Through the looking glass: Meta launched a new AI image-generation model called Muse Image this week, letting users create, edit, and blend photos using natural language prompts inside Meta AI, with the tool already live on Instagram and WhatsApp and expected on Facebook and Messenger soon. However, the new feature is already raising privacy concerns, as it allows anyone to generate AI images using other people’s Instagram photos.

All public Instagram profiles are automatically opted into Meta’s new AI image platform by default, letting users generate AI images using someone else’s likeness simply by tagging their account in a prompt. Meta notes that users won’t be notified when someone uses their photos to generate an image, so they have no way of knowing how many images are being generated in their likeness, or by whom.

Thankfully, Meta says users can opt out of the image-generation feature without making their account private. To do so, open Instagram settings by tapping your profile picture, hit the hamburger menu in the top-right corner, then select Sharing and Reuse.

Under “Allow people to reuse your content on Instagram and with AI features on Meta,” toggle off both Posts and Reels.

Switching off those two options will prevent others from creating new AI images using your photos, but images that have already been created won’t be deleted. The only other way to stop random people from generating AI images with your photos is to make your account private, which limits your content to approved followers only.

Muse Image is currently rolling out on Instagram and WhatsApp and is expected to reach Facebook and Messenger soon. Meta will also bring it to advertisers through its Advantage+ Creative suite of AI-powered tools, which automates aspects of ad creation such as background generation, image animation, and music integration.

Meta has often drawn scrutiny from privacy advocates and industry observers over user privacy and data security. Earlier this year, the company’s smart glasses raised privacy alarms after contractors working with Meta in Kenya revealed they were being paid to review graphic and often intimate footage captured through the Meta AI Glasses, including clips of people using bathrooms, getting dressed, and engaging in sexual activity.

From Folarin Balogun’s suspended ban and Cristiano Ronaldo’s shortened suspension to the treatment of Iran and referee Omar Artan, so many aspects of World Cup 2026 have defied belief. But the brazen introduction of full-screen hydration break ads arguably tops the lot.

From the moment the USA was confirmed as a co-host, there were light-hearted rumours that this beautiful game of two halves could be disfigured by the introduction of additional breaks for commercials, a la the NFL and NBA.

Elin Hilderbrand’s novel was published in 2023, and TV studios wasted no time in battling to bring the story to the small screen. Peacock won, and The Five-Star Weekend is set to be one of the hottest new drama series to hit streaming this summer.

Jennifer Garner leads a sterling cast including the likes of Timothy Olyphant, Gemma Chan, Regina Hall, and Chloe Sevigny in this story of grief and friendship set against the backdrop of a luxurious coastal landscape of Nantucket.

Truecaller has opened a public fight with India’s telecom regulator over rules governing caller ID apps, saying the country’s anti-spam framework is making it harder to protect consumers from unwanted calls in its biggest market.

On Wednesday, CEO Rishit Jhunjhunwala (pictured above) took to X to publicly challenge the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), accusing the watchdog of preventing Truecaller from displaying community-reported spam information for calls from the country’s dedicated 1400 and 1600 number series, a restriction he said had enabled abuse of those numbers and eroded trust in legitimate business calls.

The dispute stems from a framework introduced in 2024 under which India’s telecom authorities designated the 1400 and 1600 number series for commercial communications, with businesses using the former for telemarketing calls and the latter for service- and transaction-related calls. TRAI later mandated the migration to the dedicated numbering series, saying the move would help consumers identify legitimate business communications and curb spam and scam calls.

The framework was rolled out amid growing concerns over spam and scam calls in India, one of the world’s largest telecom markets, where regulators and telecom operators have rolled out multiple measures to curb fraudulent communications. Last year, the Indian communications ministry said authorities disconnected more than 2.1 million fraudulent mobile numbers and took action against more than 100,000 entities over the preceding year, underscoring the scale of the challenge.

Jhunjhunwala argued the policy has produced unintended consequences. Citing internal company data, he said consumers have increasingly lost trust in the designated number series, with Truecaller users ignoring 81% of calls from the 1400 series and 79% from the 1600 series over the past eight months. During the same period, users manually blocked 74 million calls from the two number series, while daily blocking actions against 1600-series numbers have more than tripled since October 2025, he said.

Unable to mark those numbers as spam, Truecaller instead introduced a “Frequently Blocked” badge to alert users when a number from the designated series has been blocked by many people.

The unusually public criticism came after Indian business daily The Economic Times reported that TRAI had sought powers under India’s Information Technology Act to take action against caller ID apps such as Truecaller, Hiya, and Whoscall for labeling numbers from the designated 1400 and 1600 series as spam.

