Meta confirmed last month that it plans to launch the official Threads API for developers in June. With the API, developers will be able to create apps and other tools that integrate with the social networking platform. Now the company owned by Mark Zuckerberg has shared more details about what to expect from the Threads API.
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You don’t need to own an Apple Vision Pro to appreciate it. Just having competition from the high end is pushing Meta to improve its mainstream mixed reality headset.
Meta Quest 3 hit the market last year for $499. That’s $3000 shy of Vision Pro, but with the same goal of colorized passthrough for mixed reality. The only problem was that Meta’s version of passthrough was hardly comparable to Apple’s. My own evaluation is that Meta Quest 3 passthrough is usable but not convincing.
That appears to be changing now. In a Quest software update called v64, Meta says that it has improved passthrough quality for the Meta Quest 3 headset. Here’s a summary from the release notes:
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Meta had confirmed earlier this year that it would let users choose to see less politics-related content on Instagram and Threads. Now the company has confirmed that this option is finally being rolled out to users on both platforms. Read on as we detail how the feature works and where to find the new toggle.
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We’ve known for a while that Threads is joining the fediverse, and parent company Meta has now provided a preview of how things will work.
The concept of the fediverse is to network together individual social media platforms, such that you can post once on one of them, and then share your post on other services …
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Shortly after Vision Pro was released last month, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg took to Threads to offer his “review” of the product. At the time, Zuckerberg concluded that not only is the Meta Quest 3 a better value than Vision Pro, it’s also the better product.
In a new series of posts on Threads this, Zuckerberg offered some additional critique of Apple Vision Pro.
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Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has argued that for age-restricted apps, age verification should be Apple’s job. He’s now been joined in this view by the new head of trust and safety at Match, the company behind leading dating apps like Tinder, Hinge, OkCupid, and Plenty of Fish.
Yoel Roth – who formerly had the same role in Twitter – said that Apple and Google are in a better position to accurately assess the age of their smartphone users …
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Yesterday’s global meta outage seemingly took out the company’s entire network, with users unable to access Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, Threads, and Quest headsets.
The outage lasted between one and two hours for most users, and while everything now appears back to normal, questions are naturally being asked about what went wrong …
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Update: Services were restored after an outage of 1-2 hours for most people. The most likely explanation appears to be a mistake within Meta, similar to that in 2021.
Did you just get randomly signed out of Facebook? It’s not just you. The platform is facing an outage that has logged out users. The outage will cause your password to be rejected, but your password isn’t wrong.
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Apple and Meta won’t just be competing with their VR headsets – they are also likely to be gearing up for a later battle between Apple Glasses and Meta Glasses.
While both devices are believed to be years from launch, a new report today says that we’ll get a sneak peek at Meta Glasses later this year …
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Two separate reports today accuse Instagram and Facebook parent company Meta of ignoring reports of parents sexually exploiting their own children for financial gain using paid subscription tools …
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Apple’s new app store terms have come under fire for what many are describing as ‘malicious compliance’ with the EU’s Digital Markets Act – that is, technically complying with the antitrust law while completely negating its intent.
A new report says that both Meta and Microsoft have now lobbied the EU, asking it to reject Apple’s new terms as “onerous” and “prohibitive” …
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Earlier this week, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg shared a 3-minute video on Instagram in which he “reviewed” the Apple Vision Pro. Ultimately, he concluded that the $500 Meta Quest 3 is not only the better value than the $3,500 Apple Vision Pro, but also the better product.
In a new interview on the Morning Brew Daily podcast today, Zuckerberg explained his reasoning for posting this video and shared some of his thoughts on “Apple fanboys.”
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Scientific tests of Vision Pro latency show that Apple’s spatial computer lives up to Apple’s claims of superiority over rival headsets – but only in the first of two metrics.
This means that the passthrough feature, which lets you see the real world around you, is better than any of its rivals in one way, but is very slightly (and imperceptibly) worse than Meta in another …
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New York City is suing Meta, Google, Snap, and TikTok for allegedly harming children’s mental health. The state of New York has previously accused social media companies of deliberately seeking to get teens addicted to their apps …
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Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s AI announcement has raised major concerns, after he said that the company had more user data than was used to train ChatGPT – and would soon be using it to train its own AI systems.
The company’s plan to use Facebook and Instagram posts and comments to train a competing chatbot raises concerns about both privacy and toxicity …
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Many developers and tech companies didn’t react well to the changes proposed by Apple last month to comply with the European Union’s Digital Markets Act (DMA) antitrust legislation, and Mark Zuckerberg is on that team. The Meta CEO said on Thursday that he doubts developers will opt in to the new “onerous” terms set by Apple in the EU.
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The Senate hearing on social media saw Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg apologise to families who hold social media responsible for children who harmed themselves, including some who took their own lives.
It also saw some bizarre racism by one senator who apparently can’t tell the difference between Singapore and China …
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Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has doubled down on his view that app age verification should be the responsibility of Apple and Google, and not social media companies.
His remarks form part of prepared testimony to Congress, as he and other social media CEOs come under fire for failing to do enough to protect their teenage app users …
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The timing of Meta’s announcement of new teen safety measures earlier this week likely wasn’t coincidental: Mark Zuckerberg and other social media CEOs are set to testify to Congress on the topic.
Facebook’s founder will be joined by the chief execs of TikTok, Snap, Discord and X as Congress seeks to determine whether the companies are doing enough to protect teens from harm …
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Meta is beefing up protections against grooming of teens on Instagram and Facebook by further limiting who is able to send them direct messages.
The latest measure builds on a previous Instagram protection, based on who teenagers follow in the app …
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Meta has announced a radical new move to comply with European antitrust requirements taking effect in March. The company will let you unlink your Instagram, Facebook, and Messenger accounts – as well as those for Facebook Marketplace and Facebook Gaming.
This means you’ll have the option of setting each up as a completely separate account, with no shared data between them …
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Instagram and Facebook collect your data from thousands of companies, according to an experiment carried out by Consumer Reports.
Separately, the company is the largest reporter of potential child sexual abuse materials (CSAM), but there is a legal problem with the way many of these reports are submitted …
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Meta has announced that teen Instagram and Facebook accounts will in future block a wide range of harmful content, including posts about self-harm, graphic violence, and eating disorders. The move is being made in response to lawsuits by the majority of US states …
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Smart glasses aren’t a new thing, in fact, they’ve been around for a long time. But over the years, companies have been working on improving them, or at least trying to make them mainstream. Meta is one of the companies trying to do this, and I decided to give the Ray-Ban Meta glasses a try to see if there’s any point in having smart glasses.
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