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A leaked Meta video revealed upcoming "Meta Ray-Ban Display" smart glasses with a monocular HUD and sEMG wristband control, set to debut at Connect 2025 for around $800. Despite past hesitation, it looks like EssilorLuxottica has agreed to co-brand after Meta invested $3.5 billion in the company, taking a 3% stake. UploadVR reports: Meta's HUD glasses with the sEMG wristband will in fact be Ray-Ban branded, a leaked video which also depicts the HUD and wristband in action reveals. A quickly removed unlisted video on Meta's YouTube channel showed what will soon be Meta and EssilorLuxottica's full lineup: - The regular Ray-Ban Meta glasses. - The recently-launched Oakley Meta HSTN glasses. - The rumored Oakley Meta Sphaera glasses, with eye protection and a centered camera. - The rumored monocular heads-up display (HUD) glasses controlled by Meta's long-in-development sEMG wristband, which are labeled as "Meta Ray-Ban" with the word "Display" underneath. The smart glasses are expected to be made official during the Meta Connect 2025 keynote at 5pm PT on Wednesday.

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Robinhood has filed with the SEC to launch "Robinhood Ventures Fund I," a publicly traded fund designed to give retail investors access to startup shares before IPOs. TechCrunch reports: While the current version of the application is public, Robinhood hasn't filled in the fine-print yet. This means we don't know how many shares it plans to sell, nor other details like the management fee it plans to charge. It's also unclear which startups it hopes this fund will eventually hold. The paperwork says it "expects" to invest in aerospace and defense, AI, fintech, robotics as well as software for consumers and enterprises. Robinhood's big pitch is that retail investors are being left out of the gains that are amassed by startup investors like VCs. That's true to an extent. "Accredited investors" -- or those with a net worth large enough to handle riskier investments -- already have a variety of ways of buying equity in startups, such as with venture firms like OurCrowd. Retail investors that are not rich enough to be accredited have more limited options. There are funds similar to what Robinhood has proposed, including Cathy Wood's ARK Venture Fund, a mutual fund which holds stakes in companies like Anthropic, Databricks, OpenAI, SpaceX, and others. [...] This new closed-end "Ventures Fund I" is a more classic, mutual fund-style, approach. As to when Robinhood's new fund will be available we don't know that either yet.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Carla Rover once spent 30 minutes sobbing after having to restart a project she vibe coded. Rover has been in the industry for 15 years, mainly working as a web developer. She's now building a startup, alongside her son, that creates custom machine learning models for marketplaces. She called vibe coding a beautiful, endless cocktail napkin on which one can perpetually sketch ideas. But dealing with AI-generated code that one hopes to use in production can be "worse than babysitting," she said, as these AI models can mess up work in ways that are hard to predict. She had turned to AI coding in a need for speed with her startup, as is the promise of AI tools. "Because I needed to be quick and impressive, I took a shortcut and did not scan those files after the automated review," she said. "When I did do it manually, I found so much wrong. When I used a third-party tool, I found more. And I learned my lesson." She and her son wound up restarting their whole project -- hence the tears. "I handed it off like the copilot was an employee," she said. "It isn't." Rover is like many experienced programmers turning to AI for coding help. But such programmers are also finding themselves acting like AI babysitters -- rewriting and fact-checking the code the AI spits out. A recent report by content delivery platform company Fastly found that at least 95% of the nearly 800 developers it surveyed said they spend extra time fixing AI-generated code, with the load of such verification falling most heavily on the shoulders of senior developers. These experienced coders have discovered issues with AI-generated code ranging from hallucinating package names to deleting important information and security risks. Left unchecked, AI code can leave a product far more buggy than what humans would produce. Working with AI-generated code has become such a problem that it's given rise to a new corporate coding job known as "vibe code cleanup specialist." TechCrunch spoke to experienced coders about their time using AI-generated code about what they see as the future of vibe coding. Thoughts varied, but one thing remained certain: The technology still has a long way to go. "Using a coding co-pilot is kind of like giving a coffee pot to a smart six-year-old and saying, 'Please take this into the dining room and pour coffee for the family,'" Rover said. Can they do it? Possibly. Could they fail? Definitely. And most likely, if they do fail, they aren't going to tell you. "It doesn't make the kid less clever," she continued. "It just means you can't delegate [a task] like that completely." Further reading: The Software Engineers Paid To Fix Vibe Coded Messes

