Good Luck Banning Smart Glasses

 

Good Luck Banning Smart Glasses
Smart glasses bans are reasonable, important, and damn near impossible.
BY JAMES PEROPUBLISHED FEBRUARY 18, 2026

READING TIME 3 MINUTES

© Raymond Wong / Gizmodo
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If there’s one thing that has people concerned about the growing wave of smart glasses, it’s privacy. Sure, we’ve had cameras at our sides for ages now, but never on our faces in a discreet form factor that makes it hard (sometimes impossible) to recognize when someone is recording. Because of that potential shift, people are reacting accordingly to protect spaces that should remain at least relatively private. By that, I mean they’re restricting smart glasses or just banning them outright.


The latest ban comes courtesy of the cruise liner, Royal Caribbean, which now prohibits the use of any glasses that can record video and take pictures in various parts of its ships. Altogether, the partial ban sounds pretty reasonable, disallowing smart glasses from being used in “casinos, spa service areas, restrooms, locker rooms, medical facilities, security screening locations, youth facilities, during back-of-house tours, in crew areas, or anywhere there is a reasonable expectation of guest and crew privacy.” Basically, just don’t be an a**hole when you use smart glasses, and you’re good.









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It’s reasonable, for sure, and also completely unenforceable.

The thing about smart glasses nowadays is that they’re hard to identify. As someone who’s been wearing Ray-Ban Meta AI glasses consistently for a couple of years now, I’m fairly certain that almost no one recognizes that I have them on. They’re about the size of regular glasses, the cameras blend in pretty seamlessly, and even despite Meta’s safety measures, recording is easy to miss.

To let people know you’re taking a picture or video, Meta’s AI glasses have an LED indicator (a green light) on the outside that turns on the minute you begin recording. I suppose if you know what to look for on a pair of smart glasses, it’s a semi-apparent sign that someone is recording, but if you’re unaware of its existence (like many are), it’s easy to overlook. That’s not even counting the fact that it can be obscured with a little work and $60.
© Raymond Wong / Gizmodo

Then there’s the matter of enforcement. If smart glasses are difficult to spot (and they are), who is going to be responsible for actually sniffing them out and making sure they’re being used appropriately? If you’re banking on an underpaid worker on a cruise liner going out of their way to stop new wave glassholes from recording discreetly in inappropriate locations, I would adjust your expectations ASAP. Royal Caribbean’s threat is that they’ll confiscate smart glasses used improperly, but that sounds like a whole other can of worms to me, especially if anyone caught recording isn’t keen on handing their expensive Ray-Bans over. And what if they have prescription lenses? Would you deprive a poor astigmatist of his reading spectacles?


Cruise liners aren’t the only entities trying to ban smart glasses, either. Recently, the College Board banned wearing smart glasses while taking the SATs, which is another no-brainer. Smart glasses, especially those with AI and internet access, would be an adept cheating tool and could be used to get answers to all sorts of stuff quietly and quickly. That ban feels even more hopeless, though, if I’m being honest. As I pointed out recently, smart glasses that could be useful for cheating, like those made by Even Realities, are even harder to spot since they don’t have cameras or speakers and pass for normal glasses.

To put it mildly, the whole thing is a bit of a mess. Google Glass may have been partially impeded by bans way back in 2013 when some bars, restaurants, and casinos basically outlawed them, but that was a different world and a different product. The fact of the matter is that banning today’s smart glasses is going to take effort and consistency. And those traits, my friend, aren’t always easy to come by.

Grandson of Reese’s inventor accuses Hershey of hurting the brand | AP News

Grandson of Reese’s inventor accuses Hershey of hurting the brand | AP News

Grandson of the inventor of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups accuses Hershey of cutting corners

By DEE-ANN DURBIN
Updated 5:06 PM GMT-8, February 18, 2026


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The grandson of the inventor of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups has lashed out at The Hershey Co., accusing the candy company of hurting the Reese’s brand by shifting to cheaper ingredients in many products.

Hershey acknowledges some recipe changes but said Wednesday that it was trying to meet consumer demand for innovation. High cocoa prices also have led Hershey and other manufacturers to experiment with using less chocolate in recent years.

