Meta's less-creepy smart glasses

PLUS: OpenAI rescues biotech’s lost research

Good morning, tech enthusiasts. Meta may have found the easiest way to make smart glasses less creepy: take out the camera.

Its rumored Luna glasses swap covert-filming fears for six microphones and an always-ready AI assistant — a privacy tradeoff that may be easier to sell, if not entirely reassuring.

In today’s tech rundown:

  • Meta’s next smart glasses could lose the camera

  • OpenAI is footing the bill for more biology data

  • Scientists grow a human cortex inside mice

  • GLP-1s are finding a life beyond weight loss

LATEST DEVELOPMENTS

META

Image source: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty / Images 2.5

The Rundown: Meta is reportedly dropping the camera from its next smart glasses as backlash over covert filming mounts, with an audio-focused pair codenamed Luna due this fall, The Information reports.

The details:

  • Six microphones would let wearers talk to Meta AI and its Muse assistant, with built-in speakers delivering responses and a side button to access Meta AI.

  • Meta could unveil Luna at Connect on Sept. 23–24 and is reportedly targeting Oct. shipments; the company did not immediately comment on the report.

  • Luna reportedly has slimmer arms than previous Meta glasses and would come in Clubmaster and Burbank styles, bringing it closer to ordinary eyewear.

  • French prosecutors are investigating cases involving smart glasses used to secretly film women, while Australia is considering tighter restrictions.

Why it matters: Luna would test whether talking to an assistant is enough to make smart glasses worth wearing all day, potentially opening the market to people who don’t want a camera on their face. Removing the lens could make the glasses more socially acceptable, though six microphones leave plenty of room for questions.

OPENAI

Image source: UNC-Chapel Hill

The Rundown: OpenAI’s nonprofit arm is paying to fill a gap that bigger models alone can’t fix: the shortage of biological data needed to turn AI’s medical ambitions into useful science, MIT Technology Review reports.

The details:

  • The OpenAI Foundation’s new Data for Public Health initiative will fund scientific datasets that could improve AI systems used in medicine and drug development.

  • Its largest disclosed grant is $40M for a UNC–Chapel Hill program collecting data to support personalized cancer-vaccine research.

  • The foundation is also backing OpenADMET competitions that produce standardized data for predicting how potential drugs behave in the body.

  • Another $500K will go to nonprofit 1Day Sooner, which plans to rescue data from bankrupt biotech companies before it disappears.

Why it matters: Teaching AI to help develop drugs takes experimental data that scientists haven’t collected yet or that companies have never shared. OpenAI’s foundation is paying for that work, including salvaging research from failed biotech firms that could still help scientists understand which treatments work and which don’t.

STANFORD UNIVERSITY

Image source: Pasca Lab / Stanford University

The Rundown: Stanford scientists just grew a mostly human cortex inside mice, giving researchers a new way to study living human brain tissue, and what happens when it goes wrong.

The details:

  • The team put lab-grown human brain organoids into mice engineered to lack most of their cortex; in 3 months, human tissue made up 90% of cortical volume.

  • The transplanted neurons formed working connections with the mouse nervous system, extending fibers as far as the spinal cord.

  • Oxygen deprivation damaged the human tissue, offering a potential way to investigate brain injuries associated with cerebral palsy.

  • There were clear limits: The tissue lacked normal cortical layers and only partly improved memory and coordination compared with mice missing the cortex.

Why it matters: Human brain cells grown in a dish lack the blood supply and wider neural connections that shape their development, making these mice a potentially valuable bridge between lab experiments and patients. But researchers still need to establish which features of human disease this unusual brain can reliably reproduce.

BIOTECH

Image source: Ideogram / The Rundown

The Rundown: Ozempic’s next act may have little to do with dropping pounds: Doctors are prescribing GLP-1s to some normal-weight patients seeking relief from pain and inflammatory symptoms, The Wall Street Journal reports.

The details:

  • Endometriosis surgeon Andrea Vidali estimates nearly one in five of his patients takes a GLP-1 off-label, primarily for pain and related symptoms.

  • Some doctors prescribe smaller microdoses to limit unwanted weight loss, though evidence for these experimental uses remains preliminary or anecdotal.

  • At Mount Sinai, a small Crohn’s disease trial is testing standard-dose tirzepatide (the ingredient in Mounjaro and Zepbound) in mostly normal-weight patients.

  • The risks and practical hurdles remain: muscle loss, gastrointestinal side effects, and insurance that typically won’t cover these unapproved uses.

Why it matters: If trials confirm benefits beyond weight loss, GLP-1s could offer another treatment option for people living with difficult chronic conditions. For now, patient demand is running ahead of the evidence, and promising symptom relief still needs to become a proven treatment.

QUICK HITS

Apple is reportedly developing an AI server with up to four M8 Ultra chips for a 2029 debut, potentially returning to the enterprise server market after nearly two decades.

Snap showed off its $2,195 Specs, pitching the AR glasses as an all-in-one wearable for entertainment, navigation, AI assistance, and hands-free work.

Costco expanded its Uber Eats delivery partnership to 47 states from 17, putting nearly 600 warehouses and the full Costco catalog on the app for members.

Amazon is raising hourly pay by $1 for eligible U.S. operations workers, bringing starting wages to $20 and average pay to nearly $24.

The U.S. Department of Energy launched a $215M competition to build quantum computers capable of useful scientific research by 2028.

Cheap Chinese solar panels are fueling a global rooftop power boom, reportedly cutting bills while squeezing utilities and straining grids.

Amazon said some customer data is permanently lost after Iranian strikes damaged its cloud facilities in Bahrain and the UAE.

Google patched a Pixel modem flaw exploited in targeted attacks that let hackers compromise phones without users clicking anything.

The SEC granted a 5-year exemption from certain regulations for platforms trading blockchain-based stocks, while requiring traditional shareholder rights.

Chipotle is bringing Palantir into the burrito business, tapping the controversial government contractor’s software to flag food safety risks.

That's it for today's tech rundown!

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Rowan, Zach, Shubham, Jennifer, and Nate — The Rundown’s editorial team

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