Saudi Arabia’s first domestic car brand showed its opening pair of production vehicles this weeks, at the new CEER Manufacturing Complex in King Abdullah Economic City. CEER is a joint venture between the Public Investment Fund and Foxconn, and the EXOBOT collection starts with a long, low sedan and a slightly shorter SUV that share one electric platform, the same 112 kWh battery, and the same 800 volt electrical layout. Five more models are planned by 2030, some smaller and some with other power sources, but these two flagships are the ones the company is putting on the road first.

The cars have a sharp wedge profile, with the nose thrust forward so near to the tarmac and the cabin rising up toward the back. Rob Melville, a McLaren veteran, designed them with a 2.4-meter windshield tilted back at a 15-degree angle, thin light bars made of 32 vertical elements to commemorate Saudi unification year, and forged aluminum wheels with triangular cutouts inspired by traditional Lahej architecture. Lower door glass is reversible, allowing it to shift from tinted to opaque, and then there are the distinctive doors, known as Shahin Wing Doors. They’re nearly three meters long, swing up in a 60-centimeter arc, and leave you with a pillarless entrance that looks more like a concept car than a production vehicle.

Sale

LEGO Speed Champions Bugatti Vision Gran Turismo Hyper Sports Car 77253

• CAR TOY FOR KIDS – Young car fans build a legendary ride with the LEGO Speed Champions Bugatti Vision Gran Turismo Hyper Sports Car (77253) building…
• ICONIC BUGATTI DETAILS – The completed build is packed with authentic details from the car created by Bugatti for the Gran Turismo video game in…
• DRIVER MINIFIGURE & ACCESSORIES – Includes a driver minifigure wearing a Bugatti outfit and helmet with a wig and wrench accessory that can be…

The sedan measures 5.26 meters long, 2.1 meters wide, and 1.43 meters tall. The SUV is 5.02 meters long and the same width, but it stands 1.69 meters taller since it has more than 11 inches of ground clearance. Both automobiles have a wheelbase of 3.2 meters. The First Edition models have a tri-motor all-wheel-drive system that produces 850 horsepower and 1,000 Nm. That sedan will accelerate to 100 km/h in 2.6 seconds and can reportedly travel up to 670 km on a single charge utilizing the NEDC cycle. The matching SUV takes somewhat longer to reach 100, but still does it in 2.9 seconds, despite having a slightly lower stated range of up to 560 kilometers. If you upgrade to additional power, you’ll receive 1,111 horsepower and 1,500 Nm, which reduces the time to 2.1 seconds for the sedan and 2.4 seconds for the SUV, with top speeds of 250 km/h and 210 km/h. Oh, and charging from 10% to 80% will take less than 30 minutes, with a peak rate of approximately 250 kW.

Heat is something they take extremely seriously, because it is not an afterthought, but a priority. They claim that their Halo Cooling technology can reduce cabin temperature from a blistering 65 C to a considerably more comfortable 32 C in just ten minutes. They’re also installing special foils, quadruple silver-coated glass, dual air conditioning units, and an aerodynamic roof to keep the heat out. All of this is part of a package that includes Rimac electric drive hardware, seven airbags, an aluminum space frame, and cell-to-pack batteries (which allow for additional interior space). Hyundai Transys plans to start supplying integrated drive units in 2027, and the business has even licensed some BMW component technology.

Inside the cabin, the major feature is a giant 48-inch curved 8K display that runs from pillar to pillar, a 10.4-inch center control panel, and an 8-inch screen for the passengers in the back. Steering is accomplished via a yoke, with steer-by-wire technology reducing lock-to-lock travel from 400 degrees to a considerably more manageable 160 degrees. There is also rear-wheel steering and adaptive air suspension. The voice assistant supports Arabic and English, and the sound system is rather wild, with exciters for 360-degree playback. You can choose from three factory-fitted scents to set the mood, and there are over-the-air upgrades, which allow you to add features later without having to return to the dealer. Standard highway aid technology includes hands-free driving, automated lane changes, and point-to-point navigation. To top it off, there’s a companion app that allows you to monitor charge status, interior temperature, and even remotely park your car.

