I’m not sure that the mass market shares the tech industry’s vision for smart glasses
One recent change among early-adopter circles was plain on the faces of many fellow attendees of Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Summit in Maui this week: “smart” glasses with cameras, microphones, speakers and sometimes screens. But then my flights home Friday reminded me that for the overwhelming majority of people, “eyewear” means electronics-free glasses.
Qualcomm’s invitation-only conference–that company paid my airfare and lodging, as it did on my prior trips to cover it in 2021, 2022 and 2024–allowed me to get some brief face time with Snap’s Spectacles ’24, running newer software than the version I tried at last year’s summit. The event also treated me to a parade of tech execs testifying that smart glasses were the next big computing platform.
On one hand, smart glasses with cameras, speakers and microphones are not particularly cheap–the Ray-Ban-branded models from the conglomerate EssilorLuxottica cost $379 and up–but perform worse than phones at taking pictures and playing audio.
Plus, they have the potential to annoy friends and strangers who aren’t keen on the possibility of surreptitious photography.
On the other hand, more advanced smart glasses with built-in displays could finally make hands-free augmented-reality overviews of the world a reality, but first somebody has to bring them to market at a not-crazy price. Snap’s Spectacles, which require a $99/month developer subscription, are not there; Meta’s Ray-Ban Display glasses, available starting Tuesday for $799, aren’t that much closer.
And somebody also has to solve battery-life concerns: What’s my motivation to strap a computer to my face, however stylish it might get, if that electronic eyewear will only run six hours on a charge and therefore need recharging much more often than my phone?
But Meta has also been so spectacularly wrong about consumer-electronics trends–topped by Mark Zuckerberg renaming Facebook to “Meta” and losing tens of billions of dollars on the delusional notion that people want to spend prolonged time in virtual-reality environments–that Zuck pushing smart glasses itself seems reason to eye the concept skeptically. Through dumb, software-free glasses.
"empleOS was a unique operating system created entirely from scratch by programmer Terry A. Davis, who worked on it for more than a decade. Released in 2005, it featured its own kernel, compiler, and programming language called “HolyC,” all designed to run at a resolution of 640x480 with 16 colors. Davis, who was open about his struggles with schizophrenia, believed the system was a modern-day Temple of God and said it was designed according to divine instructions"
The image features a tweet from "Past Preserved" ([@]PastPreserved) about Temple OS, an operating system developed by Terry Davis in 2005. The tweet highlights that Davis, a software engineer with schizophrenia, built the system from the ground up. The image includes a photo of a young man, likely Davis, holding a CRT monitor, and a screenshot of the Temple OS interface. The OS interface displays a cross with the text "Temple OS V5.03" and "Public Domain Operating System," along with various menu options and a "CLOSE" button. The screenshot also shows a text editor with code and a list of programs, including "Adventure Dungeon" and "Paballax Quest."
Provided by @altbot, generated privately and locally using Ovis2-8B
La gente buena eran los mejores nazis. Mi madre creció junto a ellos. Se llevaban bien, se negaban a causar problemas, miraban hacia otro lado cuando las cosas se ponían feas y se centraban en cosas más felices que la política.
Eran gente encantadora que hacía la vista gorda cuando se llevaban a sus vecinos.
¿Sabes quiénes no eran buena gente? Los que resistieron.
After two days in Greek waters for repairs and provisioning, the Global Sumud Flotilla sails once more. With the Greek ships alongside us, we are complete and moving together toward Gaza. Brothers and sisters in Gaza, we sail with hope in our hearts. Your resilience is our compass, your struggle is our struggle. Together, we will break the silence of the siege.
"Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s surprise gathering of hundreds of generals and admirals in Virginia next week is being called so he can describe the administration’s reinvention of the Department of Defense as the “Department of War” and outline new standards for military personnel, according to half a dozen people familiar with the planning": cnn.com/2025/09/26/politics/he… #NationalSecurity #military #danger #politics
The vessels of the Global Sumud Flotilla, Yulara & Catalina, are back on course after a brief stop to assess mechanical issues. They are now just 463 nautical miles from Gaza, with an estimated arrival in 4–7 days. In two days, the flotilla will enter the high-risk zone, where global vigilance and solidarity are most needed.
