Meta Platforms, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, has reportedly secured voice deals with several high-profile celebrities, including John Cena, Judi Dench, Kristen Bell, Awkwafina, and Keegan-Michael Key, according to a recent report by Reuters. As per the report, a source familiar with the matter shared that the voices will be used in Meta’s AI-powered chatbot, providing users with the option to select from a list of five celebrity voices.

Meta’s annual Connect developers conference is set to take place from September 25 to 26, 2024, and is expected to unveil the tech giant's developments in virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), and artificial intelligence (AI). This year, eyes are on Meta’s hardware releases, alongside potential updates to their AI capabilities. Here’s what to look out for at the event.

The firms along with several researchers and industry bodies signed an open letter claiming that Europe was already becoming less competitive and risked falling further behind in the age of AI.

Meta Platforms is set to resume training its artificial intelligence (AI) models using public content shared by adult users on Facebook and Instagram in the UK, according to a recent blog post by the company.

OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, said that usage of its iconic chatbot had more than doubled since November to 200 million active monthly users

Meta is facing a fine of up to $3.62 million after losing a lawsuit filed by the Brazilian department store chain Havan. The retailer accused the social media giant of permitting paid advertisements that falsely used Havan's name to deceive consumers.

Meta has dropped its plans for a premium mixed-reality device intended to compete directly with Apple's Vision Pro, according to a recent report by The Information.

Rafal Brzoska, a Polish billionaire and CEO of the Polish logistics services company InPost, and his wife, Omenaa Mensah, want to sue Meta over fake advertisements and misinformation featuring Brzoska's face on Facebook and Instagram.

After nine days, Turkey has restored nationwide access to the popular social media platform Instagram. In an official statement, the Turkish government has stated that Meta, the parent company of Instagram, has agreed to cooperate with authorities regarding concerns surrounding the platform's role in filtering certain political and crime-related content.

A recent report by the Financial Times has revealed that Meta and Google covertly collaborated on a campaign that targeted Instagram ads at 13 to 17-year-olds on YouTube, breaking Google’s own rules against advertising to minors.

Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta Platforms and the founder of Facebook, has recently released an open letter titled "Open source AI is the path forward". In it, he publicly endorsed the use of open-source AI tech, indicating how tech companies could flourish if restrictions regarding AI were lifted by competitors.

This is not the first time that government propaganda efforts have been exposed by Meta/Facebook.

Meta, the company behind Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram, has recently announced that it will lift its blanket ban on the word "shaheed". The word, which stands for "martyr" in English, went through a year-long review by Meta's oversight board. It was recently decided that banning the word was an "overboard" approach.

Meta Platforms, the company behind Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram, was recently charged by EU antitrust regulators for the company's newly introduced 'pay or consent advertising model', which goes against EU tech rules' user privacy concerns.

Facebook's parent company Meta Platforms has talked about incorporating its generative AI model into Apple's newly revealed AI system for iPhones, reveals a report from The Wall Street Journal on Sunday. These discussions are reportedly in preliminary stages and could still be abandoned.

The rise in sales and profit continued Meta's rebound of 2023, which came thanks to drastic cost-cutting, including massive layoffs

The move will allow partner companies to build their headsets using Meta Horizon OS, a rebranded operating system that brings capabilities like gesture recognition, passthrough, scene understanding and spatial anchors to the devices that run on it, the company said in a blog post.

Zunaid Ahmed Palak, the Minister of State for Posts, Telecommunications, and Information Technology of Bangladesh, recently visited the Meta office in Singapore. The visit, shared by Palak on his official Facebook page, included a discussion on artificial intelligence (AI) policy between Meta and Bangladesh.

Meta’s Messenger has recently launched a high-definition (HD) photo sharing option on the platform. While Messenger is known for decreasing photo quality, with the recent update, clear high-definition (HD) photos can be sent in chats.

Meta, the parent company of Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram, is planning to add a new AI-powered search feature on Instagram, according to a report by the global tech news platform TechCrunch. With this feature, users can initiate conversations with an AI chatbot and enter unique search queries to find photos and reels.