TRAI and India’s Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, which would consider any such proposal, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The dispute comes at a pivotal time for Truecaller, whose core caller ID business has been facing growing regulatory and competitive pressures as the company expands into new products and services. India remains its largest market by a wide margin, with more than 350 million of its 500 million monthly active users based in the country, according to the company.

Jhunjhunwala said Truecaller would share its data with the Indian IT ministry as part of the regulatory process, arguing that any decision on caller ID apps should be evidence-based.

“Penalize the bad actors, not the ones like Truecaller that make a significant positive impact,” he wrote.

DuckDuckGo has spent the past few months gaining fresh attention as more users look for alternatives to Google’s increasingly AI-heavy Search experience. Now, the privacy-focused company is adding a feature that could make its browser even more tempting for everyday use. DuckDuckGo says its browser can now block most video ads, including those on YouTube, when a video is playing inside the browser.

What’s happening?

DuckDuckGo says the new YouTube ad detection and blocking system is based on open-source community filter lists from uBlock Origin. The company may also apply its own rules to make the feature work better inside its browser.

The feature will be turned on by default for most DuckDuckGo users on iPhone, Windows, and Mac. Android users will get the same default treatment soon, but they can manually enable it from the browser settings menu for now. Users on all platforms can also turn YouTube ad blocking on or off from settings.

There is one limitation here. You need to watch YouTube inside the DuckDuckGo browser for the feature to work, because the browser obviously cannot block ads inside the official YouTube app.

Better timing than ever

DuckDuckGo is rolling out this feature at a useful moment. The company recently saw a jump in interest after Google announced major AI changes to Search, including AI Overviews and a more conversational AI Mode. DuckDuckGo has been pitching itself as the browser and search alternative that gives users more control over how much AI they want.

Video ad blocking gives DuckDuckGo a more direct everyday benefit. Brave has made that pitch for years by blocking ads by default across the web, including on YouTube, and the approach has clearly found an audience. The browser recently crossed 120 million monthly active users.

DuckDuckGo is now moving in a similar direction, although it is being upfront about the tradeoffs. The company warns that users may see longer buffering times, and some hiccups could still appear. Even so, for users tired of video ads and Google’s AI push, DuckDuckGo just became a much more attractive option.

As a tech journalist and gear reviewer, something that has frustrated me from time to time is weird performance anomalies in review gear. Sometimes lossless audio wouldn’t be passed from a TV to a soundbar or the 4K/HDR/Dolby Vision flag wouldn’t be delivered to a TV from a UHD Blu-ray Disc player or 4K media player. In some cases, it’s just a matter of adjusting some settings, but in other cases, unreliable HDMI cables have prevented the full bandwidth signal from being delivered from source to display or sound system. And with the constant disconnecting/reconnecting we do when reviewing A/V gear, cheap HDMI connectors don’t always hold up over time.

But this is not to say that you need to drop a C-note (or more) on an HDMI cable. As in the high-end audio world, snake oil runs rampant in the TV and video market as well. As long as you are using an ultra high-speed rated cable (48 GBPS) with solid construction and beefy connectors, you should be good to go with 4K or even 8K video and fully lossless audio streams like multichannel PCM, Dolby Atmos, Dolby True HD, DTS:X and DTS-HD Master Audio.

But how can you tell if your HDMI cable is “good enough?” You could take your chances with a no-name cable brand on Amazon or eBay, or pay a little extra (or a lot extra) for a premium brand for “peace of mind.” But neither solution is ideal.

Fellow tech reviewer Caleb Denison (a.k.a. “Mr. CalebRated”) has also been frustrated by unreliable cables and obscenely overpriced ones. But he decided to take matters into his own hands by designing his own ultra high speed HDMI cable. Caleb partnered up with Dipin Sehdev (CE Critic) and Alex Pasco to develop a new line of HDMI cables called “CableRated.” And when I say “line,” it’s basically just one HDMI cable (for now) available in three different lengths.

Starting at $29.99 for a 1-meter cable, CableRated HDMI cables are HDCP 2.3-compatible and HDMI 2.1-capable but fully backward compatible with HDMI 1.4 and HDMI 2.0 for existing gear. They’re ultra high speed certified (up to 48 Gbps) and rated for 3D, 4K and 8K video signals including all flavors of HDR, both static and dynamic, such as Dolby Vision and HDMI 10+. Variable Refresh Rate (VRR) support eliminates screen tearing and stuttering, while Auto Low Latency Mode (ALLM) and Quick Frame Transport (QFT) ensure responsive, fluid gaming.

Quick Media Switching (QMS) support removes black screen delays when switching among devices. ARC (Audio Return Channel) and eARC (extended Audio Return Channel) support means your cable is ready for any type of sound, from basic 2-channel PCM to fully lossless multi-channel PCM, Dolby True HD, Dolby Atmos, DTS-HD Master Audio, DTS:X, MPEG-H, Eclipsa Audio, 360 Reality Audio and Auro-3D.