Brad Reese, 70, said in a Feb. 14 letter to Hershey’s corporate brand manager that for multiple Reese’s products, the company replaced milk chocolate with compound coatings and peanut butter with peanut crème.

“How does The Hershey Co. continue to position Reese’s as its flagship brand, a symbol of trust, quality and leadership, while quietly replacing the very ingredients (Milk Chocolate + Peanut Butter) that built Reese’s trust in the first place?” Reese wrote in the letter, which he posted on his LinkedIn profile.


He is the grandson of H.B. Reese, who spent two years at Hershey before forming his own candy company in 1919. H.B. Reese invented Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups in 1928; his six sons eventually sold his company to Hershey in 1963.

Discord will restrict accounts until you confirm age with ID, scans

Discord will restrict accounts until you confirm age with ID, scans

Discord will restrict your account next month unless you scan ID or face

Ben Schoon | Feb 9 2026 - 8:50 am PT

11 Comments

In a controversial move, Discord today announced that it will restrict all user accounts globally unless users verify their age either by way of face or ID scan.

Discord’s updated privacy approach is “teen-by-default,” the company said in an announcement today. This means that, starting in March, all users on Discord will have their accounts partially restricted to the experience you’d get if you were under the age of 13.

Discord breaks down the restrictions as follows:

• Content Filters: Discord users will need to be age-assured as adults in order to unblur sensitive content or turn off the setting.
• Age-gated Spaces – Only users who are age-assured as adults will be able to access age-restricted channels, servers, and app commands. 
• Message Request Inbox: Direct messages from people a user may not know are routed to a separate inbox by default, and access to modify this setting is limited to age-assured adult users.
• Friend Request Alerts: People will receive warning prompts for friend requests from users they may not know.
• Stage Restrictions: Only age-assured adults may speak on stage in servers.

The only way to get around this would be to verify your age, which Discord says can be accomplished in one of two ways. The first is to “submit a form of identification” to Discord vendors (i.e. scan your physical ID), or to use “facial age estimation.” Discord says that the latter process happens fully on-device, as “video selfies for facial age estimation never leave a user’s device.” For ID scans, Discord says that documents “are deleted quickly.”

“More options” for age verification are apparently coming later, but that’s it for the time being.

Drinking at the office

 

Prime number: Drinking at the office

Nick Iluzada

If you want to get into NYC’s most exclusive hotspot, you’ll have to work—not to get past an intimidating bouncer, but to crunch numbers for Jamie Dimon. Morgan’s, the employee-only English pub on the 13th floor of JPMorgan’s new Park Avenue headquarters, has become so popular that younger staffers are making reservations weeks out to score one of its coveted tables, the Wall Street Journal reports. You don’t need an analyst to spot the problem with the pub’s fundamentals: ~10,000 people work in the HQ and Morgan’s has 55 seats, per the WSJ. And even though it doesn’t permit day drinking, those seats are in demand. To alleviate the crush, the bank changed its policy so reservations aren’t required—but you’ll probably still need one (and an employee friend) to cross “splitting the G” at a table surrounded by finance titans off your bucket list.

Nearly a thousand Google workers sign letter urging company to divest from ICE, CBP

Nearly a thousand Google workers sign letter urging company to divest from ICE, CBP


Nearly a thousand Google workers sign letter urging company to divest from ICE, CBP
Published Sat, Feb 7 202610:43 AM ESTUpdated Sat, Feb 7 20264:45 PM EST

Laya Neelakandan@in/layaneelakandan@Laya_neel
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Key Points
Hundreds of Google workers signed an open letter urging the company to cut its ties with ICE and CBP after rising violence.
The letter also calls on the company to institute protections for its workers.
It adds to mounting pressure on tech companies to speak out against federal immigration policies.

In this articleGOOGL-1.45 (-0.45%)

The logo for Google LLC is seen at the Google Store Chelsea in Manhattan, New York, Nov. 17, 2021.
Andrew Kelly | Reuters


More than 900 Google workers have signed an open letter condemning recent actions by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP), urging the tech giant to disclose its dealings with the agencies and divest from them.