Every update matters. Every witness matters. Please keep your eyes on them—their safety depends on the world watching.
Share this message far and wide.
Join us. Stop the Genocide. Keep your eyes on Gaza.
Sounded like some good features are being added to the #DuckDuckGo browser, so I opened it again on iOS and loaded a test page (CNA news). User settings are set to max #privacy, but DDG still loaded 12 "third party requests," which were mainly analytics and advertising cookies. Sorry DDG, you're still not acting at all like you have "best privacy" in mind. #tech
"but the #US spends So Much Money on its #military, surely it must have superior #tech and resources to everyone else" what if I told u that 90% of US defense spending goes into stupid #grifts and #boondoggles exactly like the rest of the US #economy
Thinking about all this stuff where people are trying to link #vaccines and other #medicines (like the mellinia old #tylenol) to the supposedly large increase in the rate of #autism, and it's reminding me of something...
When my mother was #pregnant with my older brother, there was some sort of gas leak, and she was exposed to fumes which gave her headaches over several months. My mother was otherwise not really exposed to many drugs: she remembered the #thalidomide scandal. When my brother was a baby, he began displaying #autistic behaviors before he had his first #vaccine.
What occurs to me as I think about it now is, there is a lot of talk about commonplace and relatively safe #medications and vaccines supposedly causing autism to climb significantly (of which I have doubts), but none of these people seem to be talking about the various and increasingly exotic #pollution that pregnant women are exposed to on a regular basis...
My inner #conspiracy theorist wonders if this is somehow by design, if maybe the #OilIndustry or other #corporations responsible for all this #pollution in the air and water from #coal, #lead, #fracking, and other #industry which cause exotic #chemicals to be dumped into the environment are actively encouraging people to pay attention to this, and not the pollution factor. Clearly, they have a vested interest in us not asking the question, "Could coal plants and fracking be causing autism?"
Of course, it's also #conservatives who are far more concerned about this, as, from what I can tell, most of people's issues with #autism aren't actually behaviors that are far outside what seems to be natural for human beings, but the fact that autistic people are more likely to behave in ways that are outside the conservative cultural norm.
We saw this with #masking during the first year of the ongoing #COVID epidemic, when people who supposedly didn't have autism went through autism like meltdowns over being asked to wear masks and make some minor lifestyle and schedule changes. Suddenly, it didn't seem like autism was a behavioral issue, just a typical response to sensory overload in a society that isn't geared to sensitive people: when everything is uncomfortable, you're going to act like someone who is being put through extreme discomfort... Like these non-autistic people jumping on tables while screaming and ripping off their clothes because they were asked to wear a mask.
So, If you need a zinger here, tldr, conservatives may be polluting themselves into having to deal with more people who do things they don't like, and blaming modern medicine to keep the corporations off the hook.
But seriously, we should probably be drawing more attention to the fact that pollution is causing in utero and early childhood brain damage, just at it was with leaded gasoline, and that, if autism rates actually are increasing (again, there is no conclusive evidence they are), there is actual scientific study linking pollution to it.
Exposure to fine particulate air pollution has been linked with significantly increased risk of autism spectrum disorder in children, particularly if exposure occurs during the third trimester of pregnancy or during early childhood, according to a me…
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Scanning all messages, photos and files, without consent or even suspicion is a major breach of our right to privacy and a huge security threat. Nevertheless, the European lawmakers are still pushing through with the so-called Chat Control legislation. Under the pretence that it would protect kids from online abuse, all checks and balances for the protection of our privacy are dismantled. And scientists already concluded that Chat Control will not work.
It undermines the democracy, in its peoples ability to do those checks. Coordinated in private communications have been around for longer than Democracy itself. Now the ability to do those remotely (Online) is in danger, and the technology to execute on ‘Chat Control’ exists.
We propose legislation of another approach. Limiting our Governments’ abilities is one of the methods to apply law, so legislature to forbid our governments from using this technology should be developed.
Tuesday 30 September 18.30h CEST – Hosted by Pirate MEP Markéta Gregorová (Greens/EFA)
Guest experts:
Carmela Troncoso – from the Security and Privacy Engineering (SPRING) Laboratory. It is a research group at EPFL – École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland
Joachim – Representative of the Fight Chat Control initiative; will bring the citizen’s perspective on how public pressure shapes the debate.