CableRated HDMI cables include gold-plated connectors encased in durable aluminum housings, a soft-touch aluminum-magnesium braided jacket, triple-layer shielding, and a low-EMI design to ensure long-term reliability.

According to Caleb, “We partnered with multiple manufacturers, ordered what felt like a sea of sample cables, and put them through the wringer — testing, routing, stressing, and even surgically dissecting them to separate meaningful engineering from empty promises. Signal integrity, construction quality, durability, connector design, flexibility, and long-term reliability were all part of our checklist.”

After months of testing, the final design and manufacturing partner were chosen and the cables were launched this week to consumers on the company’s web store. Caleb tells us he is exploring additional retail opportunities to help get the cables out to a wider audience. But for now, you can buy one (or three) for yourself at the company’s web site:

> CableRated.com

Note: eCoustics has no relationship to CableRated and earns no commission on sales through the above link.

The Bottom Line

In the early days of High Definition video, HDMI cables were all pretty much the same, but with the advent of 4K UHD video, VRR gaming, 8K video, HDR and lossless audio, all HDMI cables are no longer created equal. Today, the actual bandwidth of a cable can limit its performance and the construction of an HDMI cable actually matters, not only to its initial performance, but to its ability to hold up over time. But separating overpriced snake oil from solid, affordable high bandwidth cables can be tricky. With Caleb Denison’s track record for tech savviness and obvious commitment to quality and value, we’re optimistic that this new cable line will offer a solid value proposition and reliable performance. We plan on checking them out ourselves and will report back on our experience.

Related Reading:

Tech Reviewer Caleb Denison Says Goodbye to Digital Trends, Hello CalebRated

Best TVs of 2025? Podcast with Special Guest Caleb Denison of CalebRated

CalebRated Announces CableRated HDMI Cables (Substack)

AI and ML

With GPT-Live, talking, listening, and formulating answers all happen at once

OpenAI has released a new voice model that can produce human-sounding speech, or scour the web in response to spoken queries.

GPT-Live, according to the company, makes chatbot banter feel more like a real conversation, something of a bold move for a company battling multiple lawsuits alleging mental health harms because people took ChatGPT too seriously.

“During conversations, GPT‑Live can show it’s paying attention with phrases like ‘mhmm’ or ‘yeah’, engage in quick back-and-forth, or just stay quiet when you need a moment to think,” the company said in a blog post. “The result is a voice experience that is refreshingly easy to talk to.”

The company has published a video demonstrating this full duplex experience. It features three women of an age seldom seen at companies like OpenAI but often impacted by the kinds of scams AI technology enables.

OpenAI insists that it has expanded its safety testing regime to better assess native audio interactions. And it has published a system card to document its approach.

While OpenAI notes that it has policies and protections against voice cloning and impersonation, the company has not disavowed replicating a competing product from former CTO Mira Murati.

Murati’s company Thinking Machines in May talked up “interaction models” and how they can speak, listen, and search the web at the same time. Two months later, OpenAI has a similar offering.

If Apple were involved, we’d say Thinking Machines had been “Sherlocked,” a term from a time when copying a startup’s product stirred indignation. We’d suggest “Altmanned” as an alternative if it weren’t for the global shrug of indifference to frontier model companies capturing the world’s intellectual output, laundering it, and reselling it.

GPT-Live will delegate queries that require web search to a background model (GPT-5.5 presently) that processes the request while maintaining conversational flow with the user. The company’s hope is that this will allow voice interaction to drive more complicated, lengthy agentic workflows – which tend to inflate token usage and billing.

Whether an original idea, a parallel innovation, or a sincerely flattering imitation, GPT-Live’s full-duplex implementation represents an improvement in model architecture. “Instead of processing a sequence of separate messages, GPT‑Live continuously processes input while generating output,” OpenAI explains. “The model can therefore make interaction decisions many times per second: whether to speak, continue listening, pause, interrupt, or invoke a tool.”

It will be interesting to see whether security researchers find that this approach, of continuously processing input, allows for novel attack opportunities.

ChatGPT users can invoke GPT-Live by tapping the “Voice” button. OpenAI contends this experience will result in more natural conversations, better answers, improved listening, and visual feedback.

GPT-Live will appear in the iOS and Android ChatGPT apps, and on the web. A more capable version, GPT-Live-1, is the default for ChatGPT Voice for Go, Plus, and Pro users. Free-tier customers have to settle for GPT-Live-1 mini.

GPT-Live comes with a caveat – it has been optimized for popular languages and may not work all that well for “certain languages” yet. But now that the model has been made more responsive, any missteps should be noticeable a few milliseconds sooner. ®