in case you thought Instagram influencers couldn’t connect anymore, soon they will have the ability to make AI versions that you can interact with at all times.
The announcement came from the mouth of a chain-clad Mark Zuckerberg, who shared his thoughts on AI and who gets to control technology in an interview with YouTuber Kane Sutter, aka Kallaway. (He also said that Meta has holographic AR glasses coming soon, but we’ll save that for another time.)
The AI chatbots will be made in collaboration with a handful of Instagram creators that Meta has partnered with. Zuckerberg says the feature is in testing and will be rolled out to more Instagram users slowly. It’s still unclear what form these AI chatbots will take, but it looks like the creators Meta is partnering with will build their characters in the company’s AI studio, so they’ll likely function a lot like the characters of AI that Meta debuted last year. .
If all goes according to plan, you’ll soon be able to enter your Instagram direct messages and chat with mock AIs of your favorite influencers. File this one under the “What Could Go Wrong?” folder
Here’s some other consumer tech news from around the web.
2 H2 2 Furious
Extreme E, the off-road racing series that uses only electric vehicles for its high-speed antics, is moving into another gear of power systems for its vehicles.
The new series, called Extreme H, will be a race only for hydrogen-powered cars. The new Pioneer 25, designed specifically for this series, is a fast racing car powered entirely by hydrogen. The Pioneer 25 can reach up to 200 km/h (124 mph), which is very fast for an all-terrain vehicle.
The Pioneer is meant to usher in a new era of greener motorsports, although there’s some debate about how clean hydrogen power actually is.
Hyundai Funday
As for more affordable vehicles, Korean car company Hyundai has a new EV. The Hyundai Inster is a compact urban hatchback with capacity for four people. It has a boxy look, similar to a Scion or Mini Cooper, and has a projected range of up to 355 kilometers (220 miles). The Inster’s battery has a charging time of 4.5 hours for a full charge. It’s definitely not a race car as it tops out at 86 mph.
Official pricing has yet to be revealed, but according to AutoNews, the sticker should be around $26,000. Or the equivalent in foreign currency, anyway; the Inster has not yet been released in the US. The car will land in Korea first, followed by Europe, the Middle East and other countries in Asia.
FCC U
The US Federal Communications Commission is trying to make it easier for phone users to switch networks. A proposal introduced this week by FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel calls for cellphone providers to unlock customers’ phones if they want to use the device on a different network. Many providers lock customers into their networks by pairing their devices with a subscription plan that keeps them on the network managed by a particular carrier. If this guidance becomes a reality, companies would be forced to unlock devices 60 days after activation, meaning you could switch carriers and take your phone with you.
There is no official rule being put in place yet. That proposal comes in the form of a notice of proposed rulemaking, which the FCC prepares to solicit public comment on possible future rulings. The proposal itself isn’t public yet, but it may be after the FCC votes to move it forward during the July 18 open meeting session.
One Vape to Juul them all
Juul had almost total dominance over the nicotine vapor industry. But when US regulators cracked down on suppliers of addictive nicotine dispensers (especially those that were most popular with underage customers), Juul’s reign came to an end. Of course, that doesn’t mean the demand for vaping is close to disappearing. Many illegal operations have moved in to fill this void, and it’s relatively easy to find vape pods for sale in the US that come from foreign distributors.
This latest episode of WIRED’s Gadget Lab The podcast features new podcast hosts Leon Neyfakh and former WIRED associate editor Arielle Pardes Return: The Vaping Wars. The show is about what happened to the nicotine vaping industry, whether vapers are really better than cigarettes (yes, but you probably shouldn’t be smoking them yet), and what the future holds for vaping.