Udbhav Tiwari – VP, Strategy and Global Affairs, Signal
Asha Allen – Director of The Centre for Democracy & Technology (CDT) Europe
The government should not have access to all the messages or photos you send. Period.
#GuteNacht liebe Tröties und Toots! #dreigutedingedestages - viel Zeit für die Entdeckung der Leica Welt genommen und beeindruckende Fotos gesehen - herzhaft über gute jiddische Witze gelacht - ein köstliches Abendessen 🧆🍷verspeist. Schlaft bunt und träumt schön 🌈 ✨ 😴 💤 💫 🐈⬛
1992 fing Manfred Becker als Assessor beim RP Gießen an und bezog das freistehende Büro des Juristen der Abteilung Inneres neben meinem Büro als stellvertretende Personalratsvorsitzende. Ein Mensch, immer mit dem Blick für das Wesentliche, einer sehr schnellen Auffassungsgabe, Sinn für die Realität und viel Menschenkenntnis, so durfte ich ihn kennen und schätzen lernen.
Seit 2015 wurden über 320.000 Geflüchtete in Hessen aufgenommen. Eine enorme Belastung für die Mitarbeiter der Erstaufnahmeeinrichtung in Gießen – und für die Flüchtlinge umso mehr.
Podcast: 2 Pals & A Pod Hosts: Dr Randa Abdel-Fattah and Sara Saleh Category: News & Current Affairs Sub-Category: Commentary & Conversations, Culture &
Current issues of Belarus-Singapore cooperation were discussed during a meeting between Belarusian Minister of Foreign Affairs Maxim Ryzhenkov and Singaporean Minister for Foreign Affairs Vivian Balakrishnan in New York.
Hey, @dino - I’ve just found your app available in the Bazaar app store on Bazzite. It’s great! So glad to have a modern #XMPP client on at least one of my systems. Thank you!
It's been extremely warm (again) over global land areas so far this year. Here's a comparison against every other average January-August period since at least 1850...
The NOAA Merged Land Ocean Global Surface Temperature Analysis (NOAAGlobalTemp, formerly known as MLOST) combines long-term sea surface (water) temperature (SST) and land surface (air) temperature datasets to create a complete, accurate depiction of …
De éstos tengo que filtrar las "noticias" de la farándula, de aquéllos las de fútbol, de los de más allá las que refieren a "IA" o soja o usinas fotovoltaicas o Liga de las Naciones, tal persona es centrada y sensata pero perora a repetición sobre juegos y series. Harta.
(Y ni hablar de la cobertura cobarde de hechos "internacionales". Desde la Gran Guerra no hemos aprendido gran cosa, salvo a mentir con más disimulo.)
"Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte" wird von der bpb herausgegeben. Die Zeitschrift veröffentlicht Beiträge zu zeitgeschichtlichen und sozialwissenschaftlichen Themen und aktuellen politischen Fragen.
"...Vor den UN behauptet der russische Außenminister, westliche Politiker würden Angriffe auf Russland vorbereiten.
Lawrow war eigentlich pragmatisch. Es stellt sich die Frage, warum er nun so gaga ist! Ist seine Familie Geisel von Putin? Immerhin möglich, bei den ganzen Fensterunfällen in RuZZland! Oder ist er senil?
Vor den UN behauptet der russische Außenminister, westliche Politiker würden Angriffe auf Russland vorbereiten. Sein Land werde entschlossen auf Aggressionen reagieren.
Aside from Alphabet’s own forays into AI, they’re also selling pickaxes to most other AI prospectors.
It’s a story deSouza likes to tell in numbers. In a conversation with this editor, he notes several times that nine out of the top 10 AI labs use Google’s infrastructure. He also says that nearly all generative AI unicorns run on Google Cloud, that 60% of all GenAI startups worldwide have chosen Google as their cloud provider, and that the company has lined up $58 billion in new revenue commitments over the next two years, which represents more than double its current annual run rate.