The letter, citing recent ICE killings of Keith Porter, Renee Good, and Alex Pretti, said that the employees are “appalled by the violence” and “horrified” by Google’s part in it.


“Google is powering this campaign of surveillance, violence, and repression,” the letter reads.

It goes on to cite that Google Cloud is aiding CBP surveillance and powering Palantir’s ImmigrationOS system, which is used by ICE. The letter states that Google’s generative artificial intelligence is used by CBP and that the Google Play Store has blocked ICE tracking apps.

The letter also quotes a social media post by Google Chief Scientist Jeff Dean from early January, who wrote, “We all bear a collective responsibility to speak up and not be silent when we see things like the events of the last week.”

“We are vehemently opposed to Google’s partnerships with DHS, CBP, and ICE,” the employees wrote. “We consider it our leadership’s ethical and policy-bound responsibility to disclose all contracts and collaboration with CBP and ICE, and to divest from these partnerships.”

The letter calls on Google to acknowledge the danger that workers face from ICE, host an emergency internal Q&A on the company’s DHS and military contracts, implement safety measures to protect workers — such as flexible work-from-home policies and immigration support — and reveal its ties with the government agencies to help all involved determine where the company will draw a line.


“As workers of conscience, we demand that our leadership end our backslide into contracting for governments enacting violence against civilians,” the letter reads. “Google is now a prominent node in a shameful lineage of private companies profiting from violent state repression. We must use this moment to come together as a Googler community and demand an end to this disgraceful use of our labor.”

Google did not immediately respond to a CNBC request for comment.

The letter comes as employees place mounting pressure on tech CEOs to speak out against ICE. Just two weeks prior, employees representing Amazon, Spotify, Meta and more wrote a similar letter demanding ICE “out of our cities.”

ByteDance will add AI safeguards after Disney threatened to sue

ByteDance will add AI safeguards after Disney threatened to sue. The Chinese tech giant said it plans to “strengthen safeguards” for its Seedance 2.0 video-making tool after several Hollywood studios complained that it was using their copyrighted characters without permission. Disney sent the company a cease-and-desist letter last week, accusing it of “hijacking” its characters. ByteDance said it “heard the concerns” but did not specify how it would protect companies’ intellectual property. Last week, Seedance 2.0 generated a hyperrealistic video depicting the likenesses of Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt fighting on a rooftop, leading one Hollywood screenwriter to say, “It’s likely over for us.”

 

And the latest AI winner is...glass

The Washington Post/Getty Images

Like everyone in the elevator at the end of Willy Wonka, US-based Corning is riding glass to new heights. The 175-year-old company’s stock hit an all-time high on Friday and is up more than 130% over the past year because it’s a surprising AI winner. Window to the future: Corning has long been an innovator, producing everything from Edison’s first light bulbs to Pyrex bakeware. Then, in 1970, the company’s researchers developed fiber-optic wire. But over time, that glass fiber product started to look like it needed Windex. In 2018, Corning focused on making thinner, tougher glass cables that performed especially well in data centers. When the AI boom hit, the company was perfectly positioned to help build out the infrastructure: Late last month, Corning signed a $6 billion fiber-optic cable contract with Meta. The glassmaker expects other AI “hyperscalers” to follow suit. Glass bubble? Corning was on a similar trajectory from 1997 to 2000, but when the dot-com bubble popped, the company lost more than 90% of its value. The company says it’s more diversified now. In August, Corning signed a $2.5 billion deal to manufacture all of the cover glass for iPhones and Apple Watches.

YouTube TV introduces cheaper bundles, including a $65/month sports package | TechCrunch

YouTube TV introduces cheaper bundles, including a $65/month sports package | TechCrunch

YouTube on Monday introduced lower-priced YouTube TV plans that will allow subscribers to better tailor their plans to their own interests in areas like sports, news, and entertainment. The company said that it will offer more than 10 different plans to choose from, all priced below the $82.99 per month main YouTube TV plan that has access to more than 100 networks. The new plans will start rolling out this week.

