A new, bipartisan idea is taking Washington by storm: collective ownership of the means of production.
Tech
Why the Reflecting Pool Is Full of Algae After Trump’s Renovation
On Wednesday morning, workers poured hydrogen peroxide into the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in Washington, DC.
The treatment is the latest attempt by the Interior Department to control an algae bloom that has turned the pool bright green, despite President Donald Trump’s costly renovation to make it “American flag blue” in time for the nation’s 250th anniversary. Hot temperatures and climate change are among the risk factors that could be driving the outbreak.
The Trump administration spent more than $14 million to update the pool ahead of celebrations across the US capital. The work was done under a no-bid contract by a company that has never worked for the federal government. (It has, however, worked on President Donald Trump’s golf courses, according to The New York Times.)
Algae began forming less than a day after the updated pool was unveiled last week. An Interior Department spokesperson told CNN that the bloom was due to “residual algae from the supply lines, which have been sitting dormant for eight weeks.”
One of the issues appears to be the water source. The Reflecting Pool usually draws water from the nearby Tidal Basin, which is often filled with algae. During periods with high amounts of algae, the water supply switches to municipal drinking water. The US Interior Department didn’t immediately respond to questions from WIRED about which water source is currently feeding the pool.
Another issue is the weather. High temperatures create “a perfect storm for [algae] to bloom,” says Hans Paerl, a former professor at the University of North Carolina’s Institute of Marine Sciences. Stagnant water, Pearl says, makes the problem even worse. “Lakes and reservoirs around the world—they all have this problem during this time of year.” Hotter-than-normal weather is expected to hit Washington, DC, to end the week, which could make controlling the bloom more challenging.
Paerl also points out another, related driver that the Trump administration has shown it’s not in a rush to resolve: climate change.
“It’s just getting hotter, and these blooms are expanding globally—they’re moving up into higher latitudes,” he says. “It’s clearly a temperature effect allowing them to optimize their growth.”
Beyond the hydrogen peroxide, the Interior Department is “deploying high-tech nanobubble ozone technology” to keep algae at bay, an agency spokesperson tells WIRED in an email.
Trump has touted the work on the pool, which includes painting it blue and fixing leaks, while also saying the company the government hired would be able to do repairs “in much less time, for much less money.”
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SYSTEMS
Running low on memory, can’t afford more? The House of Zen’s latest acquisition puts an AI spin on flash-based memory expansion
With no end in sight to the memory crunch, AMD thinks that AI, the main cause of the shortage, could be part of the solution. This week, the House of Zen acquired predictive memory startup Mext for an undisclosed sum, setting the stage for a world where bots decide which data to put into RAM and which to store in less-expensive flash.
Founded in 2023, the Mext proactive memory platform uses machine learning algorithms and learned heuristics to proactively offload “cold” memory to flash storage, and, based on data access patterns, restore it before its needed again.
Modern flash arrays are already approaching main memory in terms of aggregate bandwidth, but swapping to disk still imposes a stiff latency penalty.
Mext claims it can expand the effective memory of a system by 2 to 4x using flash, which gig for gig is still vastly less expensive than DRAM.
This flash memory is exposed to the operating system like regular memory simply by running the Mextd daemon.
Memory tiering is nothing new and has seen various reincarnations over the years with some being software based and others, like Intel Optane persistent memory, using special 3D XPoint memory tech co-developed by Micron.
Mext stands out for its use of machine learning to migrate data from hot memory to cold storage almost like a branch predictor — something AMD has an awful lot of experience with.
Mext isn’t using one model to decide when to shuffle your data. Instead it uses a series of heuristics, long short term memory, and modern transformer architectures depending on which combination renders the best results.
“This approach has the potential to reduce infrastructure costs, improve resource utilization, and help customers more effectively scale general-purpose and AI workloads,” Dan McNamara SVP of AMD’s compute and enterprise AI biz wrote in a blog post this week.
Beyond enterprise applications, the technology could have implications for AI serving.
Modern mixture of experts (MoE) models are, as their name suggests, comprised of multiple sub-models.
For each token predicted, a different selection of experts may be used. In practice an LLM may use some experts more frequently and others rarely.
