Meta Missed Out on Smartphones. Can Smart Glasses Make Up for It?

Meta Missed Out on Smartphones. Can Smart Glasses Make Up for It?

Meta has dominated online social connections for the past 20 years, but it missed out on making the smartphones that primarily delivered those connections. Now, in a multiyear, multibillion-dollar effort to position itself at the forefront of connected hardware, Meta is going all in on computers for your face. At its annual Connect developer event … Read more

I Tried These Brain-Tracking Headphones That Claim to Improve Focus

I Tried These Brain-Tracking Headphones That Claim to Improve Focus

One afternoon I was using the device for a little over an hour when I heard a voice in the headset: “You’ve earned a brain break.” Alcaide says the device can detect when your focus is starting to decline and that this feature is meant to help people avoid burnout. “We can tell you when … Read more

Generative AI Doesn’t Make Hardware Less Hard

Generative AI Doesn’t Make Hardware Less Hard

Things aren’t going so well for AI hardware startups. After years of development, startup Humane launched a $700 wearable in early April that leans heavily on artificial intelligence. The original pitch for the Ai Pin was that you no longer need to juggle different apps; its operating system can “search for the right AI at … Read more

A Wave of AI Tools Is Set to Transform Work Meetings

A Wave of AI Tools Is Set to Transform Work Meetings

I ask Liang whether the prominence of AI in meetings might make humans less likely to attend. Knowing that there will be a summary available seems a disincentive to actually showing up. Liang himself says that he attends only a fraction of the meetings he’s invited to. “As CEO of a startup, I get tons … Read more

A New Headset Aims to Treat Alzheimer’s With Light and Sound

A New Headset Aims to Treat Alzheimer’s With Light and Sound

The company’s study included 74 participants with mild to moderate Alzheimer’s who received either the Cognito stimulation or a sham device that acted as a placebo. Subjects were asked to use the headset for an hour every day for six months. Compared with the placebo group, those who got the Cognito stimulation showed a 77 … Read more

This Ultrasound Bra Could Detect Cancer Sooner

This Ultrasound Bra Could Detect Cancer Sooner

In 2015, Canan Dağdeviren was working as a postdoc at MIT when she learned that her aunt, Fatma, had been diagnosed with an aggressive form of breast cancer. Dağdeviren, whose work focused on building flexible devices that could capture biometric data, flew to the Netherlands to be with her relative in those last moments. At … Read more