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The Internet Archive has reached a confidential settlement with Universal Music Group and other major labels, "ending a closely watched copyright battle over the nonprofit's effort to digitize and stream historic recordings," reports the San Francisco Chronicle. From the report: The case (PDF), UMG Recordings, Inc. v. Internet Archive, targeted the Archive's Great 78 Project, an initiative to digitize more than 400,000 fragile shellac records from the early 20th century. The collection includes music by artists such as Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday, and has been made available online for free public access. Record labels including Universal, Sony Music Entertainment and Capitol Records had sought $621 million in damages, arguing the Archive's streaming of these recordings constituted copyright infringement. The Internet Archive, based in San Francisco's Richmond District, describes itself as a digital library dedicated to providing "universal access to all knowledge." Its director of library services, Chris Freeland, acknowledged the settlement in a brief statement. "The parties have reached a confidential resolution of all claims and will have no further public comment on this matter," he wrote.

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Regional internet registry faces numerous critics and isn’t out of the legal woods

The African Network Information Center (AFRINIC) last week held elections and announced the appointment of eight directors, which means it has a chance to convene a board for the first time since 2022.…

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Politico: In roughly six weeks, three California Democrats, a labor head and two ride-hailing leaders managed to pull off what would have been unthinkable just one year prior: striking a deal between labor unions and their longtime foes, tech giants Uber and Lyft. California lawmakers announced the agreement in late August, paving a path for ride-hailing drivers to unionize as labor wanted, in exchange for the state drastically reducing expensive insurance coverage mandates protested by the companies. It earned rare public support from Gov. Gavin Newsom and received final approval from state lawmakers this week. The swift speed of the negotiating underscores what was at risk: the prospect of yet another nine-figure ballot measure campaign or lengthy court battle between two deeply entrenched sides, according to interviews with five people involved in the talks. Their accounts shed new light on how the deal came together: how the talks started, who was in the room, and the lengths they went to in order to turn around such a quick proposal -- from taking video meetings while recovering from surgery to the unexpected aid of one lawmaker's newborn baby. "This was really quite fast," said Ramona Prieto, Uber's chief policy expert in Sacramento. "It wasn't like this was months of negotiating." The landmark proposal is only the second time a state has reached such a framework for Uber and Lyft drivers, after Massachusetts did so in 2024. And unlike Massachusetts, it came together without reverting to a ballot fight. California already saw its most expensive ballot measure effort to date in 2020, when Uber and Lyft spent more than $200 million backing an initiative to bar app-based workers from being classified as traditional employees, known as Proposition 22. Its passage sparked a legal challenge from labor leaders that wasn't resolved until July 2024, when California's Supreme Court affirmed the ballot measure's constitutionality. [...] But the compromise still faces hurdles ahead. A recent lawsuit has raised fresh scrutiny of how the deal came together and what truly motivated it. Further criticism from those left out of the negotiating room is putting dealmakers on the defense as they try to sell it more widely. Plus, the final deal isn't what some labor leaders hoped when they first set out to strengthen drivers' rights in 2019. [...] And while the deal allows gig workers to unionize, that doesn't guarantee the necessary 10 percent of the state's 800,000 ride-hailing drivers actually will. Many who drive for Uber and Lyft do so part-time, and labor leaders acknowledge the challenge of organizing a disparate population that doesn't have a space to meet one another.

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404 Media: A data broker owned by the country's major airlines, including American Airlines, United and Delta, is selling access to five billion plane ticketing records to the government for warrantless searching and monitoring of peoples' movements, including by the FBI, Secret Service, ICE, and many other agencies, according to a new contract and other records reviewed by 404 Media. The contract provides new insight into the scale of the sale of passengers' data by the Airlines Reporting Corporation (ARC), the airlines-owned data broker. The contract shows ARC's data includes information related to more than 270 carriers and is sourced through more than 12,800 travel agencies. ARC has previously told the government to not reveal to the public where this passenger data came from, which includes peoples' names, full flight itineraries, and financial details. "Americans' privacy rights shouldn't depend on whether they bought their tickets directly from the airline or via a travel agency. ARC's sale of data to U.S. government agencies is yet another example of why Congress needs to close the data broker loophole by passing my bipartisan bill, the Fourth Amendment Is Not For Sale Act," Senator Ron Wyden told 404 Media in a statement.

