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For years, tech companies have been chasing an elusive dream: glasses with built-in displays that help us communicate, understand the world, and break free from our reliance on phone screens. This week, Meta unveiled its latest attempt at its Connect developer conference: Meta Ray-Ban Display, a pair of smart glasses with an integrated screen that can show directions and texts, query Metas AI assistant, stream music, take photos, and even provide live captions to make conversations easier to follow. The device is notable for two reasons: Unlike earlier prototypes, Metas glasses look like actual glasses. And while competitors have built intriguing developer kits without mass-production plans, Meta is actually ready to ship. Consumers will be able to buy Ray-Ban Display glasses for $800 later this month. For an industry that has been working on a future that always seemed just out of reach, thats a big dealso much so that Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg seemed compelled to assure the audience of his Connect keynote speech that this was actually happening. This isnt a prototype, Zuckerberg said. This is here, its ready to go. [Photo: Meta] The first display-equipped glasses that look like glasses Ray-Ban Display features a monocular display, capable of projecting information in only one lens. That rules out AR games or 3D graphics but dramatically cuts power consumption. That efficiency enabled Meta to use a smaller battery, keeping the design close to standard eyewear. The frame retains Ray-Bans iconic look. The temples are only slightly thicker than the companys camera-equipped glasses, and the whole device weighs just 69 grams. Upon close inspection, you can see that the right lens features a waveguidediagonal lines that refract the light of a tiny projector integrated into the right temple to show information when the display is on. To outside observers, though, its not obvious whether the display is on or offa big difference from earlier AR devices that leaked light. Its really optimized for private viewing, says Meta AR devices VP Ming Hua. All of this means that there is a lot less stigma attached to the usage of the device, which can be a huge factor when it comes to the success or failure of such a device. Case in point: Google Glass, a pioneering smart glasses product first introduced over a decade ago, looked a lot more like something from a science fiction movie than a regular pair of glasses. People are making Google Glass comparisons to the Meta Ray-Ban Display glasses, says Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth. It has a display, its monocular. But theyre so different because [ours] look good. [Google Glass] didnt look good, and that matters a ton. They nailed the form factor, agrees Moor Insights & Strategy analyst Anshel Sag. It’s really a well integrated product. What it is like to wear Metas new Display glasses At Connect, I used the glasses to get directions, exchange WhatsApp messages, and query Metas AI assistant. Indoors or under California sun, the display was legible. Text fades after a few seconds and can be recalled when needed. [Photo: Meta] Meta positioned the display slightly below the typical line of sight, which makes it especially useful for certain applications. The glasses can transcribe speech in real time, helping with conversations in noisy environments or assisting people who are hard of hearing. They can also translate speech instantly, and Meta is developing a teleprompter app aimed at supporting public speakers. The glasses also support video calls, a digital viewfinder for photos, and other apps. But perhaps the most striking feature isnt on the lenses at all: Metas Ray-Ban Display glasses come with a wristband that resembles a screenless fitness tracker. Inside are sensors that detect neural signals from tiny hand movements, allowing the glasses to be controlled with subtle gestures. Opening an app or summoning Metas AI assistant can be as simple as tapping your thumb and index finger together, while dismissing notifications takes just a quick swipe of the thumb. The Neural Band, as its officially called, can also handle more complex gestures. To raise the volume of a Spotify stream, for instance, you rotate your thumb and index finger clockwise, like twisting the knob on an old radio. The device can even be trained to recognize handwriting, letting you reply to text messages by scribbling letters with your fingers. None of this requires line of sightyou can keep your hand behind your back or tucked in a pocket, and it still works. The effect feels remarkably close to magic. [Photo: Meta] Part of a multi-pronged approach Meta isnt the only company betting on glasses as the next major computing platform. Google has shown off prototypes for its own display glasses, and Amazon is reportedly working on a device like this as well. However, Meta has a key advantage over its would-be competitors: A yearslong partnership with glasses maker EssilorLuxottica. The two companies introduced their first pair of camera-equipped smart glasses in 2021. Even without a display, the glasses became an unexpected hit: Consumers have purchased more than two million Ray-Banbranded Meta glasses to date, according to EssilorLuxottica. Meta has continued refining the line and unveiled several new models at Connect this week. In 2024, Meta previewed a bulkier but far more capable prototype for AR glasses, code-named Orion. Those glasses featured displays in both lenses, allowing 3D objects to be overlaid on the real world. It may take years to shrink Orions technology into a consumer-friendly form factor, but Meta has already folded some of that research into its current products. The neural wristband shipping with the Ray-Ban Display glasses, for instance, is essentially the same one developed for the Orion prototype. The new Ray-Ban Display glasses also feature a custom-designed battery. Meta advertises up to six hours of mixed use battery life, which includes activities like listening to music when the display is off. Used continuously for internet access, however, the battery would likely last only about an hour, according to company representatives. The same battery technology is also being integrated into lower-cost Ray-Ban smart glasses that dont include displays. Catching up with Meta wont be easy One potential achilles heel for Meta could be its relationship with third-party developers. So far, Meta has only partnered with a few high-profile companies like Spotify to integrate their services into its wearables. At Connect, it announced plans for a developer program, but it may tightly control the apps it is willing to publish onto these devices. There are good reasons for caution. Last year, two Harvard students used Metas camera glasses to power a facial recognition engine capable of identifying strangers on the street. While the glasses themselves dont support that feature, Meta may choose to block such applicationsthough others likely wont. The students have since dropped out and launched their own smart glasses startup. A more permissive approach towards third-party apps could be one way for others to compete with Meta and its Ray-Ban partnership. Catching up is not going to be easy, says Sag, the analyst with Moor Insights & Strategy. The biggest way someone could compete with them is by third-party developer access and making those classes more useful, even if theyre not more fashionable.