Production will remain inside the local confines of the King Abdullah Economic City plant, as CEER envisions their major automotive manufacturing in the Middle East. Localization targets are scheduled to rise to 45 percent of local content by 2034, after which they promise orders would be fulfilled and delivered within weeks. The first deliveries are scheduled for 2027, after which they will be distributed throughout Saudi Arabia and the surrounding markets. The First Edition vehicles have a really neat collection of standard luxuries, including red and black Nappa leather, some great trimming, and a numbered plaque that’s a reproduction of the VIN, just to add that bit of exclusivity. As for the pricing, well, let’s just say that they’re keeping that under wraps for now. For a country that has never made its own passenger automobiles, this is an audacious first effort: it is long, wide, fast, and designed to survive the local climate, which is where it will be used the most in the real world.
[Source]

It’s a bit of a strange moment for VR. While Meta once championed the industry, it’s been closing studios and waffling on the metaverse (a word I didn’t hear once in my demo, by the way). And while it’s announcing some new games alongside the VR glasses, including the latest iteration of Beat Saber, I don’t think gaming will be a primary use case.

Instead, Meta seems to be positioning its VR glasses as more of an entertainment and productivity device. I was able to watch some 3D content — a Billie Eilish concert and an NBA game — that was specifically filmed for the device and it felt more immersive than even the typical VR viewing experience.

Karissa Bell for Engadget

But I was more intrigued by how Meta is thinking about productivity. You can connect the glasses to a Mac or PC to use as a remote desktop. I tried this out with a Surface laptop. The laptop’s display was dark but I could see a three-window setup in front of me, with the ability to reposition the windows or even move into an ultrawide mode.

There’s also a somewhat confusingly named “Surface Keyboard” that turns any flat surface in front of you into a keyboard and trackpad. All I had to do was lay my hands on the table and a virtual keyboard and trackpad appeared.

The keyboard was “full-sized” according to Meta, and when I looked at it alongside my hands it did seem close to the dimensions of the laptop keyboard I’m currently typing on. But something about the  perspective made it feel a little smaller and more cramped. Plus, the lack of haptic feedback made the experience feel a bit odd. I was still able to type out a few sentences with relatively little effort, though, so it might feel more natural over time.

Meta

Still, I’m a little skeptical that people want to work this way. Due to the relatively limited field of view, I had to physically turn my head around to see the contents of each window and couldn’t see all three at once. But I also spend much of my laptop time writing in Google Docs and reading web pages, tasks that aren’t necessarily enhanced by the immersive environment in VR. I could see how vibe coding or design-focused work might benefit from this kind of setup.

In some ways, the Meta VR Glasses feels like the company’s way of trying to make VR hardware more broadly appealing. By emphasizing “immersive entertainment” and productivity, Meta can now reach people who are intrigued by something like Android XR (or even the Apple Vision Pro) but never saw much utility in a Quest headset. It also helps that hardware advancements made VR in a glasses-like form factor possible in the first place.

I’ve only ever been a casual VR user, but I think it’s an approach that makes a lot of sense in 2026, even if it might be a disappointment to some VR fans. I also expect we will likely get even more news and updates about upcoming content from Meta over the next few months before the Meta VR Glasses’ expected ship date next spring.

Mark Zuckerberg has revealed the device on stage at Connect.

The Thunderbolt 5 docking station market is very crowded, but at a street price of about $350, the uGreen Revodok Maxidok 17-in-1 stands out, with an excellent price to features balance.

A laptop is a compromise between power and portability. The trade-off is usually ports, with thin notebooks like the MacBook Pro offering only a handful of connections.

