For those who may be too busy to look through their smartphone’s camera rolls, Meta Platforms has debuted a new Facebook feature that will parse collections for you, then recommend “fun” edits and collages to make the content more shareable. The feature could also offer ideas such as recaps and birthday themes. Available to users in the U.S. and Canada, to leverage this new AI-powered feature, one must opt-in, and it can be turned off at any time. Once a suggestion is reviewed, the user can then determine whether they want to share it and with whom. Then it’s just a one-click share through Facebook or Messenger. Continue reading Meta AI Wants to Parse Your Camera Roll to Suggest Styling

Snapchat is developing a virtual 3D world where users can adopt Bitmoji avatars and socialize in an immerse digital environment. Called “Bitmoji Plaza,” the digital town center will live in the web version of the Snapchat app. The move shows Snap Inc. expanding its horizons and potentially setting up for other virtual worlds in preparation for the 2026 release of the company’s consumer AR glasses. While a Bitmoji world is an elementary transition to the metaverse, Snap is also expanding the use of Bitmoji stickers with a new app that lets Android and iOS users add them to messages. Continue reading Bitmoji Plaza: Snapchat Is Launching Virtual World on the Web

YouTube is introducing YouTube Labs, an experimental hub where users can test the company’s latest artificial intelligence tools and prototypes, starting with AI hosts for YouTube Music. “As you listen to radio and mixes, AI hosts will chime in with relevant stories and insights,” YouTube explains. A brand-specific version of its parent company’s Google Labs, YouTube Labs is positioned as the place “to discover the next generation of YouTube,” and the streaming video giant says that like its predecessor, “feedback and interactions may be used to improve Google products and services.” Continue reading YouTube Labs Invites Users to Test Experimental AI Features

Instagram has hit 3 billion monthly users, parent Meta Platforms announced this week, an increase of one billion since the company last disclosed figures in October 2022. Meta’s other social platforms, Facebook and WhatsApp, both crossed the 3 billion mark earlier this year. The milestone coincides with a redesign of the Instagram app’s homepage putting more emphasis on Reels short-form videos and private messaging that have largely driven the platform’s growth. Meta has begun testing a version of the app in India that opens directly into Reels instead of a traditional feed. Continue reading Instagram Touts 3 Billion Global Users, Redesigns Homepage

Amazon has introduced Lens Live, an AI-powered update to the Amazon Lens shopping tool. The app, which works in concert with Amazon’s Rufus shopping assistant, uses smartphone cameras much like Google Lens does with visual search. Pinterest Lens is another such app. But the purpose-built Rufus ties it even more closely to the shopping experience with instant scanning, real-time product matches and insights from Rufus. Lens Live is already available to tens of millions of U.S. users on iOS in the Amazon Shopping app with plans to roll out to all U.S. customers in the coming months. Continue reading Amazon’s Lens Live Brings Real-Time AI Shopping to Mobile

TikTok has released a host of new features, including a Community Notes-style fact-checking tool called Footnotes. Enhanced parental controls bring the ability to block specific accounts to guardians who are linked to minors’ accounts using the Family Pairing feature. Parents also now receive notifications when minors with whom they are paired upload new videos, stories or photos. Creator enhancements include a new TikTok Live comment tool that can block words from comment threads entirely. Those who use a specific phrase or have used it in the past are muted for a period stipulated by the creator. Continue reading TikTok Tightens Parental Control, Adds Community Footnotes

Google has added new AI features to Google Photos and YouTube Shorts. Having previously introduced generative backgrounds, YouTube Shorts now has a photo-to-video feature, as well as a variety of menu-driven effects accessible via the Shorts camera that aim to advance social media or arts project creativity — things like turning line drawings into watercolors, putting a selfie “underwater” or adding a digital twin. And Google Photos, available on just about every Android phone, now also has the ability to turn stills to video. For now, both rely on the Veo 2 video model rather than Veo 3, launched in May. Continue reading Google Photos, YouTube Shorts Offer New AI Creation Tools

Google has added photo-to-video capability to its Gemini AI app. Powered by Veo 3, Google’s latest generative video model, launched in May, Gemini AI can now turn images into 8-second videos complete with AI-generated sound including speech, environmental sounds and background noises. Available now via the Web to anyone with a $20 per month Google AI Pro subscription or those on the $125 per quarter Google AI Ultra plan, the new feature is also being released to mobile users this month for both iOS and Android devices. The videos are finished as 720p resolution MP4 files in 16:9 landscape format. Continue reading Google Offers Gemini AI Subscribers Photo-to-Video Function