We wouldn’t be surprised to see AMD use Mext’s prediction algorithms to offload infrequently utilized experts from HBM to slower system memory, enabling enterprises to take advantage of larger more capable models with fewer resources.
That’s just speculation of course, but we’ve reached out to AMD for comment; we’ll let you know if we hear anything back. ®
Last Friday, President Donald Trump announced that he would soon be meeting with the executives of top AI companies to discuss a financial “partnership.”
“There are concepts where pieces [of these companies] could be given to the American public, where the American public essentially becomes a partner with the companies,” Trump said. “And by doing that, they’re going to like it better.”
- President Donald Trump says the government may take ownership stakes in major AI companies and share the returns with the public — an idea pitched to him by OpenAI’s Sam Altman.
- Critics suspect OpenAI’s real aim is to insulate itself from regulation and competition by aligning its profits with the government’s interests.
- A broad, well-governed public wealth fund could genuinely help counter AI-driven inequality.
- But an informal deal between the White House and a few favored firms is more likely to breed cronyism than spread wealth.
By this, the president (seemingly) meant that the US government may take an ownership stake in major AI companies and then distribute the fruits of its investments to the general public, perhaps through universal dividend payments.
This proposal did not come to Trump via some undercover, socialist operative embedded deep within the White House — but rather, from the CEO of OpenAI.
As NOTUS reported last week, Altman first pitched Trump on the concept in early 2025 and discussions between the administration and OpenAI have heated up more recently. No deal has been finalized. But talks have centered on an arrangement in which top AI labs voluntarily donate shares to the government — an approach that might enable Uncle Sam to partially nationalize the AI industry without Congress passing any law.
Officially, OpenAI’s interest in effectively transferring wealth from its shareholders to Uncle Sam is public-spirited. The company maintains that advances in AI are likely to generate massive profits for top labs, while sowing wrenching disruptions through labor markets. Thus, to ensure that ordinary people “share in the upside” of AI-fueled economic growth, the company has called for the creation of a “Public Wealth Fund,” which would invest in “both AI companies and the broader set of firms adopting and deploying AI,” and then send a portion of the returns to every American. In other words, it would pay out a universal basic income (another popular idea in Silicon Valley).
Yet many suspect OpenAI’s motives are more self-interested: By giving the US government a direct stake in its success, the company may be trying to insulate itself from stringent regulation or open competition. Moreover, whatever Altman’s intentions, skeptics argue that the government getting into cahoots with individual AI companies is a recipe for cronyism and conflicts of interest. (Disclosure: Vox Media is one of several publishers that have signed partnership agreements with OpenAI. Our reporting remains editorially independent.)
These concerns seem well-founded. A narrow partnership between the federal government and select AI companies would plausibly do more to generate corruption than redistribute income.
Yet there is a real risk that artificial intelligence will shift massive amounts of income away from workers and towards capital. And a highly diversified, scrupulously managed public wealth fund could help mitigate that hazard. Unfortunately, the Trump administration has evinced little interest in that approach to social ownership (or in scruples more broadly).
Why is OpenAI trying to get itself nationalized?
Companies don’t typically cook up schemes for reducing the value of their own shares. And yet, on its face, OpenAI’s reported proposal amounts to precisely that: If the company donates equity to the government, it will dilute the value of all its existing stock.
This invites the question: What’s in it for them?
There are multiple plausible answers. OpenAI may be trying to limit its exposure to regulation. In opinion polls, a supermajority of Americans express concern for where AI is taking their society — and support for more heavily regulating the industry.
Turning every American into an OpenAI shareholder could theoretically reduce the company’s susceptibility to onerous new rules in a couple of different ways. First, doing so may simply soften the AI industry’s image and buy it some goodwill from the American electorate (Trump seemed to reference this when saying that his arrangement would make Americans like AI better).
Second, such an arrangement would more closely align the public’s interests with those of OpenAI. After all, regulations that reduce the firm’s profitability would now also cut government revenue and/or, Americans’ dividend payments (such payouts might be small at first, but could become substantial over time, particularly if the government cuts deals with other major AI labs). Voters might be less inclined to protest a noisy data center if they think they’re directly profiting from it.
