In case you thought Instagram influencers couldn’t get anymore online, they’re soon going to have the ability to make AI versions of themselves that you can interact with at all times.
The announcement came from the mouth of a chain-clad Mark Zuckerberg, who shared his thoughts about AI and who gets to control the technology in an interview with YouTuber Kane Sutter, aka Kallaway. (He also said Meta has holographic AR glasses coming soon, but let’s 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 the test phase and will roll out to various Instagram users slowly. It is not yet clear exactly what form these AI chatbots will take, but it seems the creators that Meta is partnering with will build their characters in the company’s AI studio, so they will likely operate a lot like the AI Characters that Meta debuted last year.
If this all goes according to plan, you’ll soon be able to go into your Instagram DMs and chat with AI simulacra of your favorite influencers. File this one away in the “What could possibly 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 shenanigans, is moving into another gear of power systems for its vehicles.
The new series, called Extreme H, will be a race for hydrogen-powered cars only. Purpose-built for this series is the new Pioneer 25, a speedy racing car powered entirely by hydrogen. The Pioneer 25 can get up to 200 kph (124 mph), which is very zippy for an off-roading vehicle.
The Pioneer is meant to usher in a new era of eco-friendlier motorsports, though there is some debate about how clean hydrogen power actually is.
Hyundai Funday
On the more affordable vehicle front, the Korean car company Hyundai has a new EV. The Hyundai Inster is a compact urban hatchback that can seat four people. It has a boxy look to it—similar to a Scion or a Mini Cooper—and boasts a projected range of up to 355 kilometers (220 miles). The Inster’s battery has a charge time of 4.5 hours for a full charge. It definitely isn’t a race car, as it tops out at 86 mph.
The official price hasn’t been revealed yet, but according to AutoNews, the sticker should wind up being somewhere around $26,000. Or the foreign-currency equivalent of that, anyway; the Inster is not yet being released in the US. The car will land first in Korea, 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 put forth this week by FCC chair Jessica Rosenworcel calls for mobile phone providers to unlock customers’ phones if they want to use the device on a different network. Lots of providers lock customers into their networks by pairing their devices with a subscription plan that keeps them on the network run by a particular carrier. If this guidance makes its way into reality, companies would be forced to unlock devices 60 days after being activated, which means you’d be free to switch carriers and take your phone with you.
There’s no official ruling being put in place yet. This proposal is coming in the form of a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, which the FCC drafts to seek public comment on potential rulings in the future. The proposal itself isn’t public yet, but it might be after the FCC votes to move it along during its July 18 open meeting session.
One Vape to Juul Them All
Juul once held near-total dominance over the nicotine vaping industry. But when US regulators cracked down on the purveyors of the addictive nicotine dispensers (particularly ones that were the most popular among underage customers), Juul’s reign came to an end. Of course, that doesn’t mean demand for vaping is anywhere close to gone. Plenty of illegal operations have moved to fill that void, and it’s relatively easy to find vape pods for sale in the US that come from overseas distributors.
This latest episode of WIRED’s Gadget Lab podcast features Leon Neyfakh and former WIRED associate editor Arielle Pardes, the hosts of the new podcast Backfired: The Vaping Wars. The show is all about what happened to the nicotine vaping industry, whether vapes are really better than cigarettes (yes, but you probably still shouldn’t puff on them), and what will happen in the future of vaping.