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Meta Previews Its Vibes AI Video Generator for Social Sharing

Meta Platforms is rolling out Vibes, a short-form AI video generator now in early preview. Using Meta AI, Vibes allows the visually adventurous to create videos from their own ideas or remix existing ones by adding music or changing the style to make it your own. Vibes has its own feed featuring “a range of AI-generated videos from creators and communities.” As you use it, “the feed will become more personalized over time,” according to Meta. Vibes videos can also be cross-posted to Instagram and Facebook Stories and Reels or shared with friends via DM. Vibes is available on the Meta AI app and the Web at Meta.ai. Read more

Anthropic Claude Sonnet 4.5 Good at Coding and Collegiality

Anthropic has released its latest frontier AI model, Claude Sonnet 4.5, built for high-performance coding and building complex agents. Anthropic claims it is “the best coding model in the world” and “the best model at using computers,” with substantial gains in reasoning and math. Claude Sonnet 4.5 is distinctive in that it can build “production-ready” applications and is not limited to prototypes, Anthropic says, describing it as a major gain over previous models. The new model also excels in research as well as enterprise basics like cybersecurity and finance, per Anthropic. Read more

Amazon Emphasizes Design & Intelligence at Hardware Event

Amazon has revamped its flagship hardware, updating design and adding new intelligence. Four new Echo devices have been updated with new Omnisense intelligence and the next-generation Alexa+, the latter also now in Ring cameras. The company also unveiled three thinner and lighter Kindle Scribe tablets, including the Colorsoft, the first with a color screen. The sleeker form factors prompted Bloomberg to suggest Amazon plans “to take on Apple in the AI era.” One plain-looking device that got a lot of attention was the $40 Fire TV Stick 4K Select that Amazon calls the fastest streaming dongle on the market. Read more

Fubo Shareholder Approval Propels Merger with Hulu + Live TV

Shareholders for FuboTV Inc. (formerly the FaceBank Group) have approved a plan for The Walt Disney Company to acquire the sports-centric Fubo live streaming service to merge with its Hulu + Live TV business. The combined entity would be second in size only to YouTube TV among OTT TV providers and will operate under the Fubo name, with the Fubo team running the company and Disney owning a roughly 70 percent stake. Earlier this year, Fubo executives told investors that together Hulu and Fubo are expected to generate more than $6 billion in annual revenue. Read more

OpenAI Sora 2 Vid Generator Has Sound and Social Features

Sora 2 is here, “marking a giant leap forward in realism,” claims OpenAI. And it includes sound and dialogue generation, catching up to Google’s Veo 3. Coming nearly two years after Sora was first introduced, the new model is being released in conjunction with a free iOS social app with a vertical feed and “swipe-and-scroll” functionality like TikTok, YouTube Shorts and Instagram Reels. Available in the U.S. and Canada, the fee version — which currently requires an invitation — is also available at sora.com. ChatGPT Pro subscribers can access an experimental, higher quality Sora 2 Pro model online only. Read more

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