Everything Meta announced at Connect 2025: Second-gen Ray-Ban Meta, Oakley Meta Vanguard and Meta Ray-Ban Display

At Meta Connect 2025’s kickoff event, Mark Zuckerberg unveiled a trio of new smart eyewear, including its first model with augmented reality. Meta’s boss also announced the second generation Ray-Ban Meta, as well as a pair of Oakley-branded sunglasses designed for athletes. In addition, Zuckerberg launched Horizon TV, a new entertainment hub for the Quest headsets, which will give you easy access to Disney+, Prime Video and other streaming services in virtual reality. Here’s everything you might have missed.

Ray-Ban Meta “Gen 2”

A pair of sunglasses with the Ray-Ban logo.
Meta

The second-gen Ray-Ban Meta glasses come with improved battery life that the company says can now last up to eight hours with “typical use.” Even their accompanying charging case provides an additional 48 hours of juice, compared to the previous version’s 32 hours. The model is equipped with a 12-megapixel camera that can capture videos in 3K Ultra HD, with up to 60 frames per second and HDR support, as well as 32GB of storage. This fall, Meta will also roll out updates that will bring hyperlapse and slow-motion video capture to all its glasses, including this one. The Gen 2 Ray-Ban Meta glasses are now available with the same three base frames as their predecessor, namely Wayfarer, Skyler and Headliner, and will cost you at least $379. 

Read more: Meta unveils its second-gen Ray-Ban smart glasses at Connect

Oakley Meta Vanguard

A pair of glasses with yellow reflective lenses.
Meta

Unlike the original Oakley Meta glasses, the Vanguard was clearly designed to cater to athletes. It features the wraparound frames Oakley is known for, with reflective swappable lens in different colors. Due to how it curves around the face, Meta placed its 12-megapixel camera in the center of the frames so that helmets and hats don’t ruin your shots. The camera on this model has a wider 122-degree angle lens and adjustable video stabilization so that you can still take videos while moving. Meta told us that the device’s battery was optimized for a wider range of temperatures, as well, allowing it to hold up better in harsh environments. In addition to the better battery life, the Vanguard also has louder onboard speakers and will come with integrations for Strava and Garmin. The Oakley Meta Vanguard glasses are now available for preorder for $499 and will be officially available on October 21. 

Read more: Oakley Meta Vanguard are the smart glasses athletes might actually want

Meta Ray-Ban Display

A pair of glasses and a wristband.
Meta

The Meta Ray-Ban Display is the company’s first pair of AR glasses. Its lenses function as translucent heads-up displays (HUD) that can show you texts, AI prompts, turn-by-turn pedestrian navigation and video calls. The dedicated EMG wristband it’s paired with will allow you to interact with the HUD’s interface and will even give you the ability to type out responses. Video calling didn’t work properly during its on-stage demo, but Zuckerberg was able to play a song on Spotify, demonstrate a real-time subtitle feature that could be a huge help for those with hearing impairments, as well as capture and view images. The Meta Ray-Ban Display will be available through a limited number of brick-and-mortar stores, including Best Buy, LensCrafters, Ray-Ban and Verizon, since you’ll have to be fitted for the wristband. You’ll be able to get it for $799 starting on September 30 in the US and starting early next year in Canada, France, Italy and the United Kingdom. 

Read more: Meta Ray-Ban Display glasses offer an AR display for $799

Meta Horizon TV

A screen with The Boys on it.
Meta

Near the end of the Meta Connect keynote, Zuckerberg announced a new entertainment hub for Quest headsets. Called Horizon TV, it’s a unified interface for the streaming services available on the device, including Prime Video and Peacock. The Meta CEO also revealed that Disney+ is coming to Quest headsets. 

Read more: Meta Horizon TV is an entertainment hub for VR headsets

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/wearables/everything-meta-announced-at-connect-2025-second-gen-ray-ban-meta-oakley-meta-vanguard-and-meta-ray-ban-display-100007120.html?src=rss

LimeWire Acquires Fyre Festival Brand

LimeWire, once notorious for fueling online piracy, has acquired the rights to the infamously disastrous Fyre Festival brand. “LimeWire Acquires Fyre Festival Brand — What Could Possibly Go Wrong?” the company titled its news release.

LimeWire said it would “unveil a reimagined vision for Fyre — one that expands beyond the digital realm and taps into real-world experiences, community, and surprise.” No additional details were announced about the relaunch.

