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A pair of students at Harvard have built what big tech companies refused to release publicly due to the overwhelming risks and danger involved: smart glasses with facial recognition technology that automatically looks up someone’s face and identifies them. The students have gone a step further too. Their customized glasses also pull other information about their subject from around the web, including their home address, phone number, and family members.

The project is designed to raise awareness of what is possible with this technology, and the pair are not releasing their code, AnhPhu Nguyen, one of the creators, told 404 Media. But the experiment, tested in some cases on unsuspecting people in the real world according to a demo video, still shows the razor thin line between a world in which people can move around with relative anonymity, to one where your identity and personal information can be pulled up in an instant by strangers.

OpenAI announced on Wednesday it has completed its long-anticipated funding round, raising $6.6 billion in the largest venture capital deal of all time, which values the company at $157 billion.

The intrigue: OpenAI is planning to shift to a for-profit structure and investors can ask for their money back if it hasn't completed those changes in two years, Axios has learned.

Driving the news: Joshua Kushner's Thrive Capital led the round, and was joined by Microsoft, Nvidia, SoftBank, Khosla Ventures, Altimeter Capital, Fidelity, Tiger Global and MGX.

Not taking part, a source confirms, is Apple, which reportedly had been in talks to invest. OpenAI's deal tops the $6 billion raised earlier this year by Elon Musk's xAI.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) announced a $31.5 million settlement with T-Mobile over multiple data breaches that compromised the personal information of millions of U.S. consumers.

This agreement resolves the FCC Enforcement Bureau investigations into several cybersecurity incidents and resulting data breaches that impacted T-Mobile's customers in 2021, 2022, and 2023 (an API incident and a sales application breach).

As part of the settlement, the telecom carrier must invest $15.75 million in cybersecurity enhancements and pay the U.S. Treasury an additional $15.75 million civil penalty.

HoloLens 2 production has ended, Microsoft confirmed to UploadVR.

Now is the last time to buy the device before stock runs out, the company has been telling its partners and customers.

HoloLens 2 will continue to receive "updates to address critical security issues and software regressions" until December 31 2027. As soon as 2028 starts, software support for HoloLens 2 will end.

For the original HoloLens headset from 2016, software support will end after December 10 2024, just over two months from now.

The Federal Communications Commission produces daily updates about connectivity in counties affected by Helene. As of Monday, 370 of North Carolina’s 1,452 cell sites are out because of a lack of power, 103 are on backup power, and three are too damaged to function, the FCC stats show.

The situation is particularly dire in Avery, Mitchell and Yancey counties, where 10% or fewer of the cell sites are fully functioning.

Two local television stations and two FM radio stations are also out of service in North Carolina, the FCC said.

Microsoft is going to pay publishers for content that will appear in Copilot Daily, a new feature of its Copilot AI-powered, cross-platform assistant.

Copilot Daily, announced on Tuesday alongside other Copilot upgrades, gives users a spoken summary of the weather and current events. Alexa and Google Assistant have long delivered similar daily briefs, but Microsoft describes its take as “an antidote to that familiar feeling of information overload.”

“Clean, simple, and easy to digest, Copilot Daily will only pull from authorized content sources,” Microsoft writes in a blog post, adding that options for reminders and customization will arrive over time.

A week after announcing a wave of updates for its enterprise suite of Copilot AI-powered products, Microsoft is launching new Copilot capabilities on Windows for all users, including a tool that can understand and respond to questions about what’s on your screen.

Refreshed Copilot apps for iOS, Android, Windows and the web are rolling out today, and all feature a Copilot with a more “warm” and “distinct” style, as Microsoft describes it. Microsoft is also bringing the chatbot to WhatsApp, letting users chat with Copilot via DM, similar to the experience you get with other bots on Meta’s messaging platform.

A second judge in the Apple versus Epic Games lawsuit has implied that the Cupertino company has lied to the court. It comes after the original judge strongly implied that Apple had not told the truth about the reasons for its new App Store policy.

A second judge tasked with overseeing Apple’s disclosure of decision-making documents in the antitrust case said that a court filing made by the company was “simply not believable” …

DirecTV is buying Dish and Sling, a deal it has sought to complete for years, as the company seeks to better compete against streaming services that have become dominant.

DirecTV said Monday that it will acquire Dish TV and Sling TV from its owner EchoStar in a debt exchange transaction that includes a payment of $1, plus the assumption of approximately $9.8 billion in debt.

The prospect of a DirecTV-Dish combo has long been rumored, with headlines about reported talks popping up over the years. And the two almost merged more than two decades ago — but the Federal Communications Commission blocked their owners’ then-$18.5 billion deal, citing antitrust concerns.

Hence, for the first time in history, the Forbes list of billionaires is filled with individuals who got rich via parasitical business strategies—creating almost nothing, but gorging themselves on the creativity of others.

