❌

Normal view

Meta and Apple team up to make Muse AI models run better on Macs

15 October 2026 at 20:15
The new Muse Spark Open AI model can work on M5 Ultra Mac Studios. | Photo: Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

Meta announced the Muse Spark Open AI model today, claiming that it's the "most capable US open-weight model to date." But the company also says that it's the "the first model in its class" that can "run on your desktop using two Apple M5 Ultra Mac Studios with the latest MLX framework."

Meta and Apple, typically rivals, worked together on the launch and are publicly supporting each other.

"Muse Spark Open - weights releasing today - runs great on new Mac Studios thanks to work with @johnternus and Apple," Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said on X.

"Congrats to the team!" new Apple CEO John Ternus said in a reply. "Amazing to run a model of Muse …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Last chance to save up to $200 on your TechCrunch Founder Summit pass: Early booking ends October 16

15 October 2026 at 20:00
Savings of up to $200 end October 16 for TechCrunch Founder Summit. These savings for Founder and Investor Passes vanish after Friday. Join 1,000 founders and investors on November 4 at Boston’s SoWa Power Station. Bring your toughest questions and make the day count for your business.

Friends don’t let friends feed their data to AI agents

15 October 2026 at 18:21
Muse mascot with red eyes

There's a growing trend in the consumer tech world: gadgets designed to spy on everything and everyone around you, regardless of whether or not anyone else actually consented to it. Now, with the advent of "AI personal assistants" like Meta's Muse, you're being cheerfully asked not just to give up your own data, but also the information of your friends, family, the person you went on a Hinge date with five years ago - and virtually anyone else you've ever come in contact with.

Since Muse was released last month, the agent has already been downloaded millions of times and hit No. 1 on Apple's App Store. With the help of its creepy virtual av …

Read the full story at The Verge.

How Windows is being optimized for Nvidia’s RTX Spark laptops

15 October 2026 at 16:30
Windows logo on black background

Microsoft and Nvidia held a launch party for the first wave of RTX Spark laptops last week in San Francisco, where a new wave of AI PCs took center stage amid a packed crowd and a lively hands-on area. A day after the media event, I was invited to a quieter Nvidia event to hear a lot more about the new RTX Spark computing platform. While Nvidia's new laptops might look like regular Windows machines, the chips inside are Arm-based, instead of the traditional x64 architecture used by AMD and Intel. Combined with a powerful GPU, RTX Spark is designed for the future of AI, and it means a lot of work has gone into getting these laptops ready for …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Amazon’s always-listening Bee wearable can now help you buy stuff

15 October 2026 at 14:00

Last year, Amazon bought Bee, a relatively unknown startup with a $50 always-listening AI wearable that summarized every conversation you had. Today, the e-commerce giant is announcing two new Bee devices - and a new subscription to go with them. First is the $74.99 Bee Frontier, an updated version of the original Bee device. And coming soon is the $99.99 Bee Eclipse, a credit-card-shaped gadget that snaps magnetically onto the back of a smartphone.

Both devices are framed as gadgets to help you stay present in the moment. They listen to your daily conversations and then provide summaries, transcripts, insights, and to-dos based on what ha …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Your secrets aren’t safe with this cute robot toy β€” they’re on Chinese servers ready to be hacked

15 October 2026 at 13:00
Holding an Eiliko robot toy between my thumb and forefinger in front of my workbench.
Eiliko. | Photo by Sean Hollister / The Verge

There's a new digital pet in town - a cute little marshmallow of a robot that can change its cartoony expressions to match your mood. But if you or your kids talk to "Eiliko" over Wi-Fi, it'll phone home to China. Its AI companion can store literally everything you tell it on Chinese servers, where hackers can easily gain access or even hijack its personality. And the company that made it, Energize Lab, doesn't seem to care.

I bought an Eiliko from Amazon on August 29th. During a 10-minute conversation on August 30th, I asked the little bot: "Do you ever tell anybody else what I'm saying?"

"Your secrets are safe with me," it replied.

With …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Amazon’s Bee launches two new personal AI devices, starting at $75

15 October 2026 at 14:00
Amazon-owned Bee has launched its first new AI devices since its acquisition, including an updated wearable and a credit-card-sized recorder that attaches to smartphones. The devices can summarize conversations, create to-do lists, and integrate with Alexa and Amazon shopping, with prices starting at $74.99.

Gudea leverages AI to help organizations prevent social media crises before they erupt

15 October 2026 at 02:00
Gudea, a company that tracks how stories and rumors spread online that describes itself as the β€œstorm tracker for the internet,” is using AI to help organizations spot trouble brewing online before it turns into a crisis.

McKinsey is making job applicants spar with a fake AI client

15 October 2026 at 00:53

Consulting firm McKinsey & Company is going to ask some entry-level candidates to have a 10-minute conversation with an AI simulation of a client as part of the interview process, according to The Wall Street Journal.

The AI simulation "aims to reflect 80% of the scenarios McKinsey consultants might encounter in their day-to-day work," the WSJ says, and it isn't designed to "mimic an unhinged client." The AI won't score the candidates - humans will be in the room to assess the candidates and see how well they deal with the simulated situations.

The McKinsey tool will be in testing for undergrads seeking business-analyst jobs in "some" offi …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Eight states sue OpenAI, saying ChatGPT isn’t safe for kids

14 October 2026 at 23:11
Vector illustration of the ChatGPT logo.

OpenAI is facing a new wave of lawsuits from eight US states that accuse the company of harming children and misleading customers about the safety of ChatGPT, as reported earlier by Reuters. The lawsuits, filed separately by Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, West Virginia, Arkansas, Arizona, Idaho, and Montana, allege OpenAI unlawfully put profits over safety when developing ChatGPT.

The string of complaints claims that OpenAI violated local consumer protection laws by failing to warn customers about the dangers of ChatGPT, citing several lawsuits filed by the family members of teens and adults that allege the AI chatbot played a role in their loved …

Read the full story at The Verge.

❌