Paula Parisi

Meta Platforms has acquired AI wearables firm Limitless, a five-year-old startup based in Denver. Limitless' key product is an AI-powered pendant that records audio and generates summaries. “We're excited that Limitless will be joining Meta to help accelerate our work to build AI-enabled wearables,” Meta said via a statement. Meta has had success in the wearables space with its Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses, which feature a Meta AI digital assistant. Meta's further push into AI devices that consumers can use casually in everyday situations comes as the company reportedly considers downsizing its metaverse investments.

Meta Platforms is bringing breaking news and a broader range of real-time entertainment and lifestyle content to its social platforms, apps and devices via the Meta AI chatbot. The company has partnered with news outlets including CNN, Fox News, People Inc. and USA Today to power the expanded global content offerings. “When you ask Meta AI news-related questions, you'll now receive information and links that draw from more diverse content sources to help you discover timely and relevant content tailored to your interests,” Meta explains, noting that the integrations will link to the original sourcing.

Letterboxd, the online social cataloging movie service that publicly launched in 2013, is about to become more than a fan board. The operation, said to have more than 24 million worldwide members, has launched The Letterboxd Video Store for online movie rentals. Available in 23 countries, the new service focuses on rare and unusual films, curating them on “shelves.” One shelf, Unreleased Gems, features “discoveries that select audiences have been raving about, but most of us haven't had the opportunity to watch until now,” the company says. The Gems are available exclusively from the Letterboxd Video Store in designated countries.

Google plans to debut its first AI-powered eyewear in 2026, challenging Meta Platforms in the consumer market for AI smart glasses. Google's inaugural AI glasses will come in two styles. The audio-only model features built-in speakers, microphones and cameras “to let you chat naturally with Gemini, take photos and get help.” Another style features an in-lens display and can show things like navigation. As previously announced, Google is working with partners Samsung, Xreal, Gentle Monster and Warby Parker to create “stylish, lightweight” smart glasses that can be comfortably worn all day.

Nielsen Marketing Cloud's Audience Segments targeting tool is now available across the Amazon Ads marketplace, allowing advertisers to deliver ads across multiple platforms and in different formats while measuring performance throughout the vast Amazon ecosystem. NMC's Audience Segments data sets provide more than 20,000 custom and syndicated segments in categories ranging from auto, finance and CPG — now targetable to audiences on Amazon platforms including Prime Video, Twitch, Fire TV, Freevee and Amazon.com. The segments are available through the Amazon DSP and Amazon Marketing Cloud data clean room.

Roughly 20 percent of U.S. teens surveyed say they were on TikTok and YouTube “almost constantly” in 2025, with YouTube distinguishing itself for use “by nearly all teens,” according to a new Pew Research study. Ninety percent of teens surveyed say they've used YouTube, followed by TikTok and Instagram, with at least 60 percent claiming usage, with Snapchat landing at about 55 percent. Chatbot use is at about 64 percent among respondents, with about 30 percent of teens saying they use companionable AI answer engines daily, led by OpenAI's ChatGPT (59 percent).

Amazon and Microsoft are plowing billions of dollars of AI funding into India, with the e-retail giant pledging to spend $35 billion there by 2030, and Microsoft earmarking $17.5 billion over four years to develop the AI frontier and integrate the technology “at population scale.” The funds are expected to encourage AI-powered digitization, cloud growth, increased exports and new job creation — all national priorities for the South Asian territory. Amazon has already invested nearly $40 billion in India, which is emerging as a global AI and cloud hub. The new investment is Microsoft's biggest yet in Asia and follows a $3 billion India commitment announced earlier this year.

The non-profit Linux Foundation has formed the Agentic AI Foundation (AAIF) with the support of three leading tech firms supporting inaugural projects to advance innovation in open source AI: Anthropic's Model Context Protocol (MCP), Block's goose, and OpenAI's AGENTS.md. “The advent of agentic AI represents a new era of autonomous decision making and coordination across AI systems that will transform and revolutionize entire industries,” the Linux Foundation says, emphasizing the AAIF as “a neutral, open foundation to ensure this critical capability evolves transparently, collaboratively” that supports open source.

FixBot is a new AI app from iFixit that can figure out what's wrong with broken devices and guide you through the repair using hands-free instruction, visual analysis, and instant access to the world's repair knowledge. Available from the App Store and Google Play, the FixBot is optimized for mobile. Free on launch, the company is developing an alternate Enthusiast tier that will cost $4.99 per month or $50 per year and include perks like voice and document upload. FixBot is iFixit's second attempt at a repair app, following an attempt that ran from 2011 to 2015. Since it went dark, the company's community kept asking for a more mobile-friendly redux.

In addition to the free streaming video content that has helped propel YouTube to more than 225 monthly unpaid U.S. users, the Google platform has become a major player in the television market, offering cable-like channel bundles for a monthly fee. Now, it is expanding those offerings with more than 10 genre-specific packages coming in early 2026. The first unveiling from the new skinny bundles is the YouTube TV Sports Plan, with access to the major broadcasters, sports networks including FS1 and NBC Sports Network, as well as all ESPN networks and ESPN Unlimited.