A super secret Facebook project is reportedly in the works.

CNBC reported Tuesday that Facebook has been working on smart glasses, meant to eventually replace smartphones. 

Apparently, it has also just entered into a partnership with Ray-Ban parent company Luxottica, presumably to make them “cool” “frames” people might actually want to wear (sorry, Google Glass). 

Google Glass actually also worked with Luxottica to up their fashion game, so, no guarantees on aesthetics there.

According to CNBC, the AR glasses are codenamed Orion. They would feature a graphic display users could see out of the corners of their eyes, and wearers could make calls, livestream their positions, and more with Facebook-powered AI.  Read more…

More about Facebook, Glasses, Glasses Of The Future, Tech, and Vr Ar

TL;DR: The no-frills Dell Vostro 14 3000 laptop (1TB) is already an affordable choice, but you can get it for $299 with code BIZLT299 — a 62% savings.

Now that the big iPhone announcement has passed, the tech community is looking forward to Apple’s next big reveal. If it’s anything like last year’s schedule, the predicted October 2019 Apple Event could bring new a MacBook Pro.

But going for the best-of-the-best specs just doesn’t make sense for every situation, especially when Apple charges $1,000 a pop. For more casual use, especially for those looking to arm their employees with some great tech, you can get the bare-bones Dell Vostro 14 3000 laptop for $299 with code BIZLT299. The deal has been on and off since early September, but it ends for good on Sept. 21. Read more…

More about Laptops, Dell, Mashable Shopping, Tech, and Consumer Tech

TL;DR: The Sega Genesis Mini launches on Sept. 19, but you can get a special bundle (which comes with your choice of controller) at Walmart for only $89.99 — saving you $10 total. 

Retro gamers, rejoice — the Sega Genesis Mini is almost upon us (it launches Sept. 19), and Walmart is offering a super cool promotional bundle for the beloved classic console. 

Just when you thought you couldn’t be any more excited to get your hands on the Sega Genesis Mini, Walmart is generously giving a special deal that’ll get you not only the Genesis Mini itself, but also a great USB game controller for half of its usual priceFor just $89.99, you’ll get the whole shebang.  Read more…

More about Gaming, Sega, Pre Order, Mashable Shopping, and Sega Genesis Mini

Anyone who watches Succession knows that not only is the HBO drama a genuinely good show, but it also has the single best theme song on television right now.

The opening credits last around one minute and 30 seconds, and during that time viewers are treated to visual a montage of filtered flashbacks and present-day cityscapes, cut to a hauntingly catchy, adrenaline-pumping composition comprised of piano riffs, strings, and an unexpected but wildly complimentary background beat.

Depending on your mood, the intro song — which was composed by Nicholas Britell— will either make you want to dramatically gaze out a train window on a rainy day or get up and bust a move. It delights fans of the show every Sunday night, and is so damn good that it even won an Emmy for Original Main Title Theme Music. Read more…

More about Music, Television, Succession, Culture, and Movies Tv Shows

Uber’s autonomous cars are coming to Texas. 

On Tuesday, Uber’s Advantaged Technologies Group announced it would test its vehicles in Dallas. Don’t expect to see cars without drivers on the streets just yet, though. At first, they’ll only be allowed in manual mode, in which Uber collects data from vehicles with human drivers. 

After a self-driving car was involved in a crash that killed a woman in Tempe last year, Uber pulled its vehicles off the road in Arizona. (Meanwhile, Waymo’s self-driving car service is operating in the Phoenix area.) Uber is also testing autonomous cars in Pittsburgh and collecting data in its cars in San Francisco and Toronto.  Read more…

More about Uber, Autonomous Vehicles, Self Driving Cars, Dallas, and Tech

The insult, which Musk called a British cave diver on Twitter, means “creepy old man,” according to the Tesla CEO. However, Musk and his legal team claim the entrepreneur had reason to believe the more popular understanding of the insult. Read more…

More about Mashable Video, Lawsuit, Culture, Elon Musk, and Vernon Unsworth

Modeled after a 1902 luxury car of a similar name, the Vision Mercedes Simplex adds a few millennials touches to the nearly 102-year-old vehicle. Read more…

More about Tech, Transportation, Mashable Video, Mercedes, and Concept Car

“Oh my god, the fake news is coming from inside the house!”

In Monday night’s Closer Look, Seth Meyers traces the issues with the White House’s casual relationship with the truth all the way from Sharpiegate and Mike Pence’s assertion that a horse bit him, to Trump crying fake news on reports about a possible meeting with Iran literally just repeating what he himself said on camera. (He also connects the dots as to how all the Iran confusion has to do with appeasing Saudi Arabia.)

“If they’re willing to lie about something as dumb as a weather forecast or an interaction with a horse, what else are they lying about?” Read more…

More about Iran, Donald Trump, Late Night With Seth Meyers, Mike Pence, and Entertainment

Milo Yiannopoulos, far-right incendiary and professional complainer, has been banned from a furry convention. 

Yiannopoulos announced that he took on a “fursona” — alternate egos that furries adopt in the form of anthropomorphized animals — and bought tickets to the Midwest FurFest, a convention to “celebrate the furry fandom” just outside of Chicago in December. He posted it on the messaging app Telegram. According to Right Wing Watch, it’s one of the few social platforms that hasn’t kicked him off yet. 

He also suggested hosting a panel titled “The Politics of Fur,” according to the Telegram posts, and instructed his followers to contact him to set up “dinners, drinks, photos or anything else” if they were also in attendance.  Read more…

More about Furries, Milo Yiannopoulos, Alt Right, Culture, and Web Culture

You are nothing more than a collection of deeply embarrassing and problematic machine learning-determined classifiers.

That humbling truth is brought home by ImageNet Roulette, an online tool that gives anyone bold or foolish enough to upload a photo the opportunity to learn just exactly how artificial intelligence sees them. The project, described as “a provocation” by its creators, aims to shed light on how artificial intelligence systems view and classify humans. 

And, surprise(!), AI has some pretty racist and misogynistic ideas about people. Or, rather, the dataset ImageNet Roulette draws from, ImageNet, is filled with problematic categories that reflect the bias often inherent in the large datasets that make machine learning possible.   Read more…

More about Machine Learning, Tech, and Artificial Intelligence