Don’t hold your breath, VR fans.
Meta is developing new mixed reality glasses under the codename Phoenix, according to Business Insider — but their release date has been pushed back from the second half of 2026 to the first half of 2027.
The Facebook parent company already sells VR headsets and Ray-Ban smart glasses, but these glasses sound a bit different; their format factor would reportedly be similar to the Apple Vision Pro, with a puck-like power source.
BI says it’s seen memos from Meta executives announcing the delay, apparently after meetings in which CEO Mark Zuckerberg told them to take more time to make the business sustainable and deliver higher quality experiences.
The company’s metaverse leaders Gabriel Aul and Ryan Cairns reportedly wrote that the delay is “going to give us a lot more breathing room to get the details right.”
Bloomberg reported earlier this week that Meta plans to slash its metaverse budget by up to 30%.
Keep reading the article on Tech Crunch
Limitless, the AI startup formerly known as Rewind, has been acquired by Meta, the company announced Friday on its website. The company, which made an AI-powered pendant to record your conversations, says it will no longer sell its hardware devices and will maintain support for its existing customers for a year.
Customers will no longer have to pay a subscription fee and will be moved to the Unlimited Plan for the time being. Other functionality will be wound down, including its non-pendant software “Rewind,” which recorded users’ desktop activity and turned it into a searchable record.
The startup, founded by Brett Bejcek and Dan Siroker, the co-founder and former chief executive of Optimizely, pivoted to become an AI device maker last year, offering its Limitless pendant for $99. The wearable could attach to your shirt like a wireless mic or be worn like a necklace. The device is one of several AI hardware devices on the market, including another (not very well-received) AI pendant known as Friend.
According to Limitless’ announcement, the company shares in Meta’s vision to “bring personal superintelligence to everyone,” which includes building AI-enabled wearables. (Meta is focused for now on AR/AI glasses, like its Ray-Ban Meta and Oakley Meta, and its in-lens AI glasses, the Meta Ray-Ban Display.) Limitless said it will help bring that vision to life — which likely means supporting Meta’s existing products, not helping Meta add an AI pendant to its lineup.
The company hinted that the increased competition in the market made it difficult for it to compete, especially as the larger players like OpenAI and Meta are developing their own hardware devices, too.
“When we started Limitless five years ago, the world was very different,” wrote Siroker in the announcement. “AI was a pipe dream to many. Hardware startups were considered unfundable, and a business that did both AI and hardware would have been considered ludicrous. But today is different. The world has changed. We’re no longer working on a weird fringe idea. We’re building a future that now seems inevitable. We’re not alone.”
Meta shared the following statement with TechCrunch via email: “We’re excited that Limitless will be joining Meta to help accelerate our work to build AI-enabled wearables.” The tech giant didn’t share further information about its plans, beyond noting that the team will work in the wearables organization of Reality Labs.
Techcrunch event
San Francisco
|
October 13-15, 2026
Limitless will offer its customers a way to export their data, the company said, or users can choose to delete their data from within the app.
The startup had raised more than $33 million in funding from investors, including a16z, First Round Capital, and NEA.
Updated after publication with Meta’s comment.
Keep reading the article on Tech Crunch
Meta has signed commercial AI data agreements with news publishers to offer real-time global, entertainment, and breaking news on Meta AI, its AI chatbot. Now, when users ask Meta AI news-related questions, it will surface information and links that draw from different content sources to help users discover timely and relevant content, the company announced on Friday.
These responses will also include links to articles, so users can visit publishers’ websites to learn more. The company says this will allow its partners to reach new audiences.
Meta is partnering with CNN, Fox News, Fox Sports, Le Monde Group, the People Inc. portfolio of media brands, The Daily Caller, The Washington Examiner, and USA Today.
The company plans to add new partnerships in the future.
The move comes as Meta shifted away from making its platforms hubs for news. For example, it killed Facebook’s “News” tab in 2024. Additionally, Meta stopped compensating news publishers in 2022, but is now doing so to help supercharge its AI chatbot with real-time access to news.
“We’re committed to making Meta AI more responsive, accurate, and balanced,” Meta wrote in a blog post. “Real-time events can be challenging for current AI systems to keep up with, but by integrating more and different types of news sources, our aim is to improve Meta AI’s ability to deliver timely and relevant content and information with a wide variety of viewpoints and content types.”
The company is looking to attract more users to its AI chatbot as it faces increasing competition from rivals. Meta is also looking to stay relevant in the AI race after the controversial release of Llama 4, which was met with complaints of poor performance earlier this year.
Techcrunch event
San Francisco
|
October 13-15, 2026
Meta AI is available in over 200 countries and can be accessed through the company’s apps, including Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger, as well as through the standalone Meta AI app.
Keep reading the article on Tech Crunch