Meta showed off new smart glasses on Wednesday as it continued to bank on a lifestyle shift toward blending reality and virtual space despite the efforts inflicting heavy financial losses.Announcements included the debut of Meta Ray-Ban Display smart glasses that have built-in screens that allow wearers to see messages, photos and more as though looking at a smartphone screen.Billed as Meta’s most advanced AI glasses, Ray-Ban Display comes with sensor-packed bracelets called neural bands that let people control the eyewear with subtle finger movements, and are priced at $799.”Our goal is to build great-looking glasses that deliver personal superintelligence and a feeling of presence using realistic holograms,” Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said as he showed off new AI glasses at the tech firm’s annual developers conference.”These ideas combined are what we call the metaverse.”Zuckerberg has predicted that AI-infused smart glasses will be the “next major computing platform,” eventually replacing the smartphone.The tech titan began investing heavily in virtual reality and the metaverse about four years ago, with Zuckerberg changing the company’s name from Facebook to Meta in late 2021 to reflect the strategy change.But Reality Labs —  Meta’s virtual and augmented reality unit — has consistently posted big losses.The unit lost $4.5 billion in the second quarter of this year on revenue of just $370 million, highlighting ongoing challenges in the metaverse business.”There’s no realistic chance that smart glasses sales make this division profitable in the short term,” CCS Insight principal analyst Leo Gebbie said of Reality Labs while at the Meta event.”Instead, this is about playing the long-term game to break free from smartphones, where Meta has been throttled by rivals Apple and Google, and to control its own destiny in wearables.”Smart glasses have seemed on the horizon for more than a decade, when Google’s Glass headset and camera released in 2013 — although it has since been discontinued.Meta has encountered more success with its frames developed alongside Ray-Ban, offering features including a built-in camera, music playback and voice interactions with the company’s AI.- Replace smartphones? -The global smart glasses market was estimated at nearly $2 billion last year and is projected to reach $8.26 billion annually by the end of the decade, according to analytics firm Grand View Research.”The next computing platform continues to come into focus,” Meta said.”AI glasses connect us to real-world superpowers as we move throughout the day, tapping into a wealth of information while staying present in the moment.”Zuckerberg unveiled new Ray-Ban Meta and Oakley Meta Vanguard smart glasses.The smart glasses build on a partnership established in 2019 between between Meta and EssilorLuxottica, the parent company of Ray-Ban and Oakley.Ray-Ban Meta glasses have become the top selling AI glasses in the world, with millions of units sold since launch, according to Meta.Features include built-in cameras for hands-free photos or video, along with being able to call on a digital assistant and real-time language translation.New Ray-Ban smart glasses start at $379.Oakley Meta Vanguard are part of a category of “Performance AI glasses” tailored for use during athletic endeavors, and are priced at $499.”We designed Oakley Meta Vanguard for high-intensity sports with an action-ready camera, integrations with fitness apps, immersive audio to elevate your workouts, and more,” Meta said.

A federal judge overseeing a closely watched climate case on Wednesday pressed the lawyer representing young Americans suing President Donald Trump on whether courts have constitutional authority to rein in his fossil-fuel agenda.On the second and last day of hearings in Missoula, Montana, attorneys delivered final arguments in Lighthiser v. Trump, part of a growing global wave of lawsuits seeking to force climate action amid political inertia or hostility.The 22 plaintiffs, represented by the nonprofit Our Children’s Trust, want a preliminary injunction against three executive orders they say trample their inalieanable rights by seeking to “unleash” fossil fuel development while sidelining renewable energy. They also accuse the administration of eroding federal climate science, leaving the public less informed about mounting dangers.The government counters that the lawsuit is undemocratic and echoes Juliana v. United States, a similar youth-led case that wound through the courts for nearly a decade before the Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal last year — and should be similarly dismissed.”This case asks whether the United States Constitution guards against executive abuses of power by executive orders that deprive children and youth of their fundamental rights to life and liberties,” said Julia Olson, director of Our Children’s Trust and the lead lawyer.”And now that the court has had the opportunity to hear from some of the youth plaintiffs and their expert witnesses, the answer to that question is clear, and it’s yes,” she said.But Judge Dana Christensen, who has issued favorable environmental rulings in the past, pressed Olson on whether precedent tied his hands, and asked if granting relief would require him to oversee every subsequent climate action taken by the executive branch.”What exactly does that look like?” he asked. “I’d be required to continue to monitor the actions of this administration to determine whether or not they are acting in a manner that contravenes my injunction.”- Decision awaited -Olson argued the case fundamentally differs from Juliana, which sought to upend decades of federal energy policy, while Lighthiser targets only three orders. She urged the court to take inspiration from Brown v. Board of Education, the 1954 ruling that dismantled racial segregation in schools.Government attorney Michael Sawyer questioned whether the plaintiffs’ own choices undermined their claims of injury, pointing to the flights college student Avery McRae takes from her home state Oregon to Florida.”If she’s injured by every additional ton of emissions, why are those emissions allowed to proceed,” Sawyer said, “but the emissions that put dinner on the table of a coal miner’s family not allowed?”The fate of the case — whether it moves toward trial following a preliminary injunction or is tossed out entirely — may not be clear for weeks or longer.Michael Gerrard, an environmental law professor at Columbia Law School, told AFP the plaintiffs had made “a strong factual case about the causes and dangers of climate change.”But he added: “It would be plowing new ground for a court to say that there is a substantive due process right under the US Constitution to a stable climate system.”- ‘Shouldn’t have to miss school’ -Throughout the hearings, plaintiffs presented experts and firsthand accounts of intensifying heat and ever more destructive climate disasters. The government called no witnesses of its own.Lori Byron, a pediatrician and co-author of government reports, testified children are “uniquely and disproportionately” harmed by climate change because of their developing bodies and dependence on adults.Energy economist Geoffrey Heal of Columbia University rejected the administration’s claim that the country faces an “energy emergency,” the legal justification for Trump’s orders. “The evidence of that is when you go to a light switch and flick it the light comes on,” he said.And 17-year-old Isaiah H. of Missoula, an aspiring cross-country runner, described how worsening fires and shrinking snowpack are reducing his ability to ski, run, and spend time outside.Isaiah recalled how he and his brother once evacuated their house “because the smoke was too bad.””I shouldn’t be having to step in like this, and shouldn’t have to miss school and make up tests and assignments just to advocate for my health and safety.”

