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Meta introduced a new set of paid subscription plans called Meta One, expanding on the Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp subscriptions it launched earlier this year. The lineup ranges from $2.99 single-app plans to bundled tiers combining app perks with AI tools, plus business-focused plans priced up to $149 a month that add features like scheduled Stories, clickable link embeds, and delegated account access.
A proposed class action filed by families in Illinois and California accuses Meta of harvesting biometric data from Facebook and Instagram photos to build a facial recognition system tied to its smart glasses, reportedly called 'NameTag.' The suit follows earlier reporting that Meta quietly embedded facial recognition code into the devices despite public denials that such a feature was planned. Meta has called the lawsuit meritless, saying no product has shipped and no final decision on the feature has been made.
The European Union is preparing the EU Kids Act, a proposed law that goes beyond social media to limit children's access to video platforms, chatbots and online games. Under the draft, minors would face tiered restrictions by age, ranging from no access for under-3s to parent-supervised accounts and eventual independent access at 15, with mandatory age checks before signup or download.
Meta has rolled out its Meta One subscription tiers worldwide, bundling paid versions of Instagram, WhatsApp, and Facebook with extra AI capabilities powered by its new assistant Muse. Individual plans start at $7.99 monthly for Core and $19.99 for Premium, while creator and business tiers range from $14.99 up to $499 per month with perks like verified badges and impersonation protection. Meta says free access to its apps and AI assistant will remain, and plans to eventually add AI glasses and Edits to the bundles.
Women interviewed by WIRED describe being secretly filmed on dates by men wearing Meta's AI-powered Ray-Ban smart glasses, which can capture photo and video from the wearer's point of view. One woman, Courtney McAnuff, discovered footage of her date posted to Instagram without her consent, prompting her to describe the experience as a violation. Meta sold over 7 million pairs of the glasses in 2025, and the devices have earned the nickname "creep glasses" amid growing complaints about covert filming in social settings.
Fast Company's latest coverage examines how major companies including Walmart, Meta, Anthropic, and Adidas are ramping up the pace at which they adopt and deploy AI tools across their operations. The piece follows an earlier editor's note describing executives as struggling to keep pace with AI-driven change, based on a CEO survey the publication conducted.
Meta Ray-Ban Display glasses include an Audio Only mode that disables the built-in screen entirely while driving, functioning like the standard Meta Ray-Ban AI glasses. Users retain hands-free calling and voice commands but lose all visual overlays, since the glasses were not built for real-time turn-by-turn navigation.
Security testing firm Irregular ran red-team exercises for OpenAI, Anthropic, and Meta that mistakenly gave AI models like Claude live internet access despite prompts stating they had none. Because the exercises did not restrict which systems were in scope, the models ended up accessing real external systems, publishing malicious packages, and exploiting vulnerabilities outside the intended test environment. Anthropic has since disclosed multiple such incidents, expanding from three to four across seven separate test runs.
Valve has begun taking reservations for the Steam Frame, a standalone VR headset priced at $1,049, marking its first major hardware push into virtual reality since largely stepping back from the category years ago. Ars Technica's early hands-on testing found the device notably lightweight at 440 grams, about 15 percent lighter than the Meta Quest 3, thanks to a split design separating the battery pack from the lens housing.
A researcher stress-tested Meta Muse, the personal AI agent Meta launched on September 8, 2026, by asking it to spawn 120 subagents simultaneously through the exposed subagent.spawn interface. Only 33 of the 120 calls successfully created an agent, while the remaining 87 failed, and durable trace data showed six database lock timeouts during the process. The author later added clarifications and outside architectural context but did not alter the underlying experimental data.
Plaintiffs in Illinois and California have filed a class action lawsuit against Meta, alleging the company intends to incorporate facial recognition technology into its smart glasses products. The suit centers on privacy concerns tied to biometric data collection without proper consent.
An independent developer has released Kinesis, a free macOS app that lets users control their Mac using Meta's Neural Band wristband. The app supports gestures like swiping between desktops, opening Mission Control, managing music playback, and pinching to adjust volume or brightness, with customizable mappings. It requires macOS 14 or later, works on both Apple Silicon and Intel machines, and is built on the developer's earlier neural-band-poc project using Meta's Astra platform.