Hasta La Gadget!

If you look at your Roomba with disgust, thinking about what a far cry it is from the Jetsons’ Rosey the Robot, help is on the way. Bloomberg reported on Friday that Meta plans to leverage its advances in AI and augmented reality to build a platform for futuristic humanoid robots that can help with household chores like folding laundry.

Meta is reportedly creating a new team within its Reality Labs hardware division, which handles Quest VR headsets and the long-term Orion AR glasses project. Although it will build robot hardware during development, Meta’s long-term goal is more like Android, where Google makes the software platform that almost all of the industry (outside of Apple) uses. Meta would make the underlying sensors, AI and software for other companies to put inside their hardware. In other words, it wants to be the Android of androids.

Warner Bros. / YouTube

At least initially, Meta plans to make household chores the project’s central focus. Bloomberg lists folding laundry, carrying glasses of water, putting dinnerware in the dishwasher and other home chores as examples to build excitement around what could be an unsettling product category for many people. (For examples of why those concerns may be warranted, look no further than the Unitree G1 robot that ran full-speed at Engadget’s Karissa Bell at CES, momentarily pinning her against the onlooking crowd.)

Speaking of Unitree, Meta has reportedly held early discussions with the Chinese robotics company, which also makes a quadruped “robot dog” that can run around, climb stairs and sit on its hind legs like a good girl. Meta is also said to have discussed its plans with California-based humanoid robot maker Figure AI, which can count OpenAI, Nvidia, Microsoft, Intel and Jeff Bezos among its investors.

Karissa Bell for Engadget

Today’s humanoid robots aren’t advanced enough to pitch in around the house like Rosey, but Meta believes all the resources it’s sinking into AI and XR are paving a road to that destination. Although the company thinks it will be a few years before useful humanoid robots are widely available, Meta Chief Technology Officer Andrew Bosworth reportedly views the company’s progress in hand tracking, low-bandwidth computing and always-on sensors as advantages.

“The core technologies we’ve already invested in and built across Reality Labs and AI are complementary to developing the advancements needed for robotics,” Bosworth reportedly wrote in a memo. “We believe that expanding our portfolio to invest in this field will only accrue value to Meta AI and our mixed and augmented reality programs.”

Meta isn’t alone in raising its eyebrows at the prospect of home robots for (likely rich) consumers. Last year, news broke that Apple was working on robotics. Ditto for Google. Both companies have published research papers on their robotics work. Flying cars may have to wait, but Rosey is looking a lot less like a pipe dream.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/meta-is-reportedly-working-on-humanoid-robots-that-help-with-chores-192453416.html?src=rss

If you look at your Roomba with disgust, thinking about what a far cry it is from the Jetsons’ Rosey the Robot, help is on the way. Bloomberg reported on Friday that Meta plans to leverage its advances in AI and augmented reality to build a platform for futuristic humanoid robots that can help with household chores like folding laundry.

Meta is reportedly creating a new team within its Reality Labs hardware division, which handles Quest VR headsets and the long-term Orion AR glasses project. Although it will build robot hardware during development, Meta’s long-term goal is more like Android, where Google makes the software platform that almost all of the industry (outside of Apple) uses. Meta would make the underlying sensors, AI and software for other companies to put inside their hardware. In other words, it wants to be the Android of androids.

Warner Bros. / YouTube

At least initially, Meta plans to make household chores the project’s central focus. Bloomberg lists folding laundry, carrying glasses of water, putting dinnerware in the dishwasher and other home chores as examples to build excitement around what could be an unsettling product category for many people. (For examples of why those concerns may be warranted, look no further than the Unitree G1 robot that ran full-speed at Engadget’s Karissa Bell at CES, momentarily pinning her against the onlooking crowd.)

Speaking of Unitree, Meta has reportedly held early discussions with the Chinese robotics company, which also makes a quadruped “robot dog” that can run around, climb stairs and sit on its hind legs like a good girl. Meta is also said to have discussed its plans with California-based humanoid robot maker Figure AI, which can count OpenAI, Nvidia, Microsoft, Intel and Jeff Bezos among its investors.

Karissa Bell for Engadget

Today’s humanoid robots aren’t advanced enough to pitch in around the house like Rosey, but Meta believes all the resources it’s sinking into AI and XR are paving a road to that destination. Although the company thinks it will be a few years before useful humanoid robots are widely available, Meta Chief Technology Officer Andrew Bosworth reportedly views the company’s progress in hand tracking, low-bandwidth computing and always-on sensors as advantages.