That’s how you get to the top in the digital age. Instead of US Steel, it’s Us steal. Instead of IBM, it’s IB Robbing U.

But when parasites get too strong, they risk killing their hosts.

But Meta’s masterstroke was the demonstration of its Orion AR glasses prototype. This device isn’t yet ready for consumers, but it still might be the closest thing we’ve seen to a pair of practical AR spectacles. Orion offers a field of view with an impressive 70-degree range (not too far off from the Vision Pro) and relies on an elegant form of eye and hand control. The idea is to ultimately replace your smartphone with something you can comfortably wear on your face all day.

The Orion glasses are just a prototype, and I don’t expect them to turn into a consumer product for three to five years. It’s perhaps unfair to compare it with whatever Apple has in development. After all, the iPhone maker never previews products years in advance (though some of the further-out features of Apple Intelligence might count). But Meta proved that it is well on its way to executing on this compelling vision. Based on all available evidence, the company is further along with AR glasses than Apple is in its labs.

Following the announcement at I/O 2024, Google is now rolling out Contextual Smart Replies to Gmail for Android and iOS.

Compared to Smart Reply, which dates back to 2017, the contextual version is “meant for detailed responses.” Gemini “can analyze the context of an email” and suggest replies that are “tailored to your conversation.”

The three Smart Replies appear in a carousel, with the first line noting the high-level direction of each generated option and how they differ from one another. You can long-press on “each response to get a quick preview of the text.” Tapping inserts the suggestion, which includes a greeting and closing, into the body of the email for you to make further edits.

UK startup Pact has raised £9mn in funding and opened a new factory to scale up the “world’s first” sustainable and scalable biomaterial made from collagen — the primary building block of your skin.

The material — dubbed Oval — looks, feels, and ages much like leather, but without the environmental impacts. Oval doesn’t just look like leather, it also responds to scratches, water, and sunlight in much the same way. I guess that makes sense seeing as it technically is a kind of skin — albeit one made in a lab.

Since launch, Rabbit has sold over 100,000 R1 units. This was on the premise that the AI concept device would be able to deliver on promises of an interactive device without all of the, well, interacting. The device was ultimately a failure with buggy software and hardware that didn’t deliver. It was clear within weeks that users were not happy with the performance and form factor. The R1 had become somewhat useless to many, leading some to turn it into a more capable Android phone.

In an interview with Fast Company, Peter Lyu noted that of the R1 units Rabbit had sold, only around 5,000 are used daily. If Rabbit had only sold around 100,000 units, only 5% would be in use. It’s likely Rabbit sold more, though that does not account for the number of returns that were made.

Under its new advertising model, brands will be able to bid for a “sponsored” question, which features an AI-generated answer approved by the advertiser.

Perplexity has held talks with a small number of top companies, including Nike and Marriott, according to correspondence seen by the Financial Times. The company said it hoped to roll out the ads system by the end of the year and was targeting “premium” brands. Nike and Marriott declined to comment.

A new law in California will make it easier for consumers to cancel their streaming subscriptions and similar products when they enroll in automatic renewal of those services.

The law, passed through Assembly Bill (AB) 2863, will require companies that offer automatic subscription renewals through one-click purchases to also offer customers a way to cancel their subscriptions through the same one-click method.

California already had one of the toughest subscription cancellation laws in the country, requiring companies to offer a way to cancel a recurring subscription through the Internet if they allowed customers to sign up for a service that way.

you can get the Google TV Streamer sooner if you buy it elsewhere.

Best Buy is currently the fastest option in the US, with the Streamer available for in-store pickup in some locations and shipping immediately with delivery as soon as 1-2 days. Amazon is also carrying the Google TV Streamer, but with shipments currently delayed by about a week with no Prime speeds. You can also find the Streamer in stock at Home Depot or Lowe’s, including with limited in-store stock.

In a major coup for the artificial intelligence company, Stability AI says that Avatar, Terminator and Titanic director James Cameron will join its board of directors.

Stability AI is the firm that developed the Stable Diffusion text-to-image generative AI model, an image- and video-focused model that is among those being closely watched by many in Hollywood, particularly in the visual effects industry.

In fact, Stability AI’s CEO, Prem Akkaraju, is no stranger to the business, having previously served as the CEO of visual effects firm WETA Digital. Sean Parker, the former president of Facebook and founder of Napster, also recently joined the AI firm as executive chairman.

Google is updating Street View imagery in nearly 80 countries, such as Australia, Brazil, Denmark, Japan, the Philippines, Rwanda, Serbia, South Africa, and more. It’s also bringing Street View to a handful of countries where it’s never been available, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Namibia, Liechtenstein, and Paraguay.

Google says its more portable Street View camera, which launched in 2022, will help offer images of “even more places in the future.”