RADAR ARCHIVE

Week 42, 2026

3 tools added to the directory and 6 launches tracked, Oct 12 – 18, 2026.

Added to the directory (3)

Reviewed and written up.

Meta's first frontier model, for long-running agents, coding and computer use
New Added Oct 13, 2026
Muse Wonder is Meta Superintelligence Labs' October 12, 2026 model, a larger class than the Muse Spark line, released alongside a more capable Muse Wonder Full. Wonder is sold through the Meta Model API as muse-wonder-1.0 at $4 per million input tokens and $20 output ($0.20 cached input), with a one million token context window, and works with existing OpenAI SDK code by changing the base URL. It takes screenshots, charts, documents, images and video as input. Wonder Full is not on the API: it comes only with Muse Code's Power Usage and Maximum Usage plans. Both models will power Meta's Muse agent.
Why: It is Meta back at the frontier. At launch, VentureBeat reported, Artificial Analysis put Wonder a point behind GPT-6 Astra and Gemini 4 Argon on its Intelligence Index, and Wonder Full level with Claude Sonnet 5.5, behind only Claude Opus 5.5. Meta's own coding results are stronger still, and the API price matches Opus 5.5 per token.
Paid Best New Frontier Model From Meta Visit
Google's update to Nano Banana 2: better images and edits at half the price per image
New Added Oct 14, 2026
Nano Banana 2.1 is Google's October 6, 2026 update to Nano Banana 2 (Gemini 3.1 Flash Image), built on Gemini 3.6 Flash. It generates and edits images from text and reference images, at 1K, 2K and 4K, with multi-turn character consistency and optional grounding in Google Search. On the Gemini API it is gemini-nano-banana-2.1 at $30 per million image output tokens, which Google prices at about $0.034 per 1K image, $0.050 per 2K and $0.113 per 4K. It also runs in the Gemini app, Google AI Studio, AI Mode in Search, Flow and Stitch.
Why: It is a better model for less money. On the independent Artificial Analysis text-to-image arena it scores well above Nano Banana 2 and level with Grok Imagine Image 2.0 and MAI-Image-2.6, and Google's price per 1K image is about half Nano Banana 2's. Google lists it as the replacement for Nano Banana 2.
Freemium Best Value Image Model From Google Visit
Alibaba's open-weight 7B image model, cut to 8 steps for fast generation and editing
New Added Oct 14, 2026
Qwen-Image-2.1-Turbo is an accelerated checkpoint of Alibaba Qwen's Qwen-Image-2.1, released on October 9, 2026. It uses the same 7B architecture but generates in 8 denoising steps, and handles both text-to-image and image editing from a reference, up to 2752 x 1536 at 16:9 and 2048 x 2048 square. The weights are on Hugging Face and ModelScope and load in Diffusers.
Why: It is one of the few strong image models you can download and run yourself, and the 8-step schedule makes it fast enough to iterate with locally. The licence is the catch: it is research and evaluation only, so it suits experiments and in-house prototypes rather than a product.
Free Best Fast Open-Weight Image Model to Experiment With Visit

On the radar (6)

Reported in the daily briefing this week. Not reviewed for the directory.

The Verge 2026-10-12 9.47

Meta Releases Muse Wonder, Claiming a Return to the AI Frontier

Meta launched Muse Wonder and the more powerful Muse Wonder Full, its most capable AI models yet, with Mark Zuckerberg saying the company has caught up with rivals at the frontier. Only the standard Wonder is available through the Meta Model API, priced at $4 …

CNBC Technology 2026-10-12 7.52

Microsoft Unveils Maia 300 Chip to Cut Its Reliance on Nvidia

Microsoft unveiled Maia 300, its third-generation in-house AI accelerator, designed mainly for inference and slated to become the main platform for serving Copilot, GitHub Copilot, Microsoft Foundry and OpenAI models. The company claims about 40% more tokens p…

Liquid AI 2026-10-14

Liquid AI Releases 24B Open-Weight Model for Fast Local Agents

Liquid AI released LFM2.5-24B-A2B, a reasoning model with 24 billion total parameters, 2 billion active per token and a 131,072-token context window. The company reports 184 tokens per second on an Apple M5 Max and stronger results than larger rivals on severa…

NEURA Robotics 2026-10-14

NEURA Launches Neuron AI to Give Robots Touch, Sound and Memory

NEURA Robotics introduced Neuron AI, a foundation model combining 3D vision, touch, hearing, robot state and language with memory. It runs across five robot form factors, with skills distributed through the Neuraverse platform. NEURA says its 4NE1 humanoid dem…

AMD 2026-10-14

AMD Introduces Helion Racks Built to Run Fleets of AI Agents

AMD introduced Helion, an open rack design for agentic workloads powered by sixth-generation EPYC processors. Hyperscale configurations dedicate CPUs to agent execution, while enterprise racks combine CPUs with Instinct MI350P GPU inference nodes. An integrate…

CNBC Technology 2026-10-13

Apple Launches $299 HomeView Smart Display Built Around Siri AI

Apple unveiled HomeView, a $299 smart home display that serves as a showcase for its new AI-powered Siri, with pre-orders open now and shipping on November 13. The device comes in tabletop and wall-mounted versions with a 7-inch screen and an A18 chip, and it …