A Thunderbolt dock solves that by turning one port into many. The Revodok Maxidok pushes that idea about as far as it currently goes, with Thunderbolt 5 speeds and a built-in SSD slot.

uGreen’s dock lineup spans USB-C hubs through to Thunderbolt 5 models. The 17-in-1 sits at the top of the current range.

uGreen Revodok Maxidok 17-in-1 review: Specifications

uGreen Revodok Maxidok 17-in-1 review: Design and ports

The Maxidok uses a two-tone metal chassis, with ports split across the front and rear faces. The front holds the most frequently accessed connections, while the back handles the permanent desk setup.

uGreen Revodok Maxidok 17-in-1 review: The box

Advertisement

On the front are three USB-C ports at 10Gbps, an SD 4.0 and TF card reader, a 3.5mm combo audio jack, and a power button. Power buttons are uncommon on docks, and it is a nice touch.

The rear carries the two Thunderbolt 5 downstream ports, the single Thunderbolt 5 upstream port for the laptop, and a DisplayPort 2.1 output. It also has three USB-A ports at 10Gbps, 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet, separate audio in and out jacks, and the DC-in for the power supply.

uGreen Revodok Maxidok 17-in-1 review: The front ports

Underneath is a cover, hiding the M.2 SSD slot for storage. We don’t normally recommend getting faster drives for docks or network attached storage. The latest crop of Thunderbolt 5 docks is an exception.

Spend the extra money for a PCI-E 4 M.2 SSD. While you still won’t quite get native speeds from the drive, when connected to a Thunderbolt 5 host, you will see more than 3 gigabytes per second transfer.

uGreen Revodok Maxidok 17-in-1 review: Thunderbolt 5 and performance

The headline feature is Thunderbolt 5, the host connection to the notebook. It supports data transfer at up to 120Gbps, which uGreen notes is more than double the bandwidth of Thunderbolt 4.

Thunderbolt 5 is the latest version of Intel’s high-speed connection standard. Crucially, it is backwards compatible, so the dock also works with Thunderbolt 4, USB4, and older USB 3.x devices, just at their own lower speeds.

uGreen Revodok Maxidok 17-in-1 review: Rear port view.

Advertisement

For Mac users, this matters because the latest Apple Silicon MacBook Pro models with M5-series chips support Thunderbolt 5. Plugging into this dock would unlock the full bandwidth on those machines.

Older Macs with Thunderbolt 4 or Thunderbolt 3 will still work, but at their respective lower bandwidths. Obviously, the dock does not add capability the host Mac does not already have.

This only really matters if you’re using the SSD, or need to connect three monitors through the dock, though.

uGreen Revodok Maxidok 17-in-1 review: Displays

The Maxidok can drive a single 8K display at 60Hz, or two 6K displays at 60Hz. There is one dedicated DisplayPort 2.1 output, with additional video carried over the Thunderbolt and USB-C connections. Adapt as you will.

There is also a caveat for triple-display setups. Extended mode across three screens is only supported on host laptops and computers with Thunderbolt 5 ports.

uGreen Revodok Maxidok 17-in-1 review: Small compared to its power brick and a Mac mini.

For Mac users specifically, the number of external displays a Mac can drive depends on its chip. Entry-level Apple Silicon chips have limited external display counts, so the dock’s multi-display ceiling likely exceeds what some Macs can actually use, if you don’t have a MacBook Pro.

I can confirm that the dock works fine on Windows. This is AppleInsider though, so that wasn’t the main testing platform.

uGreen Revodok Maxidok 17-in-1 review: Storage and charging

A key differentiator is the built-in M.2 NVMe slot. It accepts a PCIe Gen4 x4 SSD up to 8TB, and uGreen says it can be accessed without completely disassembling the dock, which is a nice change.

This effectively folds a fast external drive into the dock itself. For creative users working with 4K footage or other large files, having that storage built into the desk setup is convenient.

SSDs used for testing included a Samsung 990 Evo Plus drive and a Samsung SSD 9100 Pro 1TB drive.

uGreen Revodok Maxidok 17-in-1 review: You can add an M.2 drive for added storage.

Advertisement

The manufacturer says that transfer speeds peak at 6.2 gigabytes per second from the drive. That’s never a real number, no matter what manufacturer is saying it.

In the real world, I got about 5.3 gigabytes per second from a M3 Ultra Mac Studio, which is close enough when compared to a manufacturer spec.

