Lansner: Car-buying Spree's A Sign That Consumers Are Feeling Good

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | Benj Edwards) On Thursday, Meta unveiled early versions of its Llama 3 open-weights AI model that can be used to power text composition, code generation, or chatbots. It also announced that its Meta AI Assistant is now available on a website and is going to be integrated into its major social media apps, intensifying the company's efforts to position its products against other AI assistants like OpenAI's ChatGPT, Microsoft's Copilot, and Google's Gemini. Like its predecessor, Llama 2, Llama 3 is notable for being a freely available, open-weights large language model (LLM) provided by a major AI company.

Enlarge / For just $199, you could be having as much fun as this paid model. Meta has announced it's permanently lowering the price of its aging Quest 2 headset to $199 for a 128GB base model, representing the company's lowest price yet for a full-featured untethered VR headset. The Quest 2, which launched in 2020 at $299, famously defied tech product convention by increasing its MSRP to $399 amid inflation and supply chain issues in mid-2022.

Enlarge / Google HQ. (credit: Getty Images) Google is doing a major re-org of Android, Chrome, and the Google hardware division: They're merging! Google Hardware SVP Rick Osterloh will lead the new "Platforms and Devices” division. Hiroshi Lockheimer, Google's previous head of software platforms like Android and ChromeOS, will be headed to "some new projects" at Google. "Having a unified team across Platforms & Devices will help us deliver higher quality products and experiences for our users and partners," writes Google CEO Sundar Pichai.

Enlarge / A Falcon 9 rocket launches a Starlink mission in January 2020. (credit: SpaceX) SpaceX is reportedly working with at least one major US defense contractor, Northrop Grumman, on a constellation of spy satellites for the National Reconnaissance Office. According to Reuters, development of the network of hundreds of spy satellites by SpaceX is being coordinated with multiple contractors to avoid putting too much control of a highly sensitive intelligence program in the hands of one company. "It is in the government's interest to not be totally invested in one company run by one person," one of the news agency's sources said, most likely referring to SpaceX founder Elon Musk.

Enlarge The US Constitution's Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination does not prohibit police officers from forcing a suspect to unlock a phone with a thumbprint scan, a federal appeals court ruled yesterday. The ruling does not apply to all cases in which biometrics are used to unlock an electronic device but is a significant decision in an unsettled area of the law. The US Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit had to grapple with the question of "whether the compelled use of Payne's thumb to unlock his phone was testimonial," the ruling in United States v.

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images) Password-manager LastPass users were recently targeted by a convincing phishing campaign that used a combination of email, SMS, and voice calls to trick targets into divulging their master passwords, company officials said. The attackers used an advanced phishing-as-a-service kit discovered in February by researchers from mobile security firm Lookout.