Tag: META

WhatsApp’s new feature will let Meta AI edit your photos for you

Posted on by faz_business


WhatsApp logo on smartphone next to everyday accessories Stock photo 1

TL;DR

  • WhatsApp beta version 2.24.14.20 has a new feature that allows users to share photos with Meta AI.
  • The AI chatbot will analyze uploaded images and provide information or context about the content.
  • Users may be able to request specific edits to their photos directly through Meta AI, though the extent of this feature is still unknown.

As the battle for AI dominance heats up, Meta is adding a new trick to its AI chatbot, Meta AI, which is already part of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. While Meta AI already has impressive text capabilities, such as replying to questions, suggesting captions, and holding conversations, users cannot currently share or upload photos to the Meta AI chat.

WaBetaInfo has uncovered the exciting new feature in the WhatsApp beta for Android version 2.24.14.20. This feature will allow Meta AI to interact with photos shared by users, reply to photos, and even edit them.

Meta AI image editing on WhatsApp beta feature screenshot

As shown in the attached screenshot, WhatsApp is testing a new camera button in the Meta AI chat, designed to function similarly to the camera button in regular chats. This addition will allow users to manually share photos with Meta AI, a capability that is currently unavailable.

With this new functionality, users will be able to ask questions about their photos, presumably allowing users to ask the AI to identify objects or locations or provide context about the photo’s content. Moreover, the screenshot suggests that Meta AI will also offer the option to edit photos, enabling users to make changes to their images directly within the chat by sharing a prompt.

The exact scope of this image editing feature remains unclear, leaving us to wonder if it will be limited to simple tweaks or if it will unleash a powerful AI-driven photo editing suite. The possibilities are both exciting and intriguing, and this feature could definitely be a big hit, especially if it performs as promised.

While this new image-sharing feature would mean Meta will analyze and face-scan the photos you upload, the screenshot includes a disclaimer indicating that users will have the option to delete their photos whenever they want.

As of now, it seems that the feature is still in development, so it might be some time before we finally get to see it roll out publicly. Recently, we also reported about WhatsApp working on an “Imagine Me” feature that would allow Meta AI to generate AI avatars of you based on a set of your photos.

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Apple reportedly even held talks with Meta about an AI partnership as it plays catch-up

Posted on by faz_business


Apple is apparently looking to take all the help it can get to integrate generative AI into its . According to a report by the , citing sources with knowledge of the discussions, Apple has held talks with Meta about the possibility of using the company’s generative AI model. It also reportedly had similar discussions with startups Anthropic and Perplexity. As of now, though, nothing has been finalized, WSJ reports.

At WWDC earlier this month, Apple officially announced its much-rumored partnership with OpenAI that will with the upcoming generation of the devices’ OS. During the event, Apple’s senior VP of software engineering, Craig Federighi, also as something that could be added to Apple Intelligence in the future. “We want to enable users ultimately to choose the models they want,” Federighi said. It would make sense, then, for Apple to be shopping around.

But for the time being, only OpenAI has been confirmed as a partner. OpenAI’s GPT-4o will be integrated into Apple Intelligence to bolster Siri and other tools, with some features expected to arrive later this year.

Threads search will finally be usable with ‘recent’ tab rollout

Posted on by faz_business


Threads is inching closer to becoming an actually useful source for real-time news and updates. The app is finally rolling out the ability to search posts in order of recency, after the feature last month.

“In an effort to make it easier to find timely, relevant content on Threads, we’re introducing a Recent tab for your searches,” Instagram’s Adam Mosseri wrote in . “Search results here are still evaluated for quality, but you can now see them in chronological order.”

The change has been a long requested one from users hoping Meta’s app will one day be a source of breaking news and real-time information the way that Twitter historically functioned. Being able to search for topics and keywords and find the most recent results is key to finding up-to-date details and commentary about breaking news, sports and anything else happening in real time.

On the other hand, Meta has also made it clear that it would prefer “news” to not be what Threads is known for. Mosseri has said he doesn’t want to “encourage” hard news on Threads and the company actively political content. Threads’ default “for you” algorithm is also known for surfacing days-old posts, random personal stories and other content that’s not exactly timely.

It’s also worth pointing out that Threads’ new recency filter in search is not the same as the “latest” search filter on X. As Mosseri noted in his post, Meta still hides an unknown number of posts in search results that have been “evaluated for quality,” so Threads search will never surface all of the posts containing your search terms. But being able to at least find posts that aren’t a few days old should make looking for timely information a lot less frustrating.

Instagram, WhatsApp, and Facebook Suffer Service Disruptions Reported Worldwide

Posted on by faz_business


File photo of a woman checking her phone during an Instagram outage in 2021.

File photo of a woman checking her phone during an Instagram outage in 2021.
Photo: Ed Jones (Getty Images)

Meta platforms Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram are experiencing a global outage with thousands of reports of the app not working properly since roughly 2 p.m. ET Wednesday.WhatsApp appears to have gone down first, with Instagram and Facebook following suit about 30 minutes later.

Nobody’s Really Watching Reels

Image and media uploads appear to be struggling the most on the platforms, according to internet monitoring service Netblocks, which also notes there are no indications of “country-level internet disruptions or filtering.”

Social media apps have experienced a number of notable outages in recent months, with LinkedIn struggling last month just days after Facebook and Instagram went down for hours.

It appears that some users on WhatsApp are still able to send messages right now, but those messages aren’t being delivered, according to the Verge.

Some X users celebrated as news of Meta’s platforms struggling spread on Wednesday afternoon.

Meta didn’t immediately respond to questions emailed on Wednesday, but the official X account for WhatsApp tweeted, “We know some people are experiencing issues right now, we’re working on getting things back to 100% for everyone as quickly as possible.” Gizmodo will update this post if we hear back.