While that main plan will not go away, the new plans will allow customers to pick what matters most and what they could do without in return for cost savings.

Image Credits:YouTube

Among the new plans are a $64.99 per month Sports plan, a Sports + News plan for $71.99 per month, a less expensive Entertainment plan for $54.99 per month, and a $69.99 per month News + Entertainment + Family plan, which includes kids’ content.

The Sports plans include all major broadcasters, plus networks like FS1, NBC Sports Network, all of the ESPN networks, and ESPN Unlimited. This plan is $18 cheaper per month than the main plan.

YouTube TV’s news channels include CNBC, Fox News, CNN, MS NOW, and Bloomberg, along with other national news channels. Combined with Sports, the package is priced $11 lower per month than the main YouTube TV plan.

The entertainment-only plan is $28 cheaper per month than the main plan, and includes major broadcasters as well as FX, Hallmark, Comedy Central, Bravo, Paramount, Food Network, and HGTV. Families with small kids can add other channels like Disney Channel, Nickelodeon, National Geographic, Cartoon Network, and PBS Kids for a bit more.

The company is also offering discounts for new subscribers, which could lower the price of certain plans further for either the first few months or the first year. Subscribers will continue to have access to YouTube TV’s unlimited DVR, support for up to six family members on one account, multiview, and more.

Other add-ons like NFL Sunday Ticket + RedZone, HBO Max, and 4K Plus can also be purchased to customize plans further.

The company says all the new plans will roll out over the next several weeks.

Customized packages are now not a new idea in streaming — à la carte options were a key part of the early streaming pioneer Sling TV’s initial offering, for instance. This element of personalization was also one of the factors that was meant to make streaming a better alternative to traditional pay TV, where consumers often ended up paying for channels they didn’t want.

But as streamers added more content, networks, and, in particular, sports programming, the cost of streaming inched back up to compete with cable and linear television. Live TV streamers like YouTube TV may have offered convenience and some savings over still more expensive cable, but it wasn’t exactly affordable anymore.

These new packages hit the market at a time when consumer confidence is at its lowest in more than 11 years, due to fears about the labor market and higher prices, which have made consumers more cautious about their spending.

 

AI Is Now More Creative Than the Average Human

By University of MontrealJanuary 31, 20263 Comments6 Mins Read

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A massive study shows that AI can now beat the average human on certain creativity tests. Yet the most creative people remain well ahead, highlighting AI’s role as a creative assistant rather than a replacement. Credit: Shutterstock

Are generative artificial intelligence systems such as ChatGPT capable of real creativity? A new large-scale study led by Professor Karim Jerbi from the Department of Psychology at the Université de Montréal set out to answer that question. The research team also included Yoshua Bengio, a leading AI pioneer and professor at the Université de Montréal. Together, they conducted the most extensive comparison to date between human creativity and the creative abilities of large language models.

The findings, published in Scientific Reports, point to a major shift. Generative AI systems have now reached a level where they can outperform the average human on certain creativity measures. At the same time, the study makes it clear that the most creative people still exceed the performance of even the strongest AI models.

AI Reaches Average Human Creativity Levels

The researchers evaluated several major large language models, including ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and others, and compared their results with data from 100,000 human participants. The outcome marks a clear turning point. Some AI systems, including GPT-4, scored higher than the average human on tasks designed to measure divergent linguistic creativity.

“Our study shows that some AI systems based on large language models can now outperform average human creativity on well-defined tasks,” explains Professor Karim Jerbi. “This result may be surprising — even unsettling — but our study also highlights an equally important observation: even the best AI systems still fall short of the levels reached by the most creative humans.”

Further analysis by the study’s co-first authors, postdoctoral researcher Antoine Bellemare-Pépin (Université de Montréal) and PhD candidate François Lespinasse (Université Concordia), revealed an important pattern. While some AI models now outperform the average person, the highest levels of creativity remain uniquely human.

When the researchers looked more closely, they found that the most creative half of human participants achieved higher average scores than all AI systems tested. The difference was even more pronounced among the top 10 percent of the most creative individuals.

