China wants a light on the glasses when they record. Its platforms are shipping glasses that never stop listening.
China wants a light on the glasses when they record. Its platforms are shipping glasses that never stop listening.

Alibaba put its Qoder coding agent into smart glasses on 3 September, and Tencent put its WorkBuddy office agent into co-branded Rokid frames the day before. China’s smart glasses code of conduct, a voluntary convention issued in June, asks manufacture…

Cinemas, schools and ICE are all banning Meta smart glasses
Cinemas, schools and ICE are all banning Meta smart glasses

Cinemas became the latest institution to move against Meta smart glasses on Thursday. The UK Cinema Association said many operators are introducing policies to restrict camera-enabled eyewear. It gave two reasons: film piracy, and customer privacy. Tak…

Instagram blocked the search terms. Its algorithm serves the videos anyway
Instagram blocked the search terms. Its algorithm serves the videos anyway

The genre is simple enough to describe. A man wearing camera glasses walks up to a woman in the street. He delivers a line and films her reaction without asking. The clip goes to Instagram, tagged as shot on Meta glasses. The woman is now content. Some…

Snap is losing its $10 users and gaining $1 ones. It beat anyway, and the stock jumped.
Snap is losing its $10 users and gaining $1 ones. It beat anyway, and the stock jumped.

Snap had a good quarter, and the market treated it like a rescue. The shares jumped after hours, up as much as 13%, once the company beat estimates. The catch is where that rally begins: a stock near its all-time lows, down about 37% this year. The hea…

A $2 sticker defeats the one feature holding Meta’s ‘pervert glasses’ together
A $2 sticker defeats the one feature holding Meta’s ‘pervert glasses’ together

Meta’s answer to the “pervert glasses” problem was a small light. It switches on when the camera records, to warn anyone nearby. A sticker costing a couple of dollars switches it off. Engadget’s Karissa Bell tested the workarounds now on sale, cheap LE…

Meta is banning the ‘pervert glasses’ creeps from Instagram
Meta is banning the ‘pervert glasses’ creeps from Instagram

Meta has a nickname problem. Its Ray-Ban smart glasses have earned an ugly label: “pervert glasses”. Men wear them to film women in the street. Pranksters wear them to ambush shop workers. Now Instagram is trying to scrub the evidence. The platform wil…

Halliday made 2025’s worst smart glasses. Its camera-free comeback is aimed at your meetings.
Halliday made 2025’s worst smart glasses. Its camera-free comeback is aimed at your meetings.

It is rare that a crowdfunded hardware startup gets a second shot at a first impression. Halliday is taking it. The company unveiled the G2 on Tuesday, priced from $499, shipping in September. A brutal first act The original glasses were panned. Engadg…

Samsung Unpacked is tomorrow: a wider Z Fold 8, a second foldable, and maybe AI glasses
Samsung Unpacked is tomorrow: a wider Z Fold 8, a second foldable, and maybe AI glasses

Samsung has picked London for its summer showcase, and it wants you expecting something folded differently. Beyond the date and a teaser, though, the company has confirmed very little. Galaxy Unpacked runs on Tuesday, 22 July, at 2pm BST, streamed on S…

Meta patches the mod that turned its Ray-Ban glasses into secret spy cams
Meta patches the mod that turned its Ray-Ban glasses into secret spy cams

Meta is updating its smart glasses to shut off the camera if the recording light has been physically tampered with or destroyed. The change, announced in a 7 July blog post, closes a loophole that let modders turn the glasses into covert recorders. A w…

Camera-free smart-glasses maker Even Realities hits $1bn on a $150M raise
Camera-free smart-glasses maker Even Realities hits $1bn on a $150M raise

Meta has sold millions of camera-equipped smart glasses, and landed in a privacy storm for it. A Shenzhen startup is betting $1bn that the smarter move is to leave the camera off. Even Realities has raised $150m at a $1 billion valuation, TechCrunch re…