Meta's Charm gadget carries CEO Zuckerberg's big AI ambitions

Mark Zuckerberg took repeated digs at Apple during Meta's annual event on Wednesday, only to borrow a page from Steve Jobs' playbook for a surprise reveal: a pocket-watch-sized device that carries Meta's viral Muse AI agent into the real world.



The device, called Muse Charm, highlights a broader shift at the social media giant that has long sought to escape Apple and Google's operating systems with a platform of its own.



Users can tap the gadget to access Muse directly, bypassing AI apps on smartphones.



Having once championed the metaverse — the immersive digital world that inspired the company's name change in 2021 — as the next computing platform, Zuckerberg now sees "personal superintelligence" as the bigger and more immediate breakthrough, after his previous costly wager failed.