Sustainability

Meta Intros Ray-Ban AR Display Glasses, Tik Tok’s New Deal, $200 Million For Nothing

The Nation Times Team
Meta Intros Ray-Ban AR Display Glasses, Tik Tok’s New Deal, 0 Million For Nothing


Tik Tok US To Be Sold To American Oligarchs Larry Ellison and Marc Andressen. In one of many more strange sideshows of the Trump period, Tik Tok’s destiny has been determined, and never by Congress, which handed a regulation to close down its entry to the US. For kicks, let’s rewind and evaluate the deal within the works, and the way we received right here. Congress handed and the Supreme Court docket upheld a regulation requiring TikTok’s Chinese language proprietor, ByteDance, to divest TikTok or be banned. Donald Trump then delayed enforcement and pushed for a negotiated sale topic to Chinese language authorities approval. The rising deal arms roughly 80% of TikTok’s U.S. operations to a consortium led by Oracle, Silver Lake, and Andreessen Horowitz. Trump buddies Larry Ellison and Marc Andreessen can be amongst its strongest new homeowners. TikTok stays politically charged: a 2024 investigation by the Guardian found its algorithm highly sensitive, capable of steering even a new user down a hard-right rabbit hole. Critics say that till the deal is finalized and ByteDance’s stake is absolutely resolved, Beijing nonetheless retains leverage over a platform utilized by 170 million Individuals.

Meta unveiled its first AI glasses with a built-in display, the Meta Ray-Ban Display, paired with the Neural Band, a wrist-worn controller using surface EMG to let users silently type and interact with subtle finger movements. The monocular microdisplay delivers 42 pixels per diploma and 5,000-nit brightness, brilliant sufficient for outside use, and disappears when not in use. The Neural Band runs 18 hours and is waterproof. You get the entire shebang for $800. Zuck additionally launched Oakley Meta Vanguard glasses for athletes, whereas Gen 2 Ray-Ban Meta glasses add 3K video and purposes like wayfinding, cooking and translation. Stay demos on stage had hiccups, together with a failed video name and a stalled AI cooking assistant, which executives later blamed on Wi-Fi. Regardless of the rationalization, customers ought to count on this type of friction from a brand new system, even one which prices $800. Preliminary reviews of short demos at Meta Connect are mixed.

Nothing has raised $200 million in a Series C round at a $1.3 billion valuation, led by Tiger Global with Qualcomm Ventures and Indian investor Nikhil Kamath joining existing backers GV, EQT Ventures, and Highland Europe. Based in 2020 by OnePlus co-founder Carl Pei, the London-based startup makes transparent-cased smartphones and earbuds that includes its Glyph Interface and has bought greater than 7 million units worldwide. The corporate was the fastest-growing smartphone model in India final 12 months, fueled by its Cellphone 2a and CMF funds line. Nothing plans an “AI-native” working system and units launching in 2026. Earlier rounds embrace a $70 million Sequence B in 2022 and $96 million in 2023 from Highland Europe, GV, EQT, Latitude, and different international buyers.

Snap CEO Evan Spiegel Bets The Company on Specs. Gulp. Snap is betting huge on its Spectacles AR glasses, calling the upcoming Gen-6 “Specs” a pivotal product in what CEO Evan Spiegel describes as a “crucible second” for the corporate. The brand new Specs, anticipated in 2026, promise to be smaller, lighter, with see-through optics and a built-in AI assistant. The present fifth gen Spectacles are dev-kit units with 45-minute battery life; Snap OS 2.0 provides options like a browser overhaul, spatial anomaly UI, speech and textual content translation, and “Spatial Ideas.” Spiegel frames Specs not as “telephones in glasses” however as a brand new computing paradigm, “AI-first, contextual, shared.”As Snap gears up for public launch, Specs are central to its future past smartphones. Oddsmakers taking bets DM me.

Nintendo is resurrecting the Virtual Boy as a Switch and Switch 2 accessory, launching February 17, 2026. Gamers can select a $99.99 plastic duplicate or a $24.99 cardboard mannequin, echoing Nintendo Labo. Fourteen basic video games, together with Mario’s Tennis, Teleroboxer, and Galactic Pinball, will roll out through Nintendo Swap On-line + Enlargement Pack, although not all at launch. The revival provides gamers an opportunity to expertise Nintendo’s most notorious console flop, now with higher {hardware} and luxury. It’s a nostalgia transfer and one other signal that immersive experiences are creeping again into the mainstream by way of gaming quite than devoted XR headsets.

Unbelievable product introduction video for Hololuminescent™ Shows from Wanting Glass, which makes 3D displays used to create volumetric video, media and interactive experiences utilizing normal instruments, deploy content material on present video infrastructure and show it as 3D holograms on Wanting Glass HLDs. This implies 3D software program pipelines are not required to create immersive visualizations. First adopters pay a premium worth for a premium new expertise product. Wanting Glass’s Hololuminescent Shows can be obtainable in This fall, and can begin at $2000 for a 16” show. 27” and 86” shows may also be obtainable.

A On this brief, created by GenAI artist MetaPuppet, an agoraphobic man believes that the 9 flooring of his Brooklyn residence constructing are the 9 circles of Hell, and that the tenants are demons he should defeat to flee.

This column has a companion, The AI/XR Podcast, hosted by its creator, Charlie Fink, and Ted Schilowitz, former studio government and futurist not too long ago at Paramount and Fox, and Rony Abovitz, founding father of Magic Leap. This week’s visitor is Tricia Biggio, CEO of Invisible Universe. We might be discovered on Spotify, iTunes, and YouTube.



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