Natalia fled Russia fearing imminent arrest for her family’s opposition activism and sought political asylum in the United States. But instead of refuge, she found herself locked in jail for over a year, separated from her husband and children and dreading deportation.With the Trump administration stepping up removals as part of its sweeping anti-immigration crackdown, rights activists warn that deporting Russian dissidents puts them at risk of prison and persecution back home.”I supported the opposition, I supported opposition activists who were against (Russian President Vladimir) Putin’s regime,” Natalia told AFP in a phone interview from an immigration detention center in the southern state of Louisiana. “If I return to Russia, I will be arrested.”Clad in an orange prison uniform, Natalia shares a dormitory with about 60 other women sleeping in bunk beds. Showers and toilets are in the same room, behind curtains that don’t offer privacy or respite from the foul smell.Tens of thousands of Russians have applied for political asylum in the United States, many by crossing the border from Mexico, since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and Moscow’s ensuing suppression of dissent.About 85 percent of Russian asylum claims adjudicated last year were approved, according to official data, but detainees, lawyers and rights groups say denials have increased in recent months, while detainees are subjected to arbitrary detention and not given a fair chance to defend themselves in court.Nearly 900 Russians, many of them asylum seekers, have been deported back home since 2022, official data shows.They include some 100 who were sent back under convoy over the summer on two specially chartered flights, precluding them from seeking refuge in a third country, according to the Russian America for Democracy in Russia (RADR) group and the Russian Antiwar Committee.The deportees faced lengthy interrogations on arrival and at least two of them were arrested, including a serviceman who deserted following the Ukraine invasion and an opposition activist, the groups said.”It’s a catastrophe,” said Dmitry Valuev, RADR’s president. “It cannot be done. They are deporting people who face real danger in Russia.”- ‘Deep sense of disappointment’ – Long-time political activists, Natalia and her husband campaigned for the late opposition leader Alexei Navalny, whose organization has since been outlawed and declared “extremist” in Russia, while his supporters were persecuted.After police searched their apartment outside Moscow in 2023, Natalia’s husband and their pre-teen son flew to Mexico and crossed the US border. In the United States, they surrendered themselves to immigration authorities and were released on parole to await their political asylum hearing in a midwestern state.Natalia followed them a year later, but ended up detained.She has spent nearly 1.5 years in jail, one of an estimated 1,000 Russian citizens held in immigration jails across the country, according to RADR.Lawyers say married couples are often sent to prison in different states, often depriving one of the spouses of a strong asylum case.In April, a judge denied Natalia’s request for political asylum, despite the family’s prior arrests for anti-government protests and a history of involvement with a banned opposition group. She has filed an appeal. “I have a deep sense of disappointment, I thought there is some kind of justice and reason here,” Natalia said. “I could never believe that I would be treated in court the same way as in Russia.”- ‘Completely inhumane’ – Another Russian asylum seeker held with Natalia has also lost her case and is awaiting removal. Her husband Yuri was deported on a commercial flight over the summer, after a year in detention, but was able to get off the plane in Morocco and buy a plane ticket to a third country.He worries, however, that his wife will not have that chance, as was the case with the two mass deportation flights.”It’s completely inhumane not to give people an opportunity to get off the flight,” Yuri told AFP from a South Asian country where he is currently staying. “Fine, you want to kick them out of America, but to do this?”US officials declined to comment on recent deportations of Russian citizens.At the Louisiana detention center, the days are long and grim.Natalia says security guards can throw away their meager belongings or forbid them to use a towel to keep warm during a walk outside. Some say they are going hungry and are not receiving proper medical care.”I don’t cry anymore, I know I need to live to see the appeal,” Natalia said. “My biggest sorrow is not being able to take part in my children’s lives. I know they need me.”

A Florida man was executed by lethal injection in the southern US state on Wednesday for the murders of his wife’s sister and her parents.David Pittman, 63, became the 12th person executed in Florida this year and the 31st in the United States.The execution was carried out at 6:12 pm (2212 GMT) at the Florida State Prison, authorities said.Pittman was sentenced to death in 1991 for the 1990 murders of Bonnie Knowles, 21, the sister of his estranged wife, and her parents, Clarence Knowles, 60, and Barbara Knowles, 50.They were stabbed to death and their home was then set on fire.Pittman’s lawyers sought a stay of execution, claiming he is intellectually disabled with an IQ of 70, but the appeals were denied.The 31 executions in the United States this year is the most since 2014 when 35 inmates were put to death.Florida has carried out the most executions, followed by South Carolina and Texas with four each.Twenty-six of this year’s executions have been carried out by lethal injection, two by firing squad and three by nitrogen hypoxia, which involves pumping nitrogen gas into a face mask, causing the prisoner to suffocate.The use of nitrogen gas as a method of capital punishment has been denounced by United Nations experts as cruel and inhumane.The death penalty has been abolished in 23 of the 50 US states, while three others — California, Oregon and Pennsylvania — have moratoriums in place.President Donald Trump is a proponent of capital punishment, and on his first day in office called for an expansion of its use “for the vilest crimes.”