“Fyre became a symbol of hype gone wrong, but it also made history,” LimeWire CEO Julian Zehetmayr said. “We’re not bringing the festival back — we’re bringing the brand and the meme back to life. This time with real experiences, and without the cheese sandwiches.”


Read more of this story at Slashdot.

TI expands C2000 portfolio with affordable real-time MCUs for motor control

Texas Instruments has introduced its most affordable C2000 real-time MCUs to date, aimed at appliances, digital power supplies, and power tools. The new F28E12x series, including the F28E120SC and F28E120SB, delivers a 30% performance boost over earlier C2000 devices while maintaining a cost-efficient design. The F28E12x devices integrate TI’s C28x digital signal processor core with […]

New Oakley Meta Vanguard AI glasses integrate with Strava, have a high-definition camera and will even block out the wind 

Oakley has revealed its Meta Vanguard glasses, a new line of eyewear that uses artificial intelligence to bring you “real-time personalised performance insights”. 

For those who don’t know, Oakley is owned by the vision and eyewear company EssilorLuxottica, which also owns Ray-Ban. The new Oakley ‘smart glasses’ are described as the next step in EssilorLuxottica’s partnership with Meta Platforms, which has already brought us the Ray-Ban Meta sunglasses. 

The Oakley Meta Vanguards were showcased at the Meta Connect keynote on Wednesday, alongside several other new collaborations between Meta and Ray-Ban. 

Oakley Meta Vanguard details

Mark Cavendish modelling the Oakley Meta Vanguard glasses.
Mark Cavendish modelling the Oakley Meta Vanguard glasses. Oakley

Oaley’s new ‘smart glasses’ feature the brand’s signature Prizm lenses with a 12MP ultra-wide camera that has a 122-degree field of view. 

The $499 / €549 glasses also feature high-decibel open-ear speakers with advanced wind noise reduction, which Oakley says is “perfect for running down a noisy road or biking through 30mph winds”. 

Oakley says the glasses are also optimised for comfort during long workouts and they’re compatible with cycling helmets. 

What is probably most remarkable about the new Oakley sunglasses is they can integrate with Strava and Garmin to provide you with real-time personalised performance insights, with up to nine hours of battery life to get you through “your entire marathon or century ride”. 

However, details on what this will look like or how it will function are currently thin.

In its own press release, Strava says you’ll be able to use the glasses to graphically overlay performance metrics – such as distance, average pace and elevation gain – from your Strava activity onto videos and photos captured by the glasses. 

As with many of the best Oakley sunglasses, you can switch the Prizm lens on the Meta Vanguards to customise your look and optimise the glasses for different conditions. 

Two new Meta Ray-Ban glasses

The Meta Ray-Ban Wayfarers.
The Meta Ray-Ban Wayfarers. Ray-Ban

Also revealed at Meta Connect were the new Meta Ray-Ban Display and second-generation Ray-Ban Meta glasses.

The Meta Ray-Ban Display glasses have an integrated display for the first time. The fully-colour visual display in the right lens is said to show weather, incoming messages, video calls and AI information such as step-by-step instructions, and more. 

 You can order the glasses with your own lens prescription, and they come with a Metal Neural Band, a wristband to control the glasses. 

Costing $799, the glasses will be available in the US at the end of the month and in Canada, France, Italy and the UK next year. 

The second-generation Ray-Ban Meta glasses have an extended battery life of up to eight hours, an ultra-wide 12MP camera that captures 3K ultra-HD videos, and a range of new styles and colours. The glasses are available now for $379 / €419.

Meta also revealed Conversion Focus at the Meta Connect keynote. Said to be coming soon, this new feature uses AI glasses’ open-ear speakers to amplify the voice of the person you’re talking to and distinguish it from other background noise. 

Avatar: Fire And Ash 3D Trailer Available On Quest For Limited Time

Quest owners can watch an exclusive 3D trailer for James Cameron’s Avatar: Fire and Ash for a limited time in the Horizon TV app.

I watched the clip in a Quest 3 during Meta Connect 2025 earlier today, and found the quality to be excellent. It seems to be using compositor layers, also known as Timewarp layers, to maximize quality. Carmack would be proud.