As far as power goes, the dock provides 240W in total. Up to 140W of that goes to charging the host laptop, though this requires the laptop and cabling to support Power Delivery 3.1.

Initial tests were limited to 100W with the cable supplied by uGreen, to a 16-inch M5 Max MacBook Pro. I swapped out the cable with a known EPR-compatible USB-C cable, and the dock delivered 140W, no problem.

The remaining power is split among the other ports. The two Thunderbolt 5 downstream ports provide 15W each, and the two front USB-C ports share 60W between them.

uGreen Revodok Maxidok 17-in-1 review: A flagship dock for a single-cable desk

The Revodok Maxidok 17-in-1 is built for users who want one cable to do everything, the same as every other Thunderbolt dock on the market since 2016. In 2026, the combination of Thunderbolt 5, 17 ports, built-in SSD expansion, and 140W charging covers a complete desk setup.

The built-in M.2 slot is the feature that sets it apart from most docks. Folding fast storage into the dock removes the need for a separate external drive on the desk.

uGreen Revodok Maxidok 17-in-1 review: Mac mini for scale.

Advertisement

At $499.99, it is a premium product, though it is discounted to $390 in June 2026. That price is justifiable for users with a Thunderbolt 5 Mac who will actually use the bandwidth and the port count.

For Mac users, the value is highest on the newest MacBook Pro models with Thunderbolt 5. On older Macs, much of the dock’s headroom would go unused, and a cheaper Thunderbolt 4, or even an older Thunderbolt 3 dock serves just as well.

uGreen Revodok Maxidok 17-in-1 Pros

• Thunderbolt 5 with 17 ports
• Built-in 8TB M.2 SSD expansion
• 140W laptop charging

uGreen Revodok Maxidok 17-in-1 Cons

• Premium price
• Full benefit requires a Thunderbolt 5 Mac
• Some monitors need USB-C to DP or HDMI adapters

Rating: 4.5 out of 5

While uGreen as of late is more known for network attached storage, they’ve delivered a pretty solid product with the Revodok Maxidok 17-in-1. The SSD speeds are very good, and the price for what you get for the dock is worth it.

Just try to find a SSD on sale. Those prices are rough now.

Where to buy the uGreen Revodok Maxidok 17-in-1

The uGreen Revodok Maxidock 17-in-1 is available from Amazon for $349.99. It’s also available from uGreen directly, also for $349.90.

A monkey plays a keyboard with a drumstick, and nobody stops to ask if that is really how one works. A male teacher walks into a school and someone decides he must be the gym coach before he says a word.

A Shrinking Share of Male Teachers

Ed Finkel spoke with men across the country about why they went into teaching, and why so many eventually leave. He looked at a new survey of the profession and heard from teachers who described walking into a building and facing assumptions about who they must be before they said a word. Finkel wanted to know what is pulling men away from the classroom, and what a school might do differently to keep them there.

When AI Gets the Basics Wrong

Adam Stone went looking at what is now called baby slop, the wave of AI generated videos aimed at toddlers and preschoolers. He found channels posting thousands of these videos in a matter of months, and some of that content shows scenes that do not line up with how the world actually works. Stone wanted to know what that content is doing to kids who are still learning to tell the difference between what is real and what is not.

Listen to the Episode:

Stories Mentioned in This Episode

As Male Teachers Vanish From the Classroom, Schools Look for Ways to Bring Them Back by Ed Finkel

AI Videos Are Warping Early Learning, Teachers Say. Here’s How They’re Responding by Adam Stone

This Week with EdSurge is a weekly podcast from EdSurge. Subscribe to the EdSurge newsletters for more news and analysis on education and technology.

VR glasses, Aviator-style Ray-Ban Meta specs, Ace Attorney in virtual reality and much more.

Meta VR Glasses

Meta

The biggest announcement at Meta Connect was the company’s virtual reality glasses. Rumors back in 2023 suggested that Meta would deploy its first such product in 2027 and it’s sticking to that time frame — Meta VR Glasses will arrive next spring. You might want to start putting some cash aside for them if you’re interested, though, as they’ll cost $1,300.

