Meta

As the wearable technology market continues to grow, messaging apps are adapting to this shift by expanding their reach beyond traditional platforms. This move reflects broader industry trends, where companies like Meta, the owner of WhatsApp, are investing in developing companion apps for popular wearables like the Apple Watch. The latest development in this space is WhatsApp’s launch of an Apple Watch companion app, which allows users to receive call notifications, read full messages, and even record and send voice messages directly from their wrist. ...

The collaboration between Meta and Hugging Face has led to the introduction of OpenEnv, a groundbreaking open-source initiative aimed at standardizing the creation and sharing of environments for AI agents. This move reflects broader industry trends towards more secure, scalable, and transparent AI development. By providing a unified framework for building and deploying “agentic environments,” OpenEnv addresses a critical need in the AI ecosystem. At the heart of OpenEnv lies the OpenEnv Hub, a collaborative platform designed to facilitate the development, testing, and deployment of secure sandboxes for AI agents. These sandboxes, or “agentic environments,” define the precise tools, APIs, and conditions required for an agent to perform a task safely and consistently. By limiting the scope of models to only the necessary tools and APIs, OpenEnv minimizes risk and ambiguity, ensuring that AI agents operate within well-defined boundaries. ...

As the messaging landscape continues to evolve, security remains a top priority for users and developers alike. This move reflects broader industry trends towards enhanced data protection, with Meta being at the forefront. Recently, WhatsApp announced a significant update to its backup system, introducing passkey support for end-to-end encrypted backups. This development is particularly noteworthy, given WhatsApp’s massive user base of over 3 billion active users, as reported in May. ...

As the battle for short-form video supremacy continues, Instagram has taken a significant step forward with the introduction of its Watch History feature for Reels. This move reflects broader industry trends towards enhancing user experience and personalization. With Watch History, users can now easily revisit previously watched Reels, eliminating the frustration of trying to recall a particular video. According to Instagram head Adam Mosseri, “Have you ever tried to get back to a reel that you’d seen on Instagram and you just can’t find it?” The new feature, accessible through the ‘Profile’ and ‘Settings’ menus under ‘Your Activity,’ allows users to browse their watch history, sorted by date, the past week or month, or a specific date range. Additionally, users can remove Reels from their watch history if desired. ...

As the digital landscape continues to evolve, tech giants are constantly reassessing their partnerships and product offerings. OpenAI’s decision to end ChatGPT’s availability on WhatsApp after January 15, 2026, reflects broader industry trends towards platform consolidation and user experience optimization. This move affects over 50 million users who have grown accustomed to ChatGPT’s conversational AI on WhatsApp. However, OpenAI is committed to ensuring a seamless transition for its users. By downloading the ChatGPT app on iOS, Android, or desktop, users can continue their conversations without interruption. Creating a ChatGPT account and linking it to their WhatsApp profile will also enable users to access their conversation history. ...

As the social media landscape continues to evolve, Meta is pushing the boundaries of creative expression on Instagram. The company’s latest move involves integrating its AI-powered photo and video editing tools directly into Instagram Stories. This development reflects the growing importance of AI-driven content creation and editing capabilities in the social media ecosystem. By introducing text-based prompts in Instagram Stories, Meta is making its AI editing features more accessible to users. The “Restyle” menu, located at the top of Instagram Stories, allows users to enter text prompts to add, remove, or change elements in their photos and videos. For instance, users can ask Meta’s AI to change their hair color, add a crown, or insert a sunset background. This functionality is a significant step forward from the company’s previous AI-powered image editing capabilities, which were limited to interactions with the Meta AI chatbot. ...