Meta & James Cameron Partner To Help Bring 3D Video Content To Quest
James Cameron announced an exclusive multi-year partnership with Meta to help bring significantly more 3D video content to Quest headsets.
UploadVRDavid Heaney

The short 3D trailer is the first result, albeit small, of Meta’s exclusive multi-year partnership with James Cameron’s new company Lightstorm Vision, which has the goal of “making stereoscopic technology ubiquitous for all visual media by enabling stereoscopic 3D content creation in as seamless a manner as traditional 2D”.

The partnership, announced nine months ago, should help bring significantly more 3D video content to Quest headsets. At the time, Meta said it will bring “world-class 3D entertainment experiences spanning live sports and concerts, feature films, and TV series featuring big-name IP” to Horizon OS.

James Cameron appeared on-stage during the Meta Connect 2025 keynote for around twelve minutes, where he reiterated his views on how VR headsets are the ideal viewing platform for 3D content.

Apple’s competing visionOS offers hundreds of 3D movies through Apple TV and Disney+, but Meta’s platform currently lacks an equivalent offering.

James Cameron: VR Headsets Solve The Problems Of 3D Cinema
James Cameron, who recently announced a partnership with Meta, waxed lyrical about how XR headsets solve the problems of traditional 3D glasses.
UploadVRDavid Heaney

“This is just the beginning of how fans can experience Pandora like never before in Quest, following its theatrical release this December”, Meta teased.

Meta Smart Glasses Will Integrate With Garmin Watches For Workout Stats

Meta smart glasses are getting Garmin watch integration, letting you ask Meta AI about workout stats and enabling an Autocapture feature.

Once you link your Garmin to Meta AI, you’ll be able to ask questions like “Hey Meta, what’s my heart rate?” or “Hey Meta, how am I doing?” to get real-time information about your current workout.

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Meta’s glasses are also getting Strava integration. You’ll be able to overlay your Garmin and Strava workout stats onto the videos you capture with your glasses, if you want. You can choose exactly which metrics you want to overlay, or none.

The Garmin integration also enables a new feature called Autocapture. After asking Meta AI to enable Autocapture, the glasses will automatically capture video clips when you “hit key distance milestones or ramp up your heart rate, speed, or elevation”.

For more details on Meta’s smart glasses, see our coverage of Ray-Ban Meta Gen 2, Oakley Meta HSTN, Oakley Meta Vanguard, and Meta Ray-Ban Display.

“Gravel has evolved”: New Factor Aluto offers endurance-focused alternative to the brand’s Ostro Gravel race bike

The new Factor Aluto gravel bike is billed as an endurance-focused alternative to the brand’s race-ready Ostro Gravel.

David Millar, brand director at Factor, says: “Gravel has evolved at an incredible pace. What used to be one discipline has now split into countless styles of racing and riding.

“The Aluto is our answer to that evolution. It’s a true high-performance all-rounder: sharp, agile, and versatile enough to excel across every scenario.”

As a result, Factor says its latest gravel bike targets the “all-rounder space”, bringing the speed of the Ostro Gravel but with a host of practical design decisions and a geometry that ‘dials in’ long-distance comfort. 

The bike has been optimised around 45mm gravel tyres, although it can fit a maximum width of 47mm at the rear and 52mm at the front.

Tweaked geometry

Man riding Factor Aluto gravel bike.
The Aluto is intended to complement the Factor Ostro. Factor

Compared to the Factor Ostro Gravel, the Aluto has a steeper head tube angle and “equally short chainstays” to maintain a shorter wheelbase and aid agility.

Factor says the lower bottom bracket shifts the centre of gravity downwards to stabilise the ride and to strike a balance with the shorter wheelbase. 

With a higher stack than the Ostro Gravel, Factor says the Aluto allows a more adaptable fit for a wider range of riders “without compromising a race-ready position”.

“Utilitarian integration”

Factor Aluto donwtube storage.
The Aluto has down tube storage – a growing trend on carbon bikes. Factor

The Aluto’s emphasis on long-distance racing, training and exploring means it has “high-performance design cues” and “utilitarian integration”.

The bike has down tube storage, where you can stash your tools and any other essentials. We’re beginning to see more gravel – and road – bikes with down tube storage and it’s a feature that BikeRadar’s Warren Rossiter says should replace saddle packs.

While internal cable routing is often seen as a maintenance burden and far from utilitarian, Factor says the Aluto’s hidden cables have been designed to be “mechanic-friendly”. 

Elsewhere, the bike is compatible with 1x or 2x drivetrains, so you can set the Aluto up with your groupset of choice. 