The company says, at around 100 grams, Meta VR Glasses are five times lighter than the Meta Quest 3 headset. The frames are built with magnesium alloy and have pancake lenses. They include full-color passthrough video support and a 5K display. Meta claims they’ll offer “cinema-grade clarity” with support for Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos spatial audio. The company says it’s the first IMAX Enhanced certified VR device too.

Meta

All of the computing is handled by a tethered puck and everything runs on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Reality Elite chipset. The puck also contains the storage and battery. Meta says the glasses will be able to deliver “up to three hours of continuous high-resolution media playback” on a charge. The puck has support for 45W fast charging too.

At the outset, there’ll be 75 games you can play using hand gestures. The glasses will run every game that’s available for Quest headsets with the help of support for Touch Plus controllers. You’ll be able to stream titles through Xbox Cloud Gaming, though Microsoft is imposing new time limits on that service. There’s the option to connect to other gaming devices wirelessly or via USB-C as well.

Advertisement

Meta

True to its metaverse-derived name, Meta sees the glasses as a vector for productivity. You can hook the device up to a Windows PC or Mac and control them with a virtual keyboard and touchpad on a desk or table. You can just use a physical mouse and keyboard too.

Not unlike Apple Vision Pro, Meta VR Glasses will support holographic avatars that you can use in video calls on apps such as WhatsApp and Zoom. Folks who are joining a call on a flatscreen device can see your hologram. When you see another person’s hologram while you’re using the VR Glasses, spatial audio will place their voice in their virtual location.

Of course, the company is integrating Meta AI into the glasses. You can tell Meta VR Glasses what you want to do using your voice. Alternatively, you can control the device with your eyes or hand gestures.

Ray-Ban Meta Audio

Meta

Ray-Ban Meta Gen 3 and other smart glasses

Meta

Meta still does have camera-equipped smart glasses, however. It has refreshed the Ray-Ban Meta with a slimmer design and a button that triggers Meta AI. The third-gen model is said to have a longer battery life than the previous one, with nine hours of usage versus eight. There’s a six-mic array that Meta claims can cut out over 90 percent of background noise for clearer audio.

The 12MP camera supports 3K video capture. The company adds that the cameras on its AI glasses will soon be able to record videos with Dolby Atmos spatial audio. A dynamic photo feature can snap multiple shots and you can pick the best one (or let Meta AI suggest options).

You can now get the glasses in the style of Ray-Ban’s classic Aviator, as well as Zena, a cat-eye frame. The Wayfarer look is sticking around too. Ray-Ban Meta Gen 3 are available starting today in 27 combos of lenses and colors. They start at $449.

Meta

There are a bunch of special editions as well. An Aviator version in milky beige with brown Transitions lenses start at $579 and will be available for a limited time. There are new collabs with Kylie Jenner and Blackpink’s Lisa, and those models start at $399. Meta is also releasing new styles for its Essilor Luxottica glasses and bringing them (and other models) to more markets.

On top of all of that, Meta is introducing more models in its own-brand Meta Glasses range. The Meta Adventurer frames now start at $249 with a black frame and gray lenses along with a plug-in case, and there’s also a limited-edition version of the Meta Fury with a clear frame and mirrored lenses. Pre-orders for the former open today and they’ll hit shelves on October 23.

Advertisement

Meta Ray-Ban Display updates

Hearing enhancement feature

Beat Saber, Supernatural’s return and other VR games

Meta/Beat Games

Let’s get into the entertainment side of VR, starting with Beat Saber. Meta-owned developer Beat Games is said to be giving the title its biggest update ever this spring. It includes support for hand tracking, so you’ll no longer need to use Touch Plus controllers to play, though you can still do that if you prefer.

Flux is a new single-player mode in which you can use powers like the Flux Tether. Meta says this “channels power between your palms to slice through notes in time with the beat of pulse-pounding tracks.” Flux, which will be available on Meta VR Glasses and Meta Quest, includes 35 songs from across the Beat Saber landscape at the outset, with more to follow.