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Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced that the U.S. and China have reached a tentative "framework" agreement on TikTok's U.S. operations, with Presidents Trump and Xi set to finalize details Friday. "It's between two private parties, but the commercial terms have been agreed upon," he said. The update comes two days before TikTok parent company ByteDance faces a Sept. 17 deadline to divest the platform's U.S. business or potentially be shut down in the country. The deadline may need to be pushed back yet again to get the deal signed. CNBC reports: Both President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping will meet Friday to discuss the terms. Trump also said in a Truth Social post Monday that a deal was reached "on a 'certain' company that young people in our Country very much wanted to save." Bessent indicated the framework could pivot the platform to U.S.-controlled ownership. China's lead trade negotiator, Li Chenggang, confirmed the framework deal was in place and said the U.S. should not continue to suppress Chinese companies, according to Reuters.

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Microsoft is adding the free Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat and agents to Office apps for all Microsoft 365 business users today. From a report: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and OneNote are all being updated with a Copilot Chat sidebar that will help draft documents, analyze spreadsheets, and more without needing an additional Microsoft 365 Copilot license. "Copilot Chat is secure AI chat grounded in the web -- and now, it's available in the Microsoft 365 apps," explains Seth Patton, general Manager of Microsoft 365 Copilot product marketing. "It's content aware, meaning it quickly understands what you're working on, tailoring answers to the file you have open. And it's included at no additional cost for Microsoft 365 users." While this free version of Copilot will rewrite documents, provide summaries, and help create slides in PowerPoint, the $30 per month, per user Microsoft 365 Copilot license will still have the best integration in Office apps. The Microsoft 365 Copilot license is also not limited to a single document, and can reason over entire work data.

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Secretive app + unreliable tech + Trump administration policies = ANGRY LETTER

A group of senators has penned a sternly-worded letter to the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) saying that they're very worried about the agency's use of facial recognition in its mission to cleanse the nation of immigrants with improper documents. …

Lead times for high-capacity hard drives have exceeded 52 weeks as AI workloads drive unprecedented demand for warm storage that sits between fast SSDs and offline tape archives, according to TrendForce. Western Digital notified customers of price increases across its entire hard drive portfolio citing demand for "every capacity" in its product line. The shortage stems from AI infrastructure requirements including training datasets, model checkpoints and inference logs that consume petabytes of storage space. These files are too large for primary SSD storage but must remain accessible for quick retrieval. Hard drive manufacturers have not significantly expanded production capacity in approximately a decade. Cloud service providers are evaluating QLC SSDs for cold data storage despite costs remaining four to five times higher per gigabyte than mechanical drives. Memory suppliers are developing SSD products specifically for this intermediate storage tier.

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Cautionary tale from the recent SonicWall attacks

Failing to encrypt sensitive data leaves you wide open to attack. During the recent SonicWall attack spree, intruders bypassed multi-factor authentication (MFA) in at least one case, because a user's recovery codes were left sitting in a plaintext file on their desktop.…

President Donald Trump called Monday for companies to report earnings every six months instead of quarterly. Trump posted on social media that semi-annual reporting would save money and let managers focus on running companies. The SEC mandated quarterly reports in 1970. Trump made similar comments in 2018 that prompted SEC public comment but no regulatory changes. Critics argue quarterly reporting increases costs and encourages short-term thinking. Supporters say frequent disclosures maintain investor trust and reduce market manipulation risks. Further reading: The Renewed Bid To End Quarterly Earnings Reports.

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Breathe deep on internet fumes

Discarded vapes are becoming the new cigarette butts in pollution terms, but a hacker has found a novel way to repurpose the chips they contain to build a web server.…

Toxic fumes from jet engines are leaking into aircraft cabins at an accelerating rate, reaching 108 incidents per million departures in 2024 compared to 12 in 2014, a Wall Street Journal investigation found. The fumes contain neurotoxins and carbon monoxide that have caused brain injuries in crew members. JetBlue flight attendant Florence Chesson suffered permanent neurological damage after inhaling engine oil vapors in 2018, diagnosed by neurologists as equivalent to an NFL linebacker's concussion. The surge is driven by Airbus A320 aircraft, particularly the A320neo model introduced in 2016. WSJ reports Airbus loosened maintenance requirements under airline pressure despite knowing the changes would increase incidents. The FAA received over 700 fume event reports from major U.S. airlines in 2024. Most commercial jets except Boeing's 787 use a "bleed air" system that pulls cabin air through engines.