Black Inc HB05 Barstem 

Factor Aluto showing cockpit.
The Black Inc HB05 Barstem is said to complement the “lively nature and geometry”. Factor

The Aluto comes with a new Black Inc HB05 Barstem, which is said to complement the “lively nature and geometry” of the bike. 

Factor says the cockpit has a short reach to offset the increased reach of modern groupset shifter hoods, while the shallow drop and flare are said to aid stability over rough terrain. 

Moulded cable entry ports are said to reduce machining complexities and facilitate easy cable routing. 

Inspired by the Dakar Rally 

Factor Aluto gravel bike.
The Factor Aluto in Quattro Grey. Factor

Factor says the Aluto is available in two colour schemes, Raptor Blue and Quattro Grey, which are inspired by the Dakar Rally, the “world’s most extreme off-road proving ground”. 

“Just as Dakar cars are engineered to endure vast distances, brutal terrain, and the sharpest edges of performance, the Aluto is built to bring that same spirit of resilience, versatility and precision to gravel cycling,” says Factor. 

How much does the Factor Aluto cost?

Factor Aluto drivetrain.
The Factor is available in two builds at launch, featuring a SRAM Red XPLR or Force XPLR groupset. Factor

Factor has only revealed two builds for the Aluto at launch, with either SRAM Force XPLR for £6,999 / $6,999 / €8,399 or SRAM Red XPLR for £8,699 / $8,699 / €10,499. Both builds come with a power meter. 

Meta Horizon Engine Brings 4x Faster World Loading & 100+ User Instances

Meta Horizon Engine replaces the Unity runtime of Horizon Worlds, and Meta says it brings 4x faster loading and 100+ user instances.

During Meta Connect 2025 today, Mark Zuckerberg revealed that Meta has spent “the last couple of years” building the new engine “from scratch”.

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Mark Zuckerberg announces Meta Horizon Engine.

“This engine is fully optimized for bringing the metaverse to life. It is much faster performance and to load things, much better graphics, much easier to create with”, Zuckerberg claimed.

“It’s more like loading a webpage than loading an entire new game,” he boasted of the improved loading speed.

Zuckerberg revealed that Horizon Engine already shipped in Quest v81 PTC’s overhauled home system, set to roll out to the stable channel of Horizon OS soon.

Quest v81 PTC Completely Overhauls Your VR Home
Meta Horizon OS v81 PTC overhauls Quest’s VR home system, replacing all previous environments with a high-quality loft with free locomotion.
UploadVRDavid Heaney

Horizon Engine seems to be rolling out on a world-by-world basis, with the new Horizon Central that you teleport to from the new home being an example, as well as the new Horizon Arena for events.

Color-Changing Organogel Stretches 46 Times Its Size and Self-Heals

alternative_right shares a report from Phys.org: Scientists from Taiwan have developed a new material that can stretch up to 4,600% of its original length before breaking. Even if it does break, gently pressing the pieces together at room temperature allows it to heal, fully restoring its shape and stretchability within 10 minutes.

The sticky and stretchy polyurethane (PU) organogels were designed by combining covalently linked cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs) and modified mechanically interlocked molecules (MIMs) that act as artificial molecular muscles. The muscles make the gel sensitive to external forces such as stretching or heat, where its color changes from orange to blue based on whether the material is at rest or stimulated. Thanks to these unique properties, the gels hold great promise for next-generation technologies — from flexible electronic skins and soft robots to anti-counterfeiting solutions. The findings have been published in the journal Advanced Functional Materials.


Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Meta Smart Glasses Conversation Focus Feature Will Boost Nearby Voices

Meta is readying a Conversation Focus feature for its smart glasses, which will amplify the voice of the person you’re speaking to.

The feature follows years-in-development research toward what Facebook at the time called enhanced hearing, as part of its “perceptual superpowers” project, back in 2020. A clip Meta showed during Connect today featured a person pausing during a face-to-face conversation on the street to invoke Meta AI with the command “start conversation focus”.

“Amplify your friend’s voices in your ear,” Mark Zuckerberg promised. “If you’re in a noisy restaurant, you’re basically going to be able to turn up the volume on your friends or whoever you’re talking to.”

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Conversation Focus

We’ll be extremely curious to test this feature out when it launches. In the clip, the amplified voice seems distorted in a distracting way, and I can’t imagine interrupting a conversation to invoke the AI like that. Still, it could be a useful accessibility feature for people hard of hearing.