Beat Games is also revamping the single-player campaign to include a narrative aspect, fresh missions and a new menu system. The studio is adding a new progression and rewards system as well. This will let you customize the look and sound of the game.

Supernatural Health

Supernatural will be back on the Meta Horizon Store this fall. A newly independent development team took the reins of the VR exercise platform after Meta made widescale cuts across its VR and metaverse division at the start of the year. Users’ points, streaks and badges will remain intact in the new app. The developers are adding more HD environments, workouts and music along with other upgrades, Meta says.

Elsewhere on the gaming front, heist title Payday: Aces High is coming to Meta Quest 3 and 3S later this year with support for co-op crossplay with the PC VR version. An open playtest starts October 19. A mixed reality version of Tetris Effect is coming to Meta VR Glasses next year with hand-tracking support. Two Point Hospital is on the way to Meta Quest 3 and 3S with hand-tracking support as well.

While fans wait for the first entirely new Ace Attorney game in over a decade, the series is about to make its VR debut. Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney: Dual Destinies (which was first released on the Nintendo DS in 2013) is coming to Meta VR Glasses and Meta Quest next year with support for hand tracking and voice activation, so you can physically point at witnesses and yell “objection!” I’ve gotta say, that sounds like a fun way to confuse people you live with. You can check out Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney: Dual Destinies VR on Meta VR Glasses and Meta Quest next year.

Advertisement

VR movies, sports and other entertainment

Meta/Skydance Sports/The New Media

One more thing

Meta

One of the more interesting trends starting to emerge in personal technology is a simultaneous divergence of devices designed for individual use and a convergence of the computing systems to which they connect. While we’re beginning to see a much broader range of intelligent form factors and devices, we’re also increasingly seeing them focused on performing AI-powered agentic tasks on our behalf, often through shared platforms.

At Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon Summit event in Maui, which the company graciously sponsored me to attend, this seemingly contradictory set of developments was on full display. Qualcomm introduced a range of additions to its Snapdragon family targeted at everything from smartphones and computers to several types of wearables.

While each has technologies and capabilities optimized for its particular platform, they all share an increasing focus on AI-powered agents that can complete tasks on an individual’s behalf.

In many ways, it offered a fascinating look at the evolution of personal computing hardware and how very different types of devices are attempting to achieve a shared new set of goals. Just as interesting is how AI agents are becoming the common glue connecting these different device experiences.

For smartphones, Qualcomm took the unusual step of announcing two flagship processors, the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 and Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6. As TechSpot covered in detail, both bring the CPU, GPU, and efficiency improvements you’d expect from a new generation, including prime Oryon CPU cores capable of reaching 5 GHz and new Adreno Neural Fusion technology designed to improve gaming performance.

But arguably the more important changes for Qualcomm’s broader strategy are the upgraded Hexagon NPU, the newly architected Sensing Hub, and the addition of an Element Accelerator specifically designed to speed up agentic AI workloads.

The updated Sensing Hub, like those found in several of the company’s wearable-focused chips, consumes little enough power to remain active all the time. That allows devices to continuously listen for certain audio cues and respond to agentic tasks using the two micro-NPUs embedded within it. Qualcomm demonstrated how the Sensing Hub could power a personal scribe application, for example, transcribing and summarizing conversations while consuming very little battery power.

The Extreme version of the 8 Elite Gen 6 pushes AI, gaming, and creator workloads further through several architectural enhancements. Its Adreno GPU adds matrix cores optimized for the kinds of calculations commonly used in AI inference, while its Hexagon NPU includes 50% more dedicated memory to help it run longer agentic loops. The bigger story, however, becomes apparent when you look beyond smartphones.

In the PC world, Qualcomm highlighted the growing number of computers based on its Snapdragon X2 family, including Microsoft’s latest Surface systems introduced earlier this year. The newest 13-inch Surface Pro, for example, is available with Snapdragon X2 Plus and X2 Elite processors, giving Windows PCs substantially more dedicated NPU performance for increasingly sophisticated local AI workloads.