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A third of UK employers are using "bossware" technology to track workers' activity with the most common methods including monitoring emails and web browsing. From a report: Private companies are most likely to deploy in-work surveillance and one in seven employers are recording or reviewing screen activity, according to a UK-wide survey that estimates the extent of office snooping. The findings, shared with the Guardian by the Chartered Management Institute (CMI), are based on responses from hundreds of UK managers and suggest there has been a recent growth in computerised work surveillance. In 2023, less than a fifth of people thought they were being monitored by an employer, the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) found. The finding that about a third of managers report their organisations are monitoring workers' online activities on employer-owned devices is probably an underestimate, as roughly the same proportion said they don't know what tracking their organisations do. Many monitoring systems are aimed at preventing insider threats and safeguarding sensitive information as well as detecting productivity dips. But the trend appears to be causing unease. A large minority of managers are opposed to the practice, saying it undermines trust with staff and invades their personal privacy, the CMI found.

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Study also finds M&A and changes to operating model on the way for sector

More than half of tech companies are considering a complete restructure or changing their operating model in response to AI, according to research from the consulting sector.…

Apple released iOS 26, iPadOS 26 and macOS Tahoe 26 today, introducing Liquid Glass, a translucent design language that represents the biggest visual redesign since iOS 7 in 2013. The new interface elements dynamically refract and reflect background content across all three platforms. iOS 26 requires iPhone 11 or later and second-generation iPhone SE or newer. iPadOS 26 runs on the same hardware as iPadOS 18 except the 7th-generation iPad. macOS Tahoe 26 supports all Apple silicon Macs, the 2019 16-inch MacBook Pro, 2020 13-inch MacBook Pro, 2020 and later iMac, and 2019 and later Mac Pro. The transparent menu bar on macOS increases perceived display size. iOS 26's adaptive Lock Screen time display resizes around notifications and Live Activities. Desktop icons, folders, app icons and widgets support light, dark, tinted, and clear appearances across all systems. iOS 26 adds Visual Intelligence for on-screen content analysis through screenshot button combinations. Live Translation operates across Messages, FaceTime and Phone on all platforms, translating text and audio in real-time on-device. The Camera app received streamlined navigation and lens cleaning hints for iPhone 15 and later models. iPadOS 26 brings Mac-style windowing and multitasking. Apps support free-form placement and menu bars. The Phone app and new Apple Games app arrived on iPad. macOS gained the Phone app through Continuity, including Call Screening and Hold Assist features. Spotlight executes hundreds of actions without opening applications and automatically assigns quick keys to frequent actions. Apple Intelligence expands across all systems. The Shortcuts app gained intelligent actions for text summarization and image generation. The Wallet app tracks orders across platforms, while Apple Music introduced AutoMix for song transitions.

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AI is transforming corporate America, yet the boom remains understated in government growth statistics, according to Goldman Sachs. From a report: Analysts at Goldman pointed to the scale of the boom in a Saturday note: "Revenue at US companies providing AI infrastructure has risen by $400 billion since 2022, which at first glance seems to suggest that AI has been a meaningful driver of economic growth recently." But official numbers tell a different story. AI technology has lifted real US economic activity by about $160 billion since 2022, or 0.7% of GDP, the analysts calculated. Yet only around $45 billion, or 0.2% of GDP, of AI-spurred growth has been recorded in official statistics. That leaves roughly $115 billion uncounted, according to the analysts. That gap highlights the difference between what companies report and what the government measures due to the Commerce Department's Bureau of Economic Analysis method for calculating growth.

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We remind the world yet again that science fiction is usually a warning, not an aspiration

Look to science fiction and you'll find plenty of pathways to create super soldiers. There's cloning or genetic engineering. If that fails, you could try in-utero enhancements, or maybe some cybernetic augmentation. DARPA has a different idea for the real world: inject 'em up with super blood.…