AI Crackdowns, Mega Mergers, and Security Chaos Define This Week in Tech
See what you missed in Daily Tech Insider from June 15–18.
The post AI Crackdowns, Mega Mergers, and Security Chaos Define This Week in Tech appeared first on TechRepublic.
See what you missed in Daily Tech Insider from June 15–18.
The post AI Crackdowns, Mega Mergers, and Security Chaos Define This Week in Tech appeared first on TechRepublic.
Meta employees are questioning Mark Zuckerberg’s pledge to avoid more company-wide layoffs this year as the company restructures around AI.
The post Meta Layoffs Leave Employees Wary Despite Zuckerberg’s Reassurance appeared first on TechRepublic.
Meta patched two WhatsApp flaws affecting iOS, Android, and Windows users, including bugs tied to risky files, links, and Reels previews.
The post New WhatsApp Flaws Could Affect Billions of Users After Meta Security Patch appeared first on TechRepublic.
These five AI image-editing prompts can help improve backgrounds, outfits, headshots, product photos, and image quality across today’s top tools.
The post 5 Best AI Photo Editing Prompts in 2026: How to Get Better AI Images appeared first on TechRepublic.
See what you missed in Daily Tech Insider from April 27–May 1.
The post AI Power Plays, Security Breaches, and Industry Shifts Define the Week in Tech appeared first on TechRepublic.
Meta is testing a WhatsApp Plus subscription that includes themes, stickers, and chat tools in a limited rollout to select users.
The post Meta Tests Paid WhatsApp Features With New ‘Plus’ Tier appeared first on TechRepublic.
Les salariés de Meta devront bientôt installer un logiciel qui enregistre leurs frappes clavier, les mouvements de souris et des captures d'écran régulières sur leur poste de travail.
Le programme s'appelle Model Capability Initiative, et il doit alimenter les futurs modèles d'IA maison capables de faire du travail de bureau en autonomie. L'info a été révélée par The Register cette semaine.
Concrètement, l'outil surveille l'activité sur une liste d'applications professionnelles, dont Gmail, GChat, VCode et l'outil interne Metamate. Meta a justifié le dispositif en expliquant que ses modèles d'IA ne comprennent pas bien comment les humains utilisent un ordinateur.
Les données serviront à entraîner des agents capables de reproduire les micro-gestes que les modèles actuels galèrent à faire, comme sélectionner une option dans un menu déroulant ou enchaîner deux raccourcis clavier. Le directeur technique Andrew Bosworth a expliqué que la vision, c'est d'avoir des agents qui font le boulot pendant que les humains dirigent, relisent et corrigent les sorties.
Côté salariés, l'accueil est glacial. Un ingénieur cité par The Register résume la chose : il y a une différence entre savoir que votre travail est évalué et savoir que chaque frappe clavier peut nourrir un modèle commercial vendu à des clients externes.
L'analyste Ed Zitron, très critique sur l'IA, décrit l'ambiance interne chez Meta comme horrible et parle d'une culture de la paranoïa qui ne va pas s'arranger avec cette nouvelle couche de surveillance.
Le programme cible d'abord les employés basés aux États-Unis. En Europe, les règles sur le pistage des salariés sont beaucoup plus strictes, donc Meta évite de tester ce genre de dispositif sous les yeux de la CNIL irlandaise ou de son équivalent allemand.
Il y a aussi l'ironie évidente de la situation : Meta surveille les utilisateurs depuis quinze ans pour son ciblage publicitaire, et a collectionné les amendes RGPD au passage. Maintenant ce sont ses propres salariés qui passent sous le scanner.
En pratique, ce qui est demandé ressemble à ce que font déjà plusieurs boîtes qui entraînent des agents : il faut des jeux de données de démonstrations humaines sur des tâches réelles pour que l'IA apprenne. Sauf que voilà, Meta franchit un cap en allant chercher ces données dans l'outil quotidien de ses salariés.
Bref, chez Meta le clavier devient un jeu de données d'entraînement. Difficile d'imaginer que des ingénieurs un peu pointus acceptent ça longtemps sans râler, et on les comprend.
Source : The Register
![]()

![]()
By 1996, the arcade was dying. Virtua Fighter and Tekken had the crowds. Sega’s racing cabinets had the spectacle. The conventional wisdom was that 2D games were finished, and anyone still making pixel art sidescrollers was simply behind the curve. Then Nazca Corporation released Metal Slug on SNK’s Neo Geo hardware, and the conventional wisdom had to sit quietly in a corner for a while. The game’s hand-animated sprites moved with a fluidity that polygon games couldn’t touch, and the humor, panicking soldiers, grateful POWs tossing rocket launchers, a tank that waddled like a toy, made the whole thing feel alive in a way that pure technical showmanship never quite manages.
LEGO Ideas builder MagicBrick has captured a freeze-frame of that world in brick form, reconstructing the game’s iconic jungle mission with 2,701 pieces and 6 minifigures locked into a scene of swamp terrain, rebel soldiers, dense jungle vegetation, and the squat, waddling Super Vehicle-001 tank at the center of it all. It’s a dense, affectionate build made by someone who clearly lost many, many credits to this game, and it shows in every deliberately chosen detail, from the mid-jump Marco Rossi clutching a Heavy Machine Gun to the bearded POW standing by with a reward.
