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

SAN FRANCISCO, CA – NOVEMBER 03: Andreesen Horowitz associate Marc Andreesen speaks throughout the Fortune International Discussion board on November 3, 2015 in San Francisco, California. Enterprise leaders are attending the Fortune International Discussion board that runs by November 4. (Photograph by Justin Sullivan/Getty Pictures)Getty ImagesTik Tok US To Be Offered 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 evaluation the deal within the works, and the way we received right here. Congress handed and the Supreme Courtroom 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 friends Larry Ellison and Marc Andreessen shall be amongst its strongest new house owners. TikTok stays politically charged: a 2024 investigation by the Guardian discovered its algorithm extremely delicate, able to steering even a brand new consumer down a hard-right rabbit gap. Critics say that till the deal is finalized and ByteDance’s stake is totally resolved, Beijing nonetheless retains leverage over a platform utilized by 170 million People.Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg speaks as he presents the brand new Meta Ray-Ban Show on the 2025 Meta Join convention in Menlo Park, California, on September 17, 2025. (Photograph by Benjamin LEGENDRE / AFP) (Photograph by BENJAMIN LEGENDRE/AFP through Getty Pictures)AFP through Getty ImagesMeta unveiled its first AI glasses with a built-in show, the Meta Ray-Ban Show, paired with the Neural Band, a wrist-worn controller utilizing floor EMG to let customers silently kind and work together with refined finger actions. The monocular microdisplay delivers 42 pixels per diploma and 5,000-nit brightness, vibrant sufficient for outside use, and disappears when not in use. The Neural Band runs 18 hours and is water resistant. 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 functions like wayfinding, cooking and translation. Dwell 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 gadget, even one which prices $800. Preliminary opinions of brief demos at Meta Join are combined.Nothing has raised $200 million in a Sequence C spherical at a $1.3 billion valuation, led by Tiger International with Qualcomm Ventures and Indian investor Nikhil Kamath becoming a member of present 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 yr, fueled by its Telephone 2a and CMF price range line. Nothing plans an “AI-native” working system and units launching in 2026. Earlier rounds embody a $70 million Sequence B in 2022 and $96 million in 2023 from Highland Europe, GV, EQT, Latitude, and different world traders.SANTA MONICA, CALIFORNIA – APRIL 19: Evan Spiegel, CEO of Snap Inc., speaks onstage throughout the Snap Accomplice Summit 2023 at Barker Hangar on April 19, 2023 in Santa Monica, California. (Photograph by Joe Scarnici/Getty Pictures for Snap, Inc.)Getty Pictures for Snap, Inc.Snap CEO Evan Spiegel Bets The Firm on Specs. Gulp. Snap is betting large 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 Digital Boy as a Swap and Swap 2 accent, launching February 17, 2026. Gamers can select a $99.99 plastic reproduction 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 + Growth 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 gaming quite than devoted XR headsets.Incredible product introduction video for Hololuminescent™ Shows from Trying Glass, which makes 3D screens used to create volumetric video, media and interactive experiences utilizing commonplace instruments, deploy content material on present video infrastructure and show it as 3D holograms on Trying 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 know-how product. Trying Glass’s Hololuminescent Shows shall be obtainable in This autumn, and can begin at $2000 for a 16” show. 27” and 86” shows can even be obtainable. A On this brief, created by GenAI artist MetaPuppet, an agoraphobic man believes that the 9 flooring of his Brooklyn condo 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 govt and futurist lately at Paramount and Fox, and Rony Abovitz, founding father of Magic Leap. This week’s visitor is Tricia Biggio, CEO of Invisible Universe. We could be discovered on Spotify, iTunes, and YouTube.