AI assistant into future smart glasses, potentially competing with Meta's partnership, suggesting Google is departing from its previous strategy of building its own XR hardware.

There are speculations about Google acquiring more shares of EssilorLuxottica for greater bargaining and control power in their collaboration.

Recent trends suggest smart glasses sales volume may increase to millions of units in the coming years, driven by the potential for AI assistants and the integration of core functionalities like voice interaction, audio output, and image capture.

Sources: The Verge, Times of India, Benzinga, Economic Times, DigiTimes, TechEdt, ZOL, Social Media Today, Sina, Ifeng, ExBulletin, PYMNTS, Inshorts, Udaipur Kiran, Meridiana Notizie, TradingView, MarketScreener, Business AM, Nordot.

This article was written in collaboration with Generative AI news company Alchemiq.

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