Meta's internal research revealed that parental supervision tools had little impact on curbing teens' compulsive social media use, according to a study presented during a social media addiction trial in Los Angeles County Superior Court. In other tech news, Apple is reportedly accelerating the development of AI-powered wearables, while venture capital firm Thrive Capital announced a new $10 billion fund, its largest to date. Additionally, AI model developer Anthropic released a new version of its Sonnet model, and Climactic launched a hybrid fund to support startups.
The Meta study, conducted in partnership with the University of Chicago, found that time limits and restricted access had limited effect on children's compulsive social media habits. The trial, which began last week, involves a plaintiff identified as Kaley (KGM), who, along with her mother and others, is suing social media companies for allegedly creating addictive and dangerous products. The research also highlighted that teens experiencing stressful life events were more prone to struggling with moderating their social media use.
Apple is reportedly working on a trio of AI wearables, including an AirTag-sized pendant with cameras, according to Bloomberg. The company is also speeding up development of AI-powered smart glasses, code-named N50, as it competes with other tech giants like Meta and Snap in the wearable AI space. Meta is already a player in the smart glasses market, and Snap plans to release its Specs later this year.
Thrive Capital announced a new $10 billion fund, Thrive X, its tenth fund overall and nearly double the size of its last fund. According to an announcement from the firm, $1 billion of the fund is dedicated to early-stage investments, with the remainder allocated for growth-stage investments. Thrive told Bloomberg that the fundraise was oversubscribed. The firm has invested in companies like OpenAI, Stripe, and SpaceX, and has also incubated 12 companies, with at least six reaching unicorn status. "The firm's strategy is to commit deeply to a small number of founders," the firm said.
Anthropic released Sonnet 4.6, the latest version of its mid-size AI model, emphasizing improvements in coding, instruction-following, and computer use. Sonnet 4.6 will be the default model for Free and Pro plan users and includes a context window of 1 million tokens, twice the size of the largest window previously available for Sonnet. Anthropic stated that the new context window is large enough to hold entire codebases, lengthy contracts, or dozens of research papers in a single request. The release follows the launch of Opus 4.6 two weeks prior, with an updated Haiku model expected in the coming weeks.
Climactic, an early-stage venture firm, launched a hybrid fund to help startups navigate the "valley of death," the critical stage where companies struggle to scale production and sales. Josh Felser, co-founder and managing partner of Climactic, noted the challenges faced by startups producing physical goods, particularly those making novel materials. "They're chicken and egg stuck," Felser said, highlighting the difficulties in overcoming this hurdle.
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