Designer: MagicBrick
![]()
![]()
The scene is structured like a freeze-frame from the game itself, which is exactly the right instinct. MagicBrick describes the goal as capturing “a dynamic instant where everything is in motion: jumps, actions, and interactions come together to recreate the fast-paced feeling typical of the game,” and the build delivers on that. Marco Rossi in his red jacket is airborne, Heavy Machine Gun in hand. Tarma Roving, yellow jacket, stands ready with a pistol and knife. Three Rebel Army soldiers in green uniforms and helmets fill out the opposition, armed with bazookas and rifles. The swamp base uses tiles in multiple shades to sell the terrain, jungle trees and palms crowd the background, and the brick-built backdrop reflects the arcade color palette of the original game rather than any attempt at realism. That last decision is a smart one. Metal Slug was never interested in realism, and neither is this.
![]()
![]()
The Super Vehicle-001 is the centerpiece, and MagicBrick has packed a surprising amount of function into a compact footprint. The rear cannons are adjustable, the tracks are functional, and antennas complete the silhouette. Scattered across the scene are the environmental details that will hit Metal Slug veterans like a reflex: ammo crates, yellow barrels, a hanging fish skeleton, a parachute, and both the Heavy Machine Gun and Rocket Launcher power-up pickups rendered in brick. My favorite touch, though, is the grenade sequence, a classic cartoon-logic arc of thrown grenades ending in a mid-air explosion, frozen in plastic at exactly the right moment of absurdity.
![]()
Topping the whole structure is the Metal Slug logo itself, rendered in a red-to-orange gradient that makes the build read as a display piece as much as a playset. It’s that combination of environmental storytelling, playable features, and genuine fan knowledge that separates builds like this from generic video game tributes.
![]()
![]()
LEGO Ideas is the platform where fan-designed MOCs (My Own Creations) gather community votes, with 10,000 supporters needed to trigger an official LEGO review and potential production as a retail set. MagicBrick’s Metal Slug submission hit 100 supporters almost immediately after going live and has been picking up Reddit traction since. If you grew up feeding tokens into a Neo Geo cabinet, head to the LEGO Ideas page and cast your vote here.
![]()
The post The LEGO Metal Slug Diorama With Adjustable Cannons, POWs, and Mid-Air Grenades Is Here first appeared on Yanko Design.
A poisoned LiteLLM update hit Mercor, and Meta pulled the brake. The breach is now a warning flare for AI vendors built on open-source plumbing.
The post Meta Pauses Work With Mercor After LiteLLM-Linked Data Breach appeared first on TechRepublic.
Meta is launching new Ray-Ban smart glasses built for prescription users, signaling a stronger push into AI-powered wearables and everyday smart tech.
The post Meta Expands Smart Glasses Line With Prescription-First Ray-Ban Models appeared first on TechRepublic.
Meta is testing Instagram Plus, a paid tier for regular users that adds Story features focused on privacy, reach, and in-app audience control.
The post Meta Tests Paid Instagram Subscription in Mexico, Japan, and the Philippines appeared first on TechRepublic.
A jury finds Meta and YouTube liable in a landmark social media addiction case, signaling major legal risks for Big Tech and platform design.
The post A Jury Just Blamed Meta and YouTube for Social Media Addiction appeared first on TechRepublic.
Meta lost in New Mexico. The bigger question now is whether the next phase forces changes to how its platforms work.
The post Meta Hit With $375 Million Verdict in New Mexico Child Safety Case appeared first on TechRepublic.
See what you missed in Daily Tech Insider from March 16–20.
The post AI Factories, Security Flaws, and Workforce Shifts Define This Week in Tech appeared first on TechRepublic.
Meta launches Creator Fast Track, offering guaranteed pay and boosted reach to attract top TikTok and YouTube creators back to Facebook.
The post Meta Offers Guaranteed Pay to Lure TikTok, YouTube Creators to Facebook appeared first on TechRepublic.
Meta will soon end Instagram’s end-to-end encrypted chats, citing low adoption and directing users to export affected messages.
The post Instagram Users Urged to Save Encrypted DMs Before Feature Disappears appeared first on TechRepublic.
Meta has signed an AI infrastructure deal with Nebius worth up to $27 billion over five years, deepening its push to secure long-term computing capacity.
The post Meta Strikes Massive AI Deal with Nebius Worth Up to $27B appeared first on TechRepublic.
See what you missed in Daily Tech Insider from March 9–13.
The post AI Expansions, Cyberthreats, and Industry Shifts Define This Week in Tech appeared first on TechRepublic.
Meta is rolling out new scam alerts across Facebook, WhatsApp, and Messenger as it ramps up AI-driven fraud detection and advertiser verification.
The post Meta Rolls Out New Scam Alerts Across Facebook, WhatsApp, and Messenger appeared first on TechRepublic.