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Meta has acquired an AI startup called Manus known for its custom research and website-building agents in a deal valued at more than $2 billion, according toThe Wall Street Journal. It's reportedly one of the largest acquisitions yet involving a startup nurtured in China's AI ecosystem. Manus arrived in March 2025, shortly after another Chinese AI startup, DeepSeek appeared on the scene. The company (called Butterfly Effect at the time) originally described it as "the first general AI agent" to perform complex tasks autonomously, rather than just generating ideas. It draws from several third-party models, particularly Anthropic's Claude 3.5 Sonnet and versions of Alibaba's Qwen. Manus is designed to automate certain tasks, like market research, coding, sales data analysis and website cloning and creation. (However, one skeptic called it "a product devilishly optimized for influencers, which is why it exploded so much.") The company claims that Manu is "already serving the daily needs of millions of users and businesses" and has an annualized average revenue of more than $100 million only eight months after launch. Manus laid off most of its Beijing employees this summer before moving its headquarters to Singapore in an effort to expand globally.The company was reportedly seeking a funding round that would have valued it at $2 billion when it was approached by Meta. "Joining Meta allows us to build on a stronger, more sustainable foundation without changing how Manus works or how decisions are made," said Manus CEO Xiao Hong in a company news release.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/meta-buys-startup-known-for-its-ai-task-automation-agents-140045275.html?src=rss
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Hot on the tail of Amazon's Kindle Scribe Colorosoft, TCL is introducing its own take on a distraction-free note-taking and reading device. Unlike the new Scribe, however, it doesn't use E Ink. The TCL Note A1 NXTPAPER is the company's latest device to use NXTPAPER, TCL's custom paper-like LCD screen, which offers some of the qualities of E Ink without the limitations.TCL says the 11.5-inch color "NXTPAPER Pure" display on the Note A1 has a 2,200 x 1,440 resolution and a 120Hz refresh rate, which should mean it looks clearer and feels much smoother to interact with than the color E Ink screen used on something like the reMarkable Paper Pro. The tablet supports TCL's T-Pen Pro for taking notes and drawing on the screen, but also features eight built-in microphones for recording and transcribing audio. The Note A1 also has a 13-megapixel camera for scanning documents, an 8,000mAh battery and 256GB of storage, with the option to access cloud services like Google Drive or Microsoft OneDrive if you want it. A diagram of different Note A1 NXTPAPER features arranged in a grid.TCLUnlike TCL's past NXTPAPER tablets, the Note A1 doesn't prioritize media consumption it's a productivity tool first and foremost. TCL says the device runs Android, but hasn't shared whether it'll have access to the Play Store. All the features the company has announced focus on taking notes and using AI to process and organize whatever you've written down. The device will also support real-time translation and "handwriting beautification," among a collection of other AI-powered features. Engadget has reached out to TCL for more information on the Note A1 NXTPAPER's software. We'll update this article if we hear back.There will likely never be one Goldilocks version of these note-taking devices, but the Note A1 NXTPAPER's combination of display and microphones does make it an intriguing, if limited, alternative to Boox's E Ink tablets. Anyone interested in TCL's new device won't have to wait long to try it, either. The TCL Note A1 NXTPAPER is available to order now through Kickstarter (with additional bonuses and discounts) and will officially go on sale for $549 at the end of February.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/mobile/tablets/tcl-introduces-its-own-take-on-a-color-kindle-scribe-140000207.html?src=rss
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CFOTO via Getty Images At CES 2025, NVIDIA spent the bulk of its presentation touting (what else) its leading position in the artificial intelligence arena. But it also spent time talking up new hardware, including its RTX 5000-series GPUs and Project Digits desktop supercomputer (later redubbed Spark). This year, the company's website says it's "lighting up CES 2026 with the power of AI." To that end, NVIDIA is pulling out all the stops at its Vegas installation, promising hands-on demos in its booth at the Fontainebleau, replete with the "latest NVIDIA solutions driving innovation and productivity across industries." But don't worry if you're not on the ground in Vegas. Here's how you can watch the livestream of the company's January 5 press conference, and what to expect from NVIDIA at CES this year. How to watch the NVIDIA CES 2026 keynote NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang will deliver a 90-minute keynote at CES 2026. The event will be livestreamed on January 5 at 4PM ET via NVIDIA's website (and likely on YouTube as well). We'll embed the link here once it's available. What to expect NVIDIA's game plan for CES is suitably vague so far, including "cutting-edge AI, robotics, simulation, gaming and content creation at the NVIDIA Showcase." It also notes there will be more than 20 demos. Although we're unsure if all of these will be shown during the keynote, we can at least expect to see them throughout the week of CES. Given NVIDIA's sky-high valuation and the fact that the health of the US and global economy seems increasingly linked to infrastructure spending on AI data centers largely powered by chips from NVIDIA and its competitors expect Huang's remarks to be as closely followed by Wall Street investors as technology acolytes, if not more so. Will we get any insight on a successor to the company's Blackwell chip? A more detailed look at how NVIDIA's partners are applying AI to real-world robotics? Time will tell, but you might want to keep your stock portfolio in a split screen while taking in Huang's presentation.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/how-to-watch-the-nvidia-ces-2026-presentation-live-130028065.html?src=rss
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