“We developed a rigorous framework that allows us to compare human and AI creativity using the same tools, based on data from more than 100,000 participants, in collaboration with Jay Olson from the University of Toronto,” says Professor Karim Jerbi, who is also an associate professor at Mila.

How Creativity Was Measured in Humans and AI

To make a fair comparison between people and machines, the research team used several methods. The primary tool was the Divergent Association Task (DAT), a psychological test designed to measure divergent creativity, or the ability to generate many original and varied ideas from a single prompt.

Created by study co-author Jay Olson, the DAT asks participants, whether human or AI, to generate ten words that are as different in meaning from one another as possible. A highly creative response might include words such as “galaxy, fork, freedom, algae, harmonica, quantum, nostalgia, velvet, hurricane, photosynthesis.”

Performance on this task in humans closely mirrors results on other well-established creativity tests used in idea generation, writing, and creative problem solving. Although the task is language-based, it does not simply test vocabulary. Instead, it taps into broader cognitive processes involved in creative thinking across many domains. Another advantage of the DAT is its speed and accessibility, as it takes only two to four minutes to complete and is available online to the general public.

From Simple Word Tests to Creative Writing

Building on these results, the researchers examined whether AI performance on this basic word association task could translate into more complex creative activities. To test this, they directly compared AI systems and human participants on creative writing tasks.

These included writing haiku (a short three-line poetic form), producing movie plot summaries, and creating short stories. Once again, the pattern was clear. While AI sometimes outperformed average human participants, the most skilled human creators continued to demonstrate a clear advantage.

Can AI Creativity Be Adjusted?

The findings raised an important follow-up question. Can AI creativity be shaped or controlled? According to the study, it can. One key factor is the model’s temperature, a technical setting that influences how predictable or adventurous an AI’s responses are.

At lower temperature settings, AI systems tend to generate safer and more predictable outputs. At higher temperatures, the responses become more varied and less constrained, encouraging risk-taking and more original associations.

The researchers also found that the way prompts are written plays a major role. For example, instructions that encourage AI models to consider the origins and structure of words using etymology lead to more unexpected ideas and higher creativity scores. Together, these results show that AI creativity depends heavily on human input and guidance, making interaction between people and machines a central part of the creative process.

Will AI Replace Human Creators?

The study offers a balanced perspective on fears that artificial intelligence could replace creative professionals. While some AI systems can now rival human creativity on specific tasks, the research also highlights clear limitations and the continued importance of human creativity.

“Even though AI can now reach human-level creativity on certain tests, we need to move beyond this misleading sense of competition,” says Professor Karim Jerbi. “Generative AI has above all become an extremely powerful tool in the service of human creativity: it will not replace creators, but profoundly transform how they imagine, explore, and create — for those who choose to use it.”

Rather than predicting the end of creative careers, the findings encourage a new way of thinking about AI. The technology may serve as a creative assistant that expands possibilities for exploration and inspiration. The future of creativity may depend less on humans versus machines and more on new forms of collaboration, where AI supports and enhances human imagination.

“By directly confronting human and machine capabilities, studies like ours push us to rethink what we mean by creativity,” concludes Professor Karim Jerbi.

The article “Divergent creativity in humans and large language models” was published in Scientific Reports on January 21, 2026.

Reference: “Divergent creativity in humans and large language models” by Antoine Bellemare-Pepin, François Lespinasse, Philipp Thölke, Yann Harel, Kory Mathewson, Jay A. Olson, Yoshua Bengio and Karim Jerbi, 21 January 2026, Scientific Reports.
DOI: 10.1038/s41598-025-25157-3

The research involved collaboration among scientists from Université de Montréal, Université Concordia, University of Toronto Mississauga, Mila (Quebec AI Institute), and Google DeepMind.

The study was led by Professor Karim Jerbi, with Antoine Bellemare-Pépin (Université de Montréal) and François Lespinasse (Université Concordia) serving as co-first authors. The author team also included Yoshua Bengio, founder of Mila and LoiZéro, and one of the world’s leading pioneers of deep learning, the technology behind modern AI systems such as ChatGPT.