Meta Debuts Augmented Reality Eyeglasses

HERE'S LOOKING AT YOU

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently showed off a prototype for a new kind of augmented-reality headset. Rather than the bulky quasi-helmets long associated with virtual reality, Zuckerberg sported a simple pair of glasses, much closer to the eyeglasses that millions of people wear every day. The Meta CEO unveiled the 100g, see-through glasses during this year’s Meta Connect keynote, describing them as “a glimpse of the future,” giving wearers a look at “the physical world with holograms displayed on it.” While they won’t be available for purchase anytime soon, the glasses reveal a new shift for the company, and potentially for AR hardware as a whole. Source: Arstechnica

1M

September marked a big milestone for generative AI firm OpenAI: It reported reaching its 1 millionth paying user across its ChatGPT Enterprise, Team and Edu platforms. The company said much of that growth comes from Germany, Japan and the UK, as well as large organizations like Moderna, Morgan Stanley and Rakuten. Use of OpenAI’s paid services, however, pales in comparison to the free version of ChatGPT, which counted 200 million users as of August 2024. Source: Venture Beat

SAY ANYTHING

Researchers from Klick Labs have found a way to predict hypertension, or chronic high blood pressure, with an app. Users in the study recorded their voices six times a day for two weeks, and the app used AI to analyze the recordings for speech energy patterns and pitch variability, predicting hypertension with significant accuracy: up to 84 percent for women and 77 percent for men. Traditional blood pressure measurements can be expensive and require medical expertise, so researchers say this could “exponentially transform health care, making it more accessible and affordable, especially for large, underserved populations.” Source: Interesting Engineering

100 TRILLION

In 2023, Americans used over 100 trillion megabytes of wireless data, a 36 percent increase from 2022, according to an industry survey. While time spent talking on the phone went down by about 100 billion minutes and we sent a similar number of text messages as in the previous year, much of the jump came from new tech like drones, autonomous vehicles and space missions. The number of wireless connections in the U.S. also increased in 2023 to 558 million, a 6 percent bump. Source: Engadget

This story originally appeared in the November/December 2024 issue of Government Technology magazine. Click here to view the full digital edition online.