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Today’s Slate

• Meta’s Llama 4 arrives: Open models Scout and Maverick boost AI speed, scale, and access—unless you're in the EU.

• Copilot levels up: Microsoft’s AI assistant can now book trips, track deals, and even see through your phone camera.

• Animate a photo, skip the mocap suit: ByteDance’s DreamActor-M1 sets a new bar for lifelike AI-generated video.

• VR at 30,000 feet: Award-winning inflight entertainment, and Meta's next move in travel tech.

• The dire wolf returns: Scientists revive a long-extinct species—what that means for conservation, cloning, and the future of wildlife.

• Switch 2 lands June 5: New games, 4K visuals, GameCube classics—and sticker shock with games at $80+ prices.

• Social media with a bedtime? seven39 revives old-school internet charm with a 3-hour daily window and zero doomscrolling.

• The. Future. Is. Here.

Artificial Intelligence

At a glance

• Llama 4 models drop: Meta launches Scout, Maverick, and Behemoth (in training).

• Scout & Maverick available now: Scout runs on a single GPU; Maverick needs a DGX system.

• Faster, smarter AI: Handles images, code, long docs, and creative writing.

• Answers more questions: Less censorship on political or social topics.

• Not EU-friendly: Blocked for EU companies and big platforms need special licenses.

Our vision

With Llama 4, Meta is signaling a clear push toward democratizing powerful AI while walking a tightrope around regulation, political pressure, and model accessibility. These models may not be true “reasoning” systems, but their expanded capability and openness, combined with new architectural efficiencies, could lower the barrier to deploying advanced AI across more use cases.

As competition with OpenAI and Google intensifies, expect the Llama ecosystem to keep evolving quickly, especially in a climate increasingly shaped by political narratives and global compliance challenges.

At a glance

• Copilot gets agent-like powers: Now books tickets, reserves tables, and shops on supported sites like Expedia and OpenTable.

• Camera vision & desktop control: Analyzes real-time video on phones and interacts with your Windows desktop.

• Custom memory & preferences: Learns your habits, suggests tasks, and remembers likes—opt-out available.

• Podcasts & Pages: Generates podcast-style summaries and organizes research into interactive documents.

• Price tracking & deal alerts: Follows online discounts and notifies you when it’s time to buy.

Our vision

Microsoft is moving Copilot closer to a true AI assistant, blending memory, vision, and agent-like autonomy into everyday workflows. By bridging task automation with personal context, Microsoft’s Copilot is becoming a more hands-on digital helper—especially for users embedded in the Microsoft ecosystem. The real question is whether users trust it enough to let it remember, watch, and act on their behalf.

At a glance

• ByteDance launches DreamActor-M1: A powerful AI that animates photos using motion from reference videos.

• Breakthrough in realism: Delivers fluid full-body movement and subtle facial expressions with striking detail.

• Outperforms competitors: Surpasses tools like Runway’s Act-One in accuracy, identity preservation, and animation quality.

• Wide creative use cases: Supports film, social media, VR, and educational content with minimal input.

• Ethical concerns remain: Lack of transparency around training data and safeguards raises questions.

Our vision

DreamActor-M1 could be a game-changer for motion capture and content creation, reducing the need for expensive rigs and studios by enabling lifelike performance transfer from simple assets. This kind of tool could democratize high-quality animation and reshape creative workflows across film, marketing, and interactive media—while also reigniting the conversation about digital identity, consent, and control in the age of AI-generated personas.

Spatial Computing

At a glance

• Meta & Lufthansa win big: Quest 3 inflight program takes home the 2025 APEX Award for Best Inflight Entertainment.

• Positive reception: Nearly 4,000 business class passengers have tried the VR experience — with rave reviews.

• What's included: Immersive movies, spatial podcasts, 360° destination previews, interactive games, and meditation tools.

• Powered by Travel Mode: Meta’s Travel Mode enables stable VR use even during turbulence and flight movement.

• More to come: Meta plans to expand Quest 3 inflight offerings to other airlines.

Our vision

Meta and Lufthansa are proving that virtual reality isn’t just for gamers — it’s reshaping the travel experience. This early win signals the start of a broader push to bring immersive inflight entertainment to the skies, potentially turning business class into the next frontier for VR adoption. As the technology improves and becomes more integrated, expect headsets like Quest 3 to play a major role in how we relax, explore, and stay entertained mid-flight.

Biotech

At a glance

• Dire wolves are back: Colossal Biosciences has successfully brought dire wolves to life for the first time in 10,000 years.

• Engineered from gray wolves: Scientists made 20 precise gene edits using ancient DNA to transform modern wolves into their extinct cousins.

• More species on deck: The company also plans to resurrect the woolly mammoth, Tasmanian tiger, and dodo using similar genetic techniques.

• Helping endangered animals too: The same methods are being used to preserve species like the red wolf and potentially save Australia’s quoll.

• Ethics and risks loom large: Cloning, containment, and ecological disruption remain serious concerns as de-extinction efforts scale up.

Our vision

This sci-fi reality—reviving Ice Age giants and ghost wolves—marks the dawn of a new era in biotechnology where extinction may no longer be forever. Colossal’s moonshot blurs the line between Jurassic Park fantasy and responsible conservation, offering both a thrilling vision for rewilding the planet and a cautionary tale about tampering with nature’s past to shape our future.

Gaming

At a glance

• Switch 2 launches June 5 for $449.99: Bigger screen, better performance, 4K docked visuals, and upgraded Joy-Cons.

• U.S. preorders delayed: Tariffs from the Trump administration forced Nintendo to pause preorders for now.

• Top new games announced: Mario Kart World, Donkey Kong Bananza, Metroid Prime 4, and The Duskbloods are launch highlights.

• GameCube classics return: Wind Waker, F-Zero GX, and Soulcalibur II are coming to Switch Online.

• New social features: GameChat lets you voice and video chat with friends using a new camera accessory.

• Some games now cost up to $80: Fans are frustrated with premium pricing—even for remastered titles.

• Limited Mario Kart bundle for $499: Comes with the console and game, but only available through fall.

Our vision

Nintendo is doubling down on performance, nostalgia, and social gaming with the Switch 2—but it’s also pushing the price ceiling. While fans are excited for the hardware and game lineup, the steeper cost of entry may shape how widely this generation catches on. The success of Switch 2 could depend on whether the value feels worth it beyond the hype.

Check out MKBHD’s review of the Switch 2:

Social Media

At a glance

• Time-gated social site: seven39 only works 7:39–10:39PM ET daily.

• No endless scroll: Chronological feed, 200-character limit, no ads or reposts.

• Old-school internet vibes: Feels like a retro forum with anonymous, friendly users.

• Community still small: About 3,000 users, with activity varying night to night.

• Built by one person: Mark Lyons adds features based on user feedback, but long-term support is uncertain.

Our vision

seven39 is a creative rebellion against the 24/7 attention economy, embracing a slower, more intentional digital space. In an age of algorithm fatigue and social burnout, its ‘internet curfew’ invites reflection on how we engage online. While it may remain a niche project, it suggests there’s still appetite for more human, less addictive online communities — even if they only exist for a few hours a day.

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