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Today, Apples iPhone 17 series goes on sale worldwide. The newest iPhone family includes the iPhone 17, iPhone 17 Pro, iPhone 17 Pro Max, and the all-new iPhone Air. All the devices originally went on sale via pre-order last Friday, and many who bought them are finding that they wont actually receive their new iPhone until October. But there is a way you can still get your shiny new iPhone 17 today. Heres what you need to know. iPhone 17 shipping times slip into October Apple began taking pre-orders for the iPhone Air and iPhone 17 family of phones last Friday, and delivery times for when pre-order customers can actually expect to receive their new phones have steadily lengthened. A quick check of Apples online store as of the time of this writing shows that, if you order an iPhone Air or any iPhone 17 from Apple today, this is when you can expect to receive it: iPhone 17: between October 6-13 iPhone 17 Pro: between October 6-13 iPhone 17 Pro Max: between October 13-20 iPhone Air: September 23 As you can see, the iPhone 17 Pro Max has a wait time of up to four weeks. For the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17, the wait time is up to three weeks. Only the iPhone Air, if you order today, currently has a wait time of less than a week. That the iPhone 17 Pro Max has the longest wait time isnt a surprise, as the Pro Max is one of the companys most popular models, and it appeals heavily to early adopters. But the three-week wait time for the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 also shows that this year, there is strong demand for the iPhone 17 family. But thats bad news for fans who didnt get their pre-order in before the devices officially went on sale todaybecause if they order online from Apple now, theyll need to wait well into October to get their new iPhone. However, there is one way that you may still be able to get your iPhone 17 today. Visit a brick-and-mortar store for your best chance to get an iPhone 17 on launch day We all love the convenience of shopping online, but if you havent ordered your iPhone 17 yet and still would like to get one in your hands on launch day, your best bet is to eschew the convenience of online shopping and go directly to a physical retail store. Apple retail stores are set to have a healthy supply of the various iPhone models when they open today. However, there are sure to be crowds going to those stores in hopes of getting their preferred models on launch day. That means if you want the best chance of getting your preferred iPhone 17 model in its preferred configuration (256GB, 512GB, 1TB, etc), you should get to a physical retail store ASAP. Apple retail stores generally should have the most stockbut theyll likely also have the most customers. Thats why you should also check out third-party retail stores, like Best Buy. If you know you are going to buy an iPhone on your carriers locked plan, its also worth going to your local AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon, or other carrier store to see if they have stock of the units. When all else fails, track iPhone 17 availability online If you go to retail stores today and still cant get your preferred iPhone 17 model right now, then there is one last option that may help you get the new iPhone sooner than expected. Plenty of websites allow you to track iPhone availability online and in stores. These tracker websites generally let you sign up for email notifications and will alert you the moment your preferred iPhone model in its preferred color and storage capacity becomes available. Once you get the notification, if you act quickly, you may be able to score an iPhone well ahead of Apples prolonged delivery times. There is no shortage of stock-checking websites that track the inventory levels of popular products, and you can find them by doing a simple Google search. They include AppleInventoryChecker.com, Stock-checker.com, and Trackalacker.com.
