OpenAI has released Dots, an always-on AI agent within ChatGPT that can browse the web and perform tasks like shopping or managing reservations, while users test early use cases such as having it help select furniture. The feature costs $100 a month, unlike Meta's comparable free agent Muse, and in early use it mistranscribed speech, got names wrong, and attempted but failed to solve captchas. OpenAI encourages linking accounts like Gmail to improve personalization, and may later allow multiple simultaneous agents.
Xreal has started taking pre-orders for the Aura, a transparent-lens XR headset built with Google on Android XR, priced at $1,279 for a 12GB/256GB model and $1,499 for a 16GB/512GB version. The device runs on a Qualcomm Snapdragon Reality Elite chip housed in a separate compute puck, and relies on a touchpad plus hand-tracking rather than eye tracking for navigation.
Developers have released nanoMuse, an open-source AI agent licensed under GPL-3.0-or-later that runs across Android, iOS, macOS, Windows and Linux, plus a web console and self-hostable relay. The project, styled after Meta's Muse, performs tasks autonomously, keeps running when the app is closed, retains memory of the user, and pauses to confirm before irreversible actions. Users get a free allowance of model use on a community relay subsidized by the developer, or can supply their own API key or self-host the relay.
Physicists used an acoustic metamaterial platform to experimentally demonstrate a 'critical topological phase transition,' a phenomenon where topological invariants remain well-defined even at the gapless critical point of a phase transition. They observed topological edge states along critical phase boundaries and confirmed criticality through logarithmic scaling of entanglement entropy, including an additive scaling pattern at a special multicritical point where distinct critical boundaries intersect.
Meta is reportedly seeking to help define industry standards governing how autonomous AI shopping and commerce agents operate safely. The move comes amid reports that Meta's own Muse agent has faced multiple privacy and security issues in the less than a month since its launch.
On CNBC's Mad Money, Jim Cramer said established tech giants like Meta and Microsoft remain among the best ways to invest in AI, citing their management and multiple revenue avenues. He noted his CNBC Investing Club holds both stocks, pointing to Meta's Muse monetization plans and Microsoft's Copilot and Azure growth as reasons for confidence, with Microsoft shares recovering from a 52-week low of $350 to around $529. Cramer also mentioned AMD and Intel as semiconductor plays worth watching.
Muse, Meta's new AI personal assistant, has reached No. 1 on the U.S. App Store with over 5 million downloads since launching last month. Each user's Muse runs on its own dedicated virtual machine in Meta's cloud, building a file of personal information drawn from connected accounts like email and Instagram, and users can request an export of that data. Meta says this data collection is intentional and is not shared with its advertising systems or other Muse agents.
Consumer AI agents such as Meta's Muse, ChatGPT's Dots and others promise to complete tasks like booking flights or buying groceries, but users report these agents are frequently blocked mid-task. Amazon has begun intentionally blocking Muse from browsing or purchasing on its retail site, while Walmart says similar complaints from its customers stem from unintentional anti-bot measures rather than a deliberate block, despite being a Muse launch partner.
Meta, Walmart, Stripe and other companies, alongside AI startup Sierra, are publishing an open standard called the 'personal agent protocol' to govern how AI agents interact with businesses online. Sierra co-founder Bret Taylor, who is leading the effort and chairs OpenAI, said the standard aims to help companies verify whether they're dealing with an authorized personal agent or an unapproved bot. The move follows the viral rise of Meta's agent Muse and comes amid disputes like Amazon blocking Meta and Perplexity's agents and suing Perplexity over alleged site scraping.
Most household surge protectors rely on metal-oxide varistors (MOVs) to absorb excess voltage, but these components degrade with each surge and even with normal use over time. A worn-out surge protector often looks and functions identically to a new one, continuing to power devices even after its protective capability has failed. Some models are designed to cut power to outlets once the MOV protection is no longer functioning, but many are not.
Wells Fargo removed 500 megawatts of expected capacity resales from its 2027 estimates for Meta, roughly $5 billion in revenue, saying the company will likely need that computing power for its Muse AI agent instead. The firm raised its price target on Meta to $1,000 from $796, implying about 35% upside from Monday's close.
Wired reports that Meta's new AI agent Muse maintains ongoing files on people connected to its users, updating information about them roughly every hour. AI safety researcher Karan Joshi, who extracted Muse's internal prompts, said the system appears designed to build a 'page for every person in the user's life.' The report follows separate claims from 404 Media that Meta engineers rushed a fix for a security flaw in Muse's database just before launch.
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