“The core technologies we’ve already invested in and built across Reality Labs and AI are complementary to developing the advancements needed for robotics,” Bosworth reportedly wrote in a memo. “We believe that expanding our portfolio to invest in this field will only accrue value to Meta AI and our mixed and augmented reality programs.”

Meta isn’t alone in raising its eyebrows at the prospect of home robots for (likely rich) consumers. Last year, news broke that Apple was working on robotics. Ditto for Google. Both companies have published research papers on their robotics work. Flying cars may have to wait, but Rosey is looking a lot less like a pipe dream.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/meta-is-reportedly-working-on-humanoid-robots-that-help-with-chores-192453416.html?src=rss

In a blog post on Friday, Perplexity introduced a new tool called Deep Research that it says can conduct “in-depth research and analysis” to deliver detailed reports in response to your questions, and it’s free for limited use. It comes just a couple of weeks after OpenAI announced its own Deep Research feature for ChatGPT Pro users… which itself followed Google’s December announcement of Deep Research for Gemini. Perplexity’s tool is available only on the web to start, but it will hit the iOS, Android and Mac apps soon too.

Perplexity says its Deep Research “excels at a range of expert-level tasks — from finance and marketing to product research” and takes about 2-4 minutes to come up with an answer, during which it “performs dozens of searches, reads hundreds of sources, and reasons through the material.” Once finished, its reports can be shared or exported as a PDF. The company claims it outperforms competitors — like OpenAI’s o3-mini and o1, and DeepSeek-R1 — on the Humanity’s Last Exam benchmark, earning a 21.1 percent accuracy score (though this is lower than OpenAI’s Deep Research scored).

Free users will be limited to five queries per day, while Pro subscribers will get 500, according to a tweet from the company.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/perplexity-has-its-own-deep-research-tool-now-too-224653030.html?src=rss

In a blog post on Friday, Perplexity introduced a new tool called Deep Research that it says can conduct “in-depth research and analysis” to deliver detailed reports in response to your questions, and it’s free for limited use. It comes just a couple of weeks after OpenAI announced its own Deep Research feature for ChatGPT Pro users… which itself followed Google’s December announcement of Deep Research for Gemini. Perplexity’s tool is available only on the web to start, but it will hit the iOS, Android and Mac apps soon too.

Perplexity says its Deep Research “excels at a range of expert-level tasks — from finance and marketing to product research” and takes about 2-4 minutes to come up with an answer, during which it “performs dozens of searches, reads hundreds of sources, and reasons through the material.” Once finished, its reports can be shared or exported as a PDF. The company claims it outperforms competitors — like OpenAI’s o3-mini and o1, and DeepSeek-R1 — on the Humanity’s Last Exam benchmark, earning a 21.1 percent accuracy score (though this is lower than OpenAI’s Deep Research scored).

Free users will be limited to five queries per day, while Pro subscribers will get 500, according to a tweet from the company.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/perplexity-has-its-own-deep-research-tool-now-too-224653030.html?src=rss

Breaking: Netflix made an oopsie. On Thursday, word spread online that some of its content began appearing in the Apple TV app. The lack of an official announcement (and extremely buggy nature) of the integration was enough to cast doubt on the news. But that didn’t stop users from rejoicing and sharing “FINALLY!” GIFs on social media. Unfortunately, your triumphant festivities weren’t warranted, as the company has said it was unintentional.

A Netflix spokesperson told The Verge on Friday that the Apple TV app integration was an error that has been rolled back. Indeed, Redditors who had been tracking the forbidden fruit with unbridled glee confirmed that all signs of Netflix content had since vanished from Apple’s streaming hub. Netflix giveth, and Netflix taketh away.

While the boo-boo was still active, PC World reported it let you add Netflix originals like Stranger Things, Cobra Kai and The Crown but lacked licensed shows and movies. Even the available content was a buggy mess. For example, only season five of The Crown was available, leaving you to wonder what hijinks Liz and the gang had gotten into before or after the grunge era. The “Add to Watchlist” and “Continue Watching” features were also said to be spotty.

It’s easy to speculate that such a glitch was tied to internal testing accidentally made public, but there’s no reason to assume that’s anything but wishful thinking. At least for now, you’ll have to watch Netflix content in the Netflix app, leaving Apple’s for a well-earned rewatch of The Sopranos (via Max), The Bear (via Hulu) and Apple’s own Silo.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/streaming/netflix-accidentally-made-its-content-show-up-in-the-apple-tv-app-212851906.html?src=rss