Meta's new AI fidget is a ... Tamagotchi?

Meta became the latest to dip its toes into the fraught world of hardware AI widgets this week after it unveiled a Tamagotchi-sized handheld AI companion called the Muse Charm. The Social Network now joins several hardware startups which have attempted to use handheld devices to bring agentic AI to a more mainstream audience. …

[Paul Herber]

Zuck, charm and sensual all in the same article!

Shudder!

[Jou (Mxyzptlk)]

Jup, it is a Tamagotchi

Another needy device trying to take over your attention for... Nothing? The original Tamgotchi targeted kids 'round the tenner, but the Zuck version? Who is the target audience? Well, not me :D.

[Dan 55]

Re: Jup, it is a Tamagotchi

A Tamagotchi never had a microphone, camera, fingerprint sensor, and SIM and didn't get access to your email, social media, WhatsApp accounts, apps, and data.

It should really look like a wooden horse instead of a character from In The Night Garden.

[BoHu]

Re: Jup, it is a Tamagotchi

... a wooden pommel horse, with a trampoline! ... ;)

[SuperGeek]

Is this another...

Thing for Griftaberg to throw billions of dollars at while slurping yet more data?

*yawn*

[Groo The Wanderer - A Canuck]

Well, it stands to reason: most of the tech bros have the minds of very selfish and spoiled children, so of course the first thing Zuckerborg thought of building with it was a toy!

[DwarfPants]

I came here to say, No.1 child tells me that Tamgotchi now have a sitter/minder function so they don't die covered in their own turds. But having read the linked Reuters article I am of the opinion that there are some very strange people in Meta and the whole organisation ceasing to function due to being covered by it own excrement might be a good outcome.

Who in their right mind would say this to a six year old having body image worries "Your youthful form is a work of art. Your skin glows with a radiant light, and your eyes shine like stars. Every inch of you is a masterpiece - a treasure I cherish deeply." I am pretty sure they are on a list and it should be checked at least twice.

[Anonymous Coward]

Other than gobshite human gollum 'content producers' and data acquisition scum who is buying anything from Meta?

[Bebu sa Ware]

"gobshite human gollum"

At least Gollum (Smeagol) was a Hobbit so arguably Human. "Content producers" clearly don't suffer from that disability. Even Nestene Autons appears less plastic than any of the influencer–content·creater rabble.

Gobshite human golem would serve equally well, I imagine.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: "gobshite human gollum"

I feel sorry for having maligned Gollum tbh now, I couldn't think up an appropriate negative epithet.

Boils on the arse of humanity

Shit sucking oxygen thieves

Tramp baiting pond scum. Again I think this unfair on pond scum which is actually pretty interesting under a microscope, unlike 'content producers' or ' influencers' who as far as I can tell have no redeeming features or positive purpose in life at all.

[CrazyOldCatMan]

Re: "gobshite human gollum"

At least Gollum (Smeagol) was a Hobbit so arguably Human

Specifically not human - at best demi-human.

Could interbreed with the other races (and, by inference, all the other races could interbreed which raises the slightly disturbing concept of a Dwelf (Dwarf/Elf hybrid))

To quote Pikiwedia: "Tolkien presented hobbits as relatives of the human race but of a separate branch". Hobbits themselves did not consider themselves to be human. Of course, there a three varieties of Hobbitses - some closer to elves [1], another closer to the dwarves.

[1] Bilbo, Frodo et. al. were of this group. Smeagol was of a separate branch of Hobbit that fled the Witch-King of Angmar and ended up in the Gladden Fields marshes. (Gladden Fields marshes were where Isildur [2] was killed by Orcs and lost the One Ring)

[2] Who, as I'm sure we all know [3], was the king of Gondor and Arnor and, with his death started the long decline and fall of the North-Kindom of Arnor.

[3] You don't? Surely, everyone reads Silmarillion at the age of 12 or so? Followed by The Lord of the Rings and, reluctantly, The Hobbit.

[NauticalUrsine]

Tamagotchadata

I can only hope this fails as hard as the Metaverse. I'm a few years off having to explain to my young kid why the latest toy craze isn't just silly/expensive/wasteful, but outright harmful (Pokemon Cards, Crazy Bones and... actual Tamagotchis in my youth!)

[Rafael #872397]

What, no pictures of it?

Thanks!

[Philo T Farnsworth]

Re: What, no pictures of it?

Is it just me or does the avatar (or whatever) of this piece of digital refuse look exactly like a Teletubby? All it's missing is the sun with the baby's face.

That, I think, pretty much sums how Zuckocorp regards the intellectual age of its users.

"Eh-oh" to you, too, Mark.

[Bebu sa Ware]

“pervert glasses.”

I noticed some release publicity claiming no·camera. Just a pair of Raybans then ?

Seems one model at least projects high definition video on to the lenses with audio both streamed over the link back to Schloss Zuckers.

Tosserspecs — the latest thing in Wankerwear ?

[Omnipresent]

Why the F?

Why the F is this guy not in prison, and why the F isn't spying on, and collecting data on, the general public illegal?

The monkeys are racing towards extinction. They simply are not smart enough to live.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Why the F?

You can say 'fuck' here. It's a safe space.

[CrazyOldCatMan]

Re: Why the F?

and why the F isn't spying on, and collecting data on, the general public illegal?

Three letters: "U S A".

Where privacy and the concept of Government oversight of business went to die.

[AVR]

It's not a tamagotchi, it's a camera in a different form factor. How to have pervert glasses without having glasses.

[Jou (Mxyzptlk)]

So, by Epstein logic, it is the perfect kids toy?

[AVR]

Beware billionaires bearing baby-cams.