The chips offer 85 TOPS of NPU performance and are compatible with all the latest agentic AI tools, including Perplexity, Hermes agent, OpenClaw, Claude Code, OpenAI, and more. The new Surface Pro also offers optional support for an embedded 5G modem.

Qualcomm is also supporting Google’s newly launched Googlebook platform, the next generation of Google’s laptop efforts, with Snapdragon X Series processors. Dell and HP are among the first manufacturers bringing Snapdragon-powered Googlebooks to market, combining local AI processing with Google’s growing collection of Gemini-powered features and tighter links to Android phones.

Arguably the most intriguing announcement from this year’s Summit, though, was the latest generation of Snapdragon Sound. While previous generations primarily focused on high-quality wireless audio and automatic noise cancellation, Snapdragon Sound Elite Gen 2 puts much more emphasis on audio-based AI, including conversations with AI agents and other intelligent applications.

In essence, Qualcomm is bringing some of the intelligence previously associated with its AR and VR platforms, such as the Snapdragon XR chips used in devices like the new Snap Specs, into audio-focused products.

Given the growing range of audio smart glasses, AI recording devices, earbuds, and other “hearables” appearing on the market, Snapdragon Sound Elite Gen 2 feels particularly timely. The dramatically improved audio recognition and processing capabilities these chips enable are creating entirely new ways to interact with AI-powered computing resources.

The ability to intelligently converse with AI platforms like ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and others simply by speaking offers a fascinating new way to use AI. In fact, given the size and weight challenges of today’s display-equipped smart glasses, along with the still somewhat awkward mechanisms for interacting with them, it’s possible that audio-focused smart glasses could ultimately become the mainstream option for the category.

Time will tell, but the seemingly foregone conclusion that display-equipped smart glasses would become the volume leader may not be as certain as previously thought, particularly given the ease of use and growing capabilities of audio-focused alternatives.

Regardless of which form factor ultimately wins out, connecting these devices to a common identity creates something potentially more important. Agentic AI tools can begin to work across devices, producing a degree of convergence and shared intelligence that seemed like a dream only a few years ago.

To bring these capabilities to audio devices, Qualcomm had to introduce several new technologies to Snapdragon Sound Elite Gen 2 on both the compute and connectivity sides.

For AI processing, the company integrated a dedicated new eNPU that doubles on-device AI capability compared with the previous generation. It also added micro-power Wi-Fi 6E, allowing devices to connect directly to cloud-based AI services from a hearable form factor. Combined with enhanced Bluetooth capabilities and support for Qualcomm’s XPAN personal networking technology, that connectivity allows devices to access agentic platforms, as well as high-quality audio streams, across a much wider area.

Beyond the hardware, Qualcomm also introduced Snapdragon Sound Apps and Agents. Designed specifically for ultra-low-power devices based on Snapdragon Sound Elite Gen 2, these apps, along with the development tools necessary to create them, could help establish an entirely new software ecosystem for hearable devices.

There’s no doubt that we’re still in the early stages of agentic AI, but it’s fascinating to see how quickly tools are starting to tie our devices together into a more unified whole.

The technologies Qualcomm displayed at this year’s Snapdragon Summit are helping push that development forward. By combining advanced compute, AI acceleration, and connectivity across an increasingly diverse range of devices, the company is moving toward a world where our individual portable digital identities, and all that entails, can follow us wherever we go, whatever we’re doing, and whichever device we happen to be using.

Bob O’Donnell is the founder and chief analyst of TECHnalysis Research, LLC a technology consulting firm that provides strategic consulting and market research services to the technology industry and professional financial community. You can follow him on Twitter @bobodtech

• Two artificial whiskers give this tiny drone a working sense of touch
• Pressure sensors at the whisker base detect surface contact instantly
• Onboard software processes tactile data using only 34 kilobytes of memory

A research team from Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands has developed a tiny drone that uses artificial whiskers to navigate where conventional sensors struggle.

The system relies on physical contact rather than cameras or satellite positioning, allowing the aircraft to detect nearby surfaces through touch.