Google Labs is testing Doppl, an experimental app that uses AI to let you virtually try on clothes. Available on iOS and Android in the U.S., Doppl requires the user to upload a full body photo to which images of outfits can then be applied. It will work with various types of outfit photos, from pictures taken with a smartphone to screen grabs from shopping sites or social media. Doppl can also create AI-generated videos from a static image to give an idea of what the outfit would look like from different angles when worn. While Google hopes Doppl “helps you explore your style in new and exciting ways,” it cautions that the app “is in its early days and it might not always get things right.” Continue reading Google Doppl Lets You Try on Outfits Using Generative Video

Creative Commons, the non-profit that pioneered sharing content through permissive licensing, is launching CC Signals, a framework to signal permissions for content use by machines in the age of artificial intelligence. “They are both a technical and legal tool and a social proposition: a call for a new pact between those who share data and those who use it to train AI models,” says Creative Commons CEO Anna Tumadóttir, noting the signals are “based on a set of limited but meaningful options shaped in the public interest.” The framework is designed to bridge the openness of the Internet with AI’s insatiable demand for training data, according to Creative Commons. Continue reading Creative Commons Introduces New Licensing Platform for AI

Adobe has released a camera app called Project Indigo that makes smartphone cameras more “SLR-like,” with “full manual controls, a more natural look and the highest image quality that computational photography can provide — in both JPEG and raw formats.” The Project Indigo app is available free, for now, on iOS from Adobe Labs, which quietly announced the product on its research website. The app aims to leverage a decade’s worth of advances in computational photography to help mobile photographers improve low-light and high dynamic range (HDR) image capture. Continue reading Adobe Project Indigo iOS App Improves Smartphone Photos

Meta Platforms is opening its WhatsApp messaging service to advertising. The company revealed that three ad modules will roll out gradually. The ads will be positioned under WhatsApp’s Updates tab, a section discreet from WhatsApp’s users’ message inboxes and private chats. The Updates tab is also the entry point to WhatsApp’s Status feature, which lets users share photos, videos and text that disappear after 24 hours, similar to Instagram Stories. Meta says the Updates tab gets 1.5 billion visitors per day. The company is also seeking to monetize WhatsApp’s Channels feature by offering paid subscriptions and promoted Channels. Continue reading Meta Platforms Is Gradually Bringing Advertising to WhatsApp

During WWDC at Apple Park in California this week, the company unveiled visionOS 26 updates for its mixed reality Vision Pro headset that will up the ante for both consumer and enterprise users, with new spatial widgets and more realistic avatar Personas among the noteworthy updates. The customizable widgets will appear to blend into a headset wearer’s physical environment, “integrating seamlessly into a user’s space” and reappearing exactly where the user left them each time the Apple Vision Pro is activated. A great deal of effort has gone into improved iPhone integration, including the ability to initiate calls directly from the headset. Continue reading Apple visionOS 2026 Features Spatial Widgets, Better Avatars

Snapchat is offering experimental augmented reality and generative AI tools through its new Lens Studio iOS app and web tool. According to the company, “you can generate your own AI effects, add your dancing Bitmoji to the fun, and express yourself with Lenses that reflect your mood or an inside joke.” The app responds to text prompts, producing filters that can be published to Snapchat. Snap previously offered generative AI capabilities only to professional creators as part of its Lens Studio. The company has also launched an app that lets users read and reply to messages using their Apple Watch. For professional developers, Snap’s Lens Studio has added tools to build Bitmoji games. Continue reading GenAI Powers Snapchat Tools for Creating AR Lenses, Bitmoji

Chatbot platform Character.AI is rolling out its video generator, AvatarFX, in general release after a month in closed beta. It’s also adding a sharing feature called Scenes and Streams that will serve content to Character.AI’s community feed, coming soon to mobile. Users can now tap AvatarFX to create up to five videos per day, starting by uploading a photo, choosing a voice and writing dialogue for the character. Character.AI started as 1:1 text chat in the summer of 2023. Now the company is “expanding into a multi-modal world” with “more ways for creators to build immersive narratives and dynamic experiences.” Continue reading Character.AI Goes Wide with AvatarFX, Adds Mobile Features