Asked what percentage of Google Cloud’s revenue comes from AI companies, he offers instead that “AI is resetting the cloud market, and Google Cloud is leading the way, especially with startups.”
The strategy extends beyond simple customer acquisition. Google offers AI startups $350,000 in cloud credits, access to its technical teams, and go-to-market support through its marketplace. Google Cloud also provides what deSouza describes as a “no compromise” AI stack — from chips to models to applications — with an “open ethos” that gives customers choice at every layer.
The approach reflects both opportunity and necessity. In a market where companies can go “from being a startup to being a multibillion-dollar company in a very short period of time,” as deSouza puts it, capturing future unicorns before they mature could prove more valuable than fighting over today’s giants.
“Companies love the fact that they can get access to our AI stack, they can get access to our teams to understand where our technologies are going,” deSouza says during our interview. “They also love that they’re getting access to enterprise-grade Google class infrastructure.”
Google’s infrastructure play got even more ambitious recently, with reporting revealing the company’s behind-the-scenes maneuvering to expand its custom AI chip business. According to The Information, Google has struck deals to place its tensor processing units (TPUs) in other cloud providers’ data centers for the first time, including an agreement with London-based Fluidstack that includes up to $3.2 billion in financial backing for a New York facility.
Competing directly with AI companies while simultaneously providing them infrastructure requires … finesse. Google Cloud provides TPU chips to OpenAI and hosts Anthropic’s Claude model through its Vertex AI platform, even as its own Gemini models compete head-to-head with both. (Google Cloud’s parent company, Alphabet, also owns a 14% stake in Anthropic, per New York Times court documents obtained earlier this year, though when asked directly about Google’s financial relationship with Anthropic, deSouza calls the relationship a “multi-layered partnership,” then quickly redirects me to Google Cloud’s model marketplace, noting that customers can access various foundation models.)
While the industry's biggest players cement ever-tighter partnerships, Google is hell-bent on capturing the next generation of AI companies before they become too big to court.
I don't think they're trying to get in on the ground floor of the new paradigm, I think they have to make AI work or the whole economy blows up and so they're going all in.
I've been a BSD user for a long time, even back to the early 2000s when I ran FreeBSD instead of Linux on my Abit BP6.
That was the era I also using NetBSD and OpenBSD on a variety of hardware, some of which I still have. E.g. a VaxStation, SUN IPX, PA-RISC HP 9000, etc.
In the last year or so I've had FreeBSD with sway on a laptop.
Casey Newton's annual updates are always great. This year, perhaps predictably, the biggest highlight for me is his ambitions around community. We need stronger community platforms to support newsrooms. werd.io/what-i-learned-in-the-…
Casey Newton's annual updates are always great. This year, perhaps predictably, the biggest highlight for me is his ambitions around community. We need stronger community platforms to support newsrooms.
Damn... Finally I am also affected by this stupid #YouTube automatic title #translation. Even if I open links on phone in NewPipe... I saw some subtitles translated instead of original ones too. I guess I will see their stupid dubbing soon... I don't have any accounts for 6 years and use Firefox cookie-autodelete on desktop.
@madargon: moreover, if your interface language is set to English -- YouTube also enables the god damn automatically generated dubbing. This is what's heavily criticised by a lot of people as I noticed.
First time I saw that with one of Polish YouTubers, I thought he launched an English language section of his channel. But no, I later discovered the English dubbing has been enabled without my knowledge.
Plus the automatically generated voice is uhhh... pretty bland, to say the least. As if you were watching a movie narrated by someone to whom emotions are next to unknown.
Altbot
in reply to kopimi • • •The image features a tweet from "Past Preserved" ([@]PastPreserved) about Temple OS, an operating system developed by Terry Davis in 2005. The tweet highlights that Davis, a software engineer with schizophrenia, built the system from the ground up. The image includes a photo of a young man, likely Davis, holding a CRT monitor, and a screenshot of the Temple OS interface. The OS interface displays a cross with the text "Temple OS V5.03" and "Public Domain Operating System," along with various menu options and a "CLOSE" button. The screenshot also shows a text editor with code and a list of programs, including "Adventure Dungeon" and "Paballax Quest."
Provided by @altbot, generated privately and locally using Ovis2-8B
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