|
Thanks for reading The Briefing, our nightly column where we break down the day’s news. If you like what you see, I encourage you to subscribe to our reporting here.
Greetings! With its Ray-Ban smart glasses, Meta Platforms has had the high-tech eyewear market pretty much to itself. But Google’s unveiling on Tuesday of its own glasses, using software developed with Samsung and to be made in conjunction with Warby Parker and Gentle Monster, an edgy Korean eyewear brand, signals there’s a new kid on this block. Now all we need is for Apple to jump in! Google’s version isn’t Google Glass redux, Google’s clunky eyeglass effort from more than a decade ago, which drew widespread scorn. The prototype lenses worn by Google staffers onstage on Tuesday, at Google’s I/O developer conference, were stylish. And the demonstration we saw suggested that Google’s glasses will be even smarter than Meta’s Ray-Bans, which Meta is making in partnership with eyewear giant EssilorLuxottica. In the demonstration, the Google glasses wearer used Google’s Gemini AI assistant to call up directions, in the form of a map overlaid on the lenses, as well as emails, texts and a photo image. (For more details, see our report on I/O.) In other words, the glasses had augmented reality features that aren’t yet available on Meta’s smart eyewear. Meta has its own plans for AR glasses, which it demonstrated last year, but they’re not expected to be available for purchase for a couple more years. That suggests Google may be able to leap ahead of Meta. Of course, it’s early: Google notably didn’t give a date for when it would release the glasses or how much they would cost. (For an in-depth look at the background behind Google’s smart glasses, see here.) And of course, until the glasses become real products in the hands of wearers rather than prototypes, we have no idea whether they’ll work. But a lot’s at stake. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, for instance, hopes smart eyeglasses will become the “next computing platform,” one that will give Meta more autonomy than it has in a world that runs on smartphones controlled by Apple or Google. Zuckerberg said in January he expected 2025 to be the year “when we understand the trajectory for AI glasses.” Google’s news today suggests Zuckerberg may be right, but not necessarily in the way he expected. Is Elon Musk trying to one-up Jensen Huang for number of public appearances? On Tuesday, he showed up in a video interview for the Qatar Economic Forum, and then a little while later he was on CNBC, having only changed his jacket. Musk in recent years has done few interviews, shying away from talking with what he calls the “legacy media,” and the QEF interview—handled by a Bloomberg News journalist—got a little testy. Still, he revealed his intention to pull back from election campaign donations after his big push last year, while also confirming his desire to stay on as Tesla CEO for several more years. He made some news in the CNBC interview, which took place at Tesla’s headquarters in Austin, Texas. Asked about a longstanding rumor that he would end up merging Tesla with his privately owned AI startup, xAI, Musk said it wasn’t “out of the question” but would require Tesla shareholder approval (obviously). “There are no plans to do so,” he added. We don’t know what prompted Musk’s round of interviews, although Tesla is planning to start a pilot program for robotaxis in Austin some time in June. While much remains uncertain, as we reported last week, that effort requires marketing. Musk is, for better and worse, Tesla’s best marketing weapon. • The EU is planning to put a tax of 2 euros, or $2.26, on individual packages shipped directly to consumers from outside the bloc, the Financial Times reported Tuesday. That would represent a blow to low-cost online shops like Temu, Shein and Amazon’s Haul storefront, which are looking to Europe for growth amid trade and regulatory uncertainty in the U.S. The Information Weekend covers what happens when Silicon Valley logs off—the trends and people shaping culture, technology and everything in between. Subscribe for free today. |