Meta says Conversation Focus will be available on all of its supported smart glasses, including Ray-Ban Meta, Ray-Ban Meta Gen 2, Oakley Meta HSTN, Oakley Meta Vanguard, and Meta Ray-Ban Display.

ASUS Ascent GX10 Compact AI Supercomputer Now Available for Preorder

The ASUS Ascent GX10 is a compact AI supercomputer built on the NVIDIA GB10 Grace Blackwell Superchip with a unified CPU+GPU memory model and NVIDIA’s AI software stack. Introduced in March 2025, it targets developers, researchers, and data scientists needing petaflop-scale performance in a desktop system with scalable deployment options. The GB10 Superchip combines a […]

China Is Sending Its World-Beating Auto Industry Into a Tailspin

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: On the outskirts of this city of 21 million, a showroom in a shopping mall offers extraordinary deals on new cars. Visitors can choose from some 5,000 vehicles. Locally made Audis are 50% off. A seven-seater SUV from China’s FAW is about $22,300, more than 60% below its sticker price. These deals — offered by a company called Zcar, which says it buys in bulk from automakers and dealerships — are only possible because China has too many cars. Years of subsidies and other government policies have aimed to make China a global automotive power and the world’s electric-vehicle leader. Domestic automakers have achieved those goals and more — and that’s the problem.

China has more domestic brands making more cars than the world’s biggest car market can absorb because the industry is striving to hit production targets influenced by government policy, instead of consumer demand, a Reuters examination has found. That makes turning a profit nearly impossible for almost all automakers here, industry executives say. Chinese electric vehicles start at less than $10,000; in the U.S., automakers offer just a few under $35,000. Most Chinese dealers can’t make money, either, according to an industry survey published last month, because their lots are jammed with excess inventory. Dealers have responded by slashing prices. Some retailers register and insure unsold cars in bulk, a maneuver that allows automakers to record them as sold while helping dealers to qualify for factory rebates and bonuses from manufacturers.

Unwanted vehicles get dumped onto gray-market traders like Zcar. Some surface on TikTok-style social-media sites in fire sales. Others are rebranded as “used” — even though their odometers show no mileage — and shipped overseas. Some wind up abandoned in weedy car graveyards. These unusual practices are symptoms of a vastly oversupplied market — and point to a potential shakeout mirroring turmoil in China’s property market and solar industry, according to many industry figures and analysts. They stem from government policies that prioritize boosting sales and market share — in service of larger goals for employment and economic growth — over profitability and sustainable competition. Local governments offer cheap land and subsidies to automakers in exchange for production and tax-revenue commitments, multiplying overcapacity across the country.


Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Meta Says New ‘Horizon Worlds’ Engine Update Brings Faster Loading and Up to 100 Concurrent Users

Today at Connect, Meta said it’s rolling out an updated version of the engine that powers Horizon Worlds. The new tech will purportedly speed up loading of Horizon Worlds spaces and allow up to 100 users in a single space.

The new tech, which Meta is calling the ‘Horizon Engine’ is said to be replacing the original foundation of Horizon Worlds which was based on Unity. The engine has been rebuilt with the goals of Horizon Worlds in mind—namely, enabling players to hop between interconnected social spaces.

Meta says the new system can increase loading times for Worlds spaces by four times, making jumping between different spaces more seamless. The improved performance also means that Worlds experiences can now host up to 100 players simultaneously, which is five times as many as the previous limit.

Meta says it has also rebuilt ‘Horizon Home’ using the new engine, which is the default space you see when you put on Quest. This purportedly brings improved visual quality and some functionality upgrades, like being able to pin apps to the walls for quick access.

The changes to Horizon Home appear to move Meta one step closer to merging Horizon Home and Horizon Worlds together. Now, running on the same engine, the space will also allow users to pin portals to various Worlds spaces for quick access.

At Connect, Meta also announced that it is working on an ‘agentic editor’ for Horizon Worlds called Meta Horizon Studio. While the company has already released AI features that allow creators to generate various assets for building Worlds experiences, the new agentic editor melds multiple tools together under a chat-based interface.

Image courtesy Meta

The new tool allows creators to build new Worlds experiences by asking for additions and changes in natural language, like ‘change the style to sci-fi’, or ‘add a new character that’s a talking bear who is lost and wants the player to help them get home’.

Meta Horizon Studio will be rolling out in beta in the near future, the company says.

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