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- 🤖Meta acquires Chinese AI startup Manus
🤖Meta acquires Chinese AI startup Manus
🦾Plus: ️Researchers make “neuromorphic” artificial skin for robots
Veer CH
December 30, 2025
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In today's edition: 🔥
🧠Researchers make “neuromorphic” artificial skin for robots
📺 Samsung brings Google Photos to AI TVs
💰 SoftBank buys DigitalBridge for $4B
📝 Notion Testing AI-First Workspaces
💡 AI Tutorial:Perform real-time market research using Grok
🤖5 AI Tools to check
🖼️ A.I. Generated Image of the Day
Meta, the company behind Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, has bought Manus, a Singapore-based startup owned by Beijing Butterfly Effect Technology,that makes a popular artificial intelligence (AI) agent. This move comes as Meta pushes to turn its big AI investments into real business results. The financial terms of the deal were not shared.
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Chinese researchers have created an artificial robotic skin that can sense pressure and locate input and injuries. The neuromorphic robotic e-skin (NRE-skin) is assembled from a collection of segments that snap together using magnetic interlocks, automatically linking up any necessary wiring.
Samsung has partnered with Google to bring Google Photos directly to its AI TV lineup, launching in 2026 as the first TVs to support Google Photos' Memories feature on the big screen. The integration will transform Samsung TVs into oversized digital frames that showcase curated photo stories organized by people, places, and moments.
SoftBank has agreed to acquire DigitalBridge for $4 billion, marking a major move into AI infrastructure. DigitalBridge manages about $108 billion in assets and focuses on digital infrastructure investments.
Notion is working on a major overhaul with dedicated tabs for AI chats, pages, and inbox in the sidebar. The early access program includes AI credits, usage tracking, and internal models with codenames like "Gingerbread Oreo Cheesecake."
What if the biggest unlock for your CPG brand isn’t a packaging refresh or a promo blitz — but creators telling the story your audience actually wants to hear? That’s exactly what happened when this everyday grocery staple shifted from traditional ads to a creator-led, UGC-powered strategy built for scale.
Instead of pushing polished product shots, the brand activated creators across food, lifestyle, and everyday routines - pairing premium gifting with seasonal moments and culturally relevant hooks. The result wasn’t just content; it was momentum. Snack boards, game-day recipes, self-care rituals, and kitchen-counter creativity started taking over feeds, delivering 560K+ views, 247K reach, 9K likes, 2K saves, and $58K EMV - all from authentic storytelling that felt like discovery, not advertising.
More importantly, it became repeatable. Mid-tier creators expanded visibility. Micro-influencers added warmth and trust. And with Creator.co managing recruitment, briefs, and delivery, the brand built a scalable content engine, everything from 71K-view recipe videos to 600+ save snack hacks. As one marketing leader put it: “The team is accessible, easy to work with, and provides frequent updates — all our data was right at our fingertips.”
When UGC becomes the heart of your strategy, your product stops blending in and starts belonging in the lives (and carts) of your consumers.
AI Tutorial
🧪 Perform real-time market research using Grok
The Rundown: In this tutorial, you will learn how to track Twitter trends and news stories from the last 24 hours with xAI's Grok, then automate daily research memos in Notion using Make for any trend or competitor.
Step-by-step:
Copy the Notion Database Template, then go to console.x.ai, create an API key, and fund your xAI account with at least $5
Download the Make blueprint file, log in to Make.com, create a new scenario, click the three dots → Import Blueprint, upload the JSON file, and save
Connect accounts: click the xAI Module 2 and add your API key, then click the Notion Module 3 and authorize access to your page from step 1
Set up the webhook: copy the webhook URL from Make's Webhook Module 1, go to Notion, click the lightning bolt → "Webhook trigger on new," replace the URL, and set it to trigger when Status = "Start Research"
Test by creating a new database row, filling out Research Topic, Date, Industry/Competitor, and Sources, then setting Status to "Start Research”
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🧠AI Research
[arXiv is a free online library where researchers share pre-publication papers]
Meta’s FAIR just published research on Self-play SWE-RL, a training method where a single AI model learns to code better by creating bugs for itself to solve with no human data needed.
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⚡️Quick AI News Roundup
🤖Prompt Engineering
🎯 Content creation
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⚡ A Toast to the Future
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