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Greetings from Fast Company, and thank you, as always, for spending time with Plugged In. As a technology journalist, Ive always found value in using products I write about to get actual work doneeven when theyre imperfect or downright terrible. So at this point, Ive been knee-deep in AI for years. Ive used a bevy of tools to research topics, fine-tune my writing, and tend to various other day-to-day tasks. It hasnt always gone well. Sometimes, its even felt like AI was costing me time rather than saving it. Recently, though, Ive settled into my own particular AI groove. Blessedly, I work for a media outlet that isnt so smitten with the technology that anyone here believes gorging on it should be a goal in itself. But I call on AI every day, and am confident it helps me produce better work more efficiently. Some of the lessons Ive learned so far: Your technique matters at least as much as the specific AI you use. Mostly, I hop between ChatGPT and Claude. Ive also been using Copilot more lately, have been nudging myself to increase my Gemini time, and give Perplexity a shot every now and then. My biggest takeaway is that the differences between these chatbots are often tough to pinpoint and, since theyre all evolving rapidly, subject to change. Rather than settling on one of them, I recommend focusing on upping your own prompt-writing game. Describe what youre trying to do in painful detail, and youre more likely to get it. If your instructions come off as excessivemaybe even patronizingyoure in the right zone. AI is far better at general concepts than specific factsespecially arcane ones. Earlier this year, I wrote an explainer about quantum computing and needed to brush up on some of the technologys mind-bending basics. ChatGPT helped (along with plenty of old-fashioned legwork such as interviewing experts and reading technical papers, I hasten to add). But when Im searching for a discrete fact, I still dont trust LLMs to give me hallucination-free answers. For example, when working on our 1995 Week, I asked ChatGPT where the power button was on IBMs ThinkPad 701. It expounded at length on why IBM chose to put it to the right of the display, where it would be easy to reach. Which was a smart decision on the companys partexcept the switch was actually to the left of the keyboard, and a bit of a hassle to locate. Once again, an LLM had fabricated a simulacrum of a fact that was difficult to tell from the real thing. AI with citations is vastly more useful than AI without it. Hallucinations are most likely when a chatbot depends entirely on its own hermetically sealed LLM to gin up responses to your prompts. But these days, many AI tools can quickly hit the web as part of their answer-generation process. When they do thatand include citations with links to what they foundI find the accuracy of their responses dramatically better. And I can always click the links to see where the information originated. Bringing your own data makes AI way better. The one AI tool I love unreservedly is Googles NotebookLM. Thats because its not trying to synthesize and summarize all human knowledgea goal that frequently gets ChatGPT and Claude into troublebut only the documents I choose to upload. In my case, thats usually transcripts of interviews Ive conducted for an article. It scours them at least as well as I could if left to my own devices, does it far more quickly, and never introduces errors. Other more general-purpose AI bots also let you upload your own files, an option well worth exploring if you havent yet. At its best, AI is better at drudgery than I am. Some of it, at least. Producing this newsletter each week requires some truly tedious tweaking of HTML code, a process that took me about 15 minutes each time and was difficult to perform without mucking up the code even further. It was a great day when I realized Claude could swiftly and reliably edit the code. I plan to Identify other boring-but-necessary aspects of my work and see if AI might lend a hand. AI is not better than I am at the parts of my job that I love. Every so often, I satisfy my own curiosity by telling ChatGPT or Claude the topic of a Plugged In newsletter Ive already finished writing. Then I ask it to generate its own version, at the same length. Once in a while, Im startled by how close these LLMs come to producing something in the same zip code as my effort, at least in terms of overarching approach and takeaway. Ultimately, though, they always read like they were written on autopilotwhich they were!and are often rendered worthless due to all the stuff the AI doesnt know it doesnt know. I practically got into a verbal fistfight with ChatGPT after it churned out a newsletter on the U.S. governments deal to take equity in Intel that read like the improvisations of a kid whod failed to do his homework. It even got the companys current CEO wrong. In an odd way, my failed experiments with handing off the core of my work to AI are reassuring. I have no interest in avoiding the labor this newsletter represents. Having an LLM write drafts of my articles for publication sounds about as appealing as going to Disneyland and then paying someone else to ride Space Mountain on my behalf. Thats a bonus lesson: Seeking out ways AI can make my life easier has been a worthwhile exercise. But its left me even more appreciative of the work I have no interest in automatingand grateful that theres still so much of it. Youve been reading Plugged In, Fast Companys weekly tech newsletter from me, global technology editor Harry McCracken. If a friend or colleague forwarded this edition to youor if you’re reading it on FastCompany.comyou can check out previous issues and sign up to get it yourself every Friday morning. I love hearing from you: Ping me at hmccracken@fastcompany.com with your feedback ad ideas for future newsletters. I’m also on Bluesky, Mastodon, and Threads, and you can follow Plugged In on Flipboard. More top tech stories from Fast Company Why so many people still feel stuck in the COVID pauseYears after lockdowns ended, TikTok and Reddit users say the pandemic warped their sense of time. Read More Zoom is betting big on agentic AI with its new AI Companion 3.0On September 17, the company unveiled an AI upgrade designed to move beyond video calls. Read More Etsy witches are having a momentSpellcastingfor everything from baseball streaks to wedding-day sunshine to political hexesis moving from fringe to mainstream. Read More Why MrBeast would be making a huge mistake launching his own mobile phone serviceWireless is not the new tequila for celebrities looking for a payday, and Beast is definitely not Ryan Reynolds. Read More This camera bag charm may become the biggest gadget of the yearIts a disposable camera. Its a bag charm. Its completely out of stock. Read More OpenAI wants to transform business. Many of its users just want life hacksFresh data highlights the gap between OpenAIs enterprise ambitions and how people actually use its models. Read More
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