Similarly, accepting partial nationalization could boost OpenAI’s odds of securing a federal bailout if its revenues do not grow fast enough to cover its debts (a scenario that some analysts consider quite likely). There is a long history of governments shielding state-owned enterprises from market discipline. Thus, the progressive economist Dean Baker fears that an AI wealth fund would “end up being a mechanism to shovel yet more money” at billionaires aligned with the administration.
It is also possible that, by donating shares to the government, individual AI firms might buy themselves an advantage over their competitors. For its part, the Trump administration has displayed no shyness about rewarding businesses that curry its favor, and retaliating against those who do not.
Indeed, the White House has already tried to sabotage OpenAI’s chief rival. In February, Anthropic refused to sign a contract that would have authorized the Pentagon to use its AI for mass surveillance and fully autonomous weapons systems. The Defense Department responded by declaring Anthropic a “supply chain risk” — a designation that would restrict the capacity of government contractors to do business with the AI company. If a federal judge had not blocked that move, it could have done serious damage to Anthropic’s business — while benefiting both OpenAI and xAI, which is owned by Trump megadonor Elon Musk.
If the government took a stake in OpenAI but not Anthropic — or in all the major AI labs but not in more recent startups — the Trump administration might have further incentive to intervene on behalf of its favored firms.
Separately, the White House could use a public wealth fund to unduly influence AI labs’ decision-making. The government’s shares could give it the power to vote on companies’ internal policies — or else, seek to deter certain decisions with threats of selling off the firm’s stock.
These risks are amplified by the reportedly informal and ad-hoc nature of the public wealth fund being contemplated. Without congressionally authorized rules governing the fund’s management and investment decisions, the administration could have wide latitude to use its newfound financial power in self-interested ways.
“It would be good for OpenAI to have every American underwriting them,” Samuel Hammond, Director of Artificial Intelligence Policy at the Foundation for American Innovation, told me. “But in America’s political context, we’re likely to get a corrupted version of a state enterprise that is used for personal enrichment and the partisan motives of whoever’s in charge.”
The case for having a little communism, as a treat
Although Trump’s (reported) version of a public wealth fund seems to invite more risks than benefits, this would not necessarily be true of all such funds.
As a general concept, combating AI-induced inequality by increasing public ownership of corporations has much to recommend it.
Artificial intelligence could greatly increase investors’ share of national income at workers’ expense: If companies replace much of their high-skill workforce with AI, their shareholders could reap the benefits, even as white-collar laborers lose their jobs and bargaining power.
And if the technology truly takes off, generating an explosively productive economy run by software and robots instead of people, the AI giants could end up harvesting profits of mind-bending scale.
At the very least, this is what a lot of investors are seemingly betting on. Despite myriad economic headwinds, stock prices are hovering near record highs, due largely to the sky-high valuations of AI stocks. Meanwhile, Anthropic and OpenAI’s impending initial public offerings are expected to be among the biggest in history, and Musk could soon become a trillionaire.
The government could seek to share this wealth through traditional tax and transfer policies: If investors and tech firms are raking in cash, Congress can raise rates on capital gains, inheritances, and corporate income, then use the proceeds to fund more generous social programs or cash benefits for ordinary Americans.
Conventional taxes are surely part of the solution. As an approach to redistributing business income, however, a public (or “social”) wealth fund has some advantages over corporate taxes.
The corporate income tax applies only to the profits a company reports, which firms have considerable latitude and incentive to minimize. Large enterprises spend vast sums of money each year on finding innovative ways to defer or relocate their profits, so as to reduce their liabilities. The government then must dedicate its own resources to auditing these practices. This system not only enables corporations to weasel out of their obligations but also generates tremendous waste: All the skilled labor and entrepreneurial energy currently devoted to tax avoidance could otherwise be deployed towards creating actual value for consumers.
A public wealth fund circumvents these problems. Suppose that, instead of taxing corporate profits at 25 percent, the government required each firm to hand over newly issued shares equal to 25 percent of its total stock. From then on, whenever the company paid a dividend or bought back shares, the government would automatically collect a quarter of the payout. With this approach, a business’s profits have nowhere to hide: A company can shift its earnings to a subsidiary in Dublin or a mailbox in Singapore. Regardless, if that corporation wants to reward its shareholders, Uncle Sam will get his cut. And even if the company hoards its cash, when its operations get more profitable, its stock will rise — and the government’s portfolio will gain value.
Separately, a public wealth fund could have political advantages over traditional tax-and-transfer programs. Once voters get accustomed to the idea that they collectively own a share of their society’s financial wealth, dividends paid out of those assets may be seen more as an entitlement than a handout.
The Alaska Permanent Fund is a case in point. In the 1970s, Alaska used royalties on its oil resources to seed a financial fund owned by all its residents in common. This year, it will pay out $1,200 to each Alaskan. Critically, despite Alaska’s conservative bent — and Americans’ general skepticism toward unconditional cash welfare — the permanent fund is overwhelmingly popular among Alaskans, and no serious effort has been made to restrict eligibility for dividends.
“There’s this notion that we all own this,” Matt Bruenig, founder of the People’s Policy Project and a leading advocate for social wealth funds, said. “So, there’s this attitude of: Maybe I disapprove of you or speculate that you’re going to blow your dividend on a snow machine or whatever. But it’s not my business. It’s your money.”
It’s possible that this consensus reflects the particular origins of Alaska’s fund: The idea that everyone has some entitlement to their state’s oil reserves — which no human being brought into existence — may be more intuitive than the notion that we all deserve a share of corporate profits writ large.
Yet American companies’ value derives in large part from inherited technologies, knowledge, and institutions that no living person created — as well as public goods that all US workers and taxpayers help to sustain.
And artificial intelligence may make the social origins of private profits more readily apparent: As Bernie Sanders recently noted, when AI generates useful code, images, or writing, it does so by synthesizing vast corpuses of data that humanity collectively produced.
Granted, America would probably screw this up
To be sure, a broad social wealth fund would present some of the same risks as the rumored Trump-Altman proposal.
Although a fund that invested in all corporations would be less likely to fuel government favoritism towards select firms or industries, such a policy would still align the government’s interests with those of corporate shareholders: Any new regulation that reduced the corporate sector’s profitability — whether by increasing its labor costs, environmental responsibilities, or some other mechanism — would simultaneously reduce the government’s revenue and potentially, voters’ dividend payments. Some on the left oppose social wealth funds on these grounds.
And yet, the government already has a stake in corporate profitability: When firms earn less profit, they pay less in taxes. A public wealth fund might make this reality more apparent. But the alignment of interest between the state and corporate shareholders is inherent in capitalism. And democratic governments have nonetheless constrained businesses’ profits in myriad ways, for better and worse.
This said, a public wealth fund would undoubtedly risk centralizing economic power and thus, abetting corruption: The government could theoretically leverage its status as a mega-shareholder to micro-manage the internal operations of private businesses. A world in which the Trump administration and its allies exercised influence over every corporate news outlet — rather than just some — would be less than favorable for democratic freedom.
This threat is also manageable in principle. One approach would be to simply have the public wealth fund hold exclusively nonvoting shares, which would limit the government’s role in corporate decisionmaking. Another would be to establish transparent, technocratic, and bipartisan rules for how the public wealth fund will exercise its voice in corporate affairs, as Norway has already done for its own fund.
Of course, many things are possible in principle but not in today’s United States. A rule-bound, universal social wealth fund might help ordinary Americans share in the fruits of AI-fueled economic growth. A voluntary partnership between the Trump administration and select AI firms, by contrast, seems more likely to help the president’s favorite companies limit their investors’ downside risks.
If so, Trump’s wealth fund would be less of a bold reform for unprecedented times than a new spin on an age-old tradition: Socialism for the rich, capitalism for the poor.
Tech
Shrek 5 trailer: A ‘caked up’ Gingerbread Man steals the show as Donkey and the gang land in prison
After multiple delays, Shrek is back, and he is bringing the whole family time! DreamWorks has released the first trailer for Shrek 5, and it is exactly as chaotic as you would hope. The film marks the franchise’s return after 17 years since Shrek Forever After in 2010, and it hits theaters on June 30, 2027.
The wild moments in the Shrek 5 trailer
Mike Myers, Eddie Murphy, and Cameron Diaz are all back as Shrek, Donkey, and Fiona. The trailer opens with a storybook recap of the original story, before Donkey interrupts to announce it is time for a makeover.
The gang, now joined by Shrek and Fiona’s three grown-up kids, head to a new city called Further Further Away, which is sketchier than Far, Far Away ever was.
The trailer wastes no time in serving up a Gingerbread Man with two gumdrops strapped to his butt, proudly declaring he is “caked up like a friggin’ bakery,” followed by some very enthusiastic twerking.
There is also a melting, grimy snowman lurking in a back alley asking, “Wanna date a snowman?” taking a dig at Frozen’s Olaf.
Where is Zendaya’s character Felicia in the Shrek 5 trailer?
Zendaya voices Felicia, Shrek and Fiona’s daughter, and her involvement in Shrek 5 has been confirmed. However, she is completely absent from the trailer footage. Shrek can be seen in the jail cell with Fiona and his two sons, Fergus and Farkle, but Felicia is nowhere to be found. Whether Felicia got kidnapped or simply had better weekend plans is anyone’s guess.
Why are fans upset about the Shrek 5 trailer?
Not everyone is thrilled with how the trailer looks, though. Many fans have taken issue with the updated animation style, which makes Shrek and Donkey look noticeably more detailed and lifelike than in the previous films.
Comments on Universal’s Instagram ranged from “we want the old Shrek back” to “do what they did with Sonic,” a reference to how Paramount famously redesigned Sonic the Hedgehog after fans revolted over his original movie look. It’s too early to say if Universal would be forced to do the same.
If animated trailers are your thing right now, Pixar also just dropped the first trailer for Gatto, and Disney unveiled its first look at Hexed, the studio’s most exciting original film in years.
After alleging that Apple supplier Tata contaminated farm water and threatening to close its iPhone factory, Indian regulators have now dropped the matter altogether.
As a result of Apple’s supply chain diversification plans, which aim to reduce reliance on China, a quarter of all iPhones sold worldwide are now made in India. Tata, which manufactures iPhone backplates, is a relevant factor in the process, but its production efforts have come under scrutiny.
In 2025, farmers near Tata’s facility in Tamil Nadu complained to authorities that factory wastewater was contaminating their land and open wells. After conducting five inspections from December 2025 through May 2026, the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board (TNPCB) threatened to shut down Tata’s factory.
On Tuesday, however, the regulator seemingly backpedaled. In a statement to Reuters, Tata explained that it had addressed all contamination concerns and that its facility in Tamil Nadu was no longer under TNPCB scrutiny.
As the company “satisfactorily addressed all queries” made by the Tamil Nadu regulator, it has now “dropped any further course of action on this issue.” Neither Apple nor the TNPCB commented on the matter, though.
Initially, the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board argued that “groundwater in the open wells located in the adjacent agricultural lands” was contaminated. It was alleged that Tata’s rainwater harvesting pond ended up overflowing because of wastewater discharged from the factory.
Tata was reportedly made aware of the contamination on December 23, 2025, but the company did not respond.
On Saturday, however, Tata revealed it had conducted an independent sample analysis, which indicated the company was in full compliance with regulations. All parameters were reportedly within the prescribed limits.
Now, the company says the TNPCB has reached the same conclusion, as “the reports of its own analysis of recently collected water samples from Tata Electronics’ manufacturing facility in Hosur, Tamil Nadu, do not indicate any contamination”.
Though the regulator ultimately conceded, it’s still unclear if farm water in the Tamil Nadu region was actually contaminated.
It’s unclear how and why Tata’s findings differed from the results of the initial tests conducted by the TNPCB. Either the regulator somehow made the same mistake five times in a row, or it was pressured into dropping its threat against Tata.
Tata’s role in the Apple supply chain
While Apple’s most significant supply chain partner, Foxconn, assembles the iPhone in India, parts for the devices also come from Tata.
In 2024, the company entered into a $1B partnership with Pegatron, another key Apple supplier, to expand iPhone manufacturing in Tamil Nadu. The year prior, Tata purchased Wistron’s Karnataka facility.
With its Tamil Nadu plant now receiving an all-clear from regulators, Tata’s iPhone component production will continue. Its manufacturing efforts may even increase, as Apple seeks to reduce its long-standing reliance on China.
Tech
General Motors wants a slice of the data center boom with giant sodium batteries instead of lithium packs
- GM enters large-scale energy storage through a sodium-ion battery partnership
- Sodium-ion batteries promise cheaper storage without complex cooling systems
- Peak Energy supplies storage systems while GM builds sodium-ion cells
General Motors (GM) has announced a partnership with energy storage firm Peak Energy in a move marking a notable shift in the automaker’s battery strategy.
Under the agreement, GM will manufacture sodium-ion (Na-ion) battery cells for stationary energy storage systems serving utilities, data centers, and other large electricity users.
Peak Energy will then deploy those cells within its own proprietary storage systems for utilities and large power users.
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Why sodium instead of lithium
Na-ion batteries share considerable chemical similarity with the lithium-ion (Li-ion) cells that dominate portable electronics and electric vehicles today. However, the comparisons largely end at that basic chemistry.
GM and Peak argue Na-ion systems can operate across a much wider temperature range.
This potentially eliminates the costly cooling infrastructure that grid-scale Li-ion deployments typically require.
“When you’re talking to a utility, a hyperscaler, or other power providers in need of energy storage solutions, their priority is not maximizing range or minimizing weight,” said Kurt Kelty, GM VP of battery and sustainability.
“It is delivering reliable, affordable power over long periods of time in real-world conditions.”
That distinction matters because sodium’s biggest weakness — lower energy density compared to lithium — translates into larger, heavier battery packs for equivalent storage capacity.
For a vehicle, that trade-off would be disqualifying, but for a stationary installation bolted to the ground, weight simply does not factor into the equation at all.
The manufacturing gap GM hopes to close
Peak Energy has already developed passively cooled Na-ion storage systems that the company claims reduce energy storage costs by 20% compared to Li-ion options.
Peak’s own analysis suggests the US could avoid roughly 2TW hours of wasted energy annually if Li-ion phosphate systems were replaced with its Na-ion technology.
Kelty argues GM’s existing expertise in cell design, prototyping, and industrialization translates directly to Na-ion manufacturing, citing what he called important architectural similarities between the two chemistries.
“We believe sodium-ion can become a defining chemistry for grid-scale energy storage in the years ahead,” Kelty added.
However, Na-ion technology still faces real obstacles before it can challenge lithium’s dominance at scale.
The manufacturing ecosystem for Na cells remains far less developed than for Li-ion.
Historically, sodium-ion cells have offered lower energy density than lithium-ion alternatives, requiring larger battery installations to store comparable amounts of energy.
Another challenge involves production capacity, since China currently hosts most sodium-ion battery manufacturing facilities.
GM and Peak Energy are American companies, and efficient Na-ion production may ultimately depend on Chinese manufacturing capacity — a reliance the current political climate may not permit.
At the time of writing, GM has not provided details regarding production timelines, manufacturing scale, or how quickly its partnership with Peak Energy could develop into meaningful competition within the broader energy storage industry.
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After years of user demand, Instagram has rolled out a feature that allows users to further personalize their profiles’ look. The newly released Instagram Grid Reordering feature allows users to shuffle their posts on their grid without deleting or republishing them. The new feature will be quite convenient for users to highlight their best content. Alongside this innovative feature, the company has launched other creative features.
How To Reorder Your Instagram Grid?
- Open the Instagram app and go to your profile page.
- Long-press any post on your grid.
- Tap Reorder Grid from the available options.
- Drag and drop posts to their preferred positions.
- Repeat the process for any other posts you want to move.
- The changes will be automatically saved, and the new layout will be viewable to all who visit your profile page.
Other New Creative Features Coming to Instagram
Grid Reordering is not the only update Instagram plans to roll out. It has also unveiled other updates aimed at encouraging creativity within the app. With the new Spotify integration, users can share their favorite songs on Instagram Notes, making it easy to showcase their musical preferences.
The platform will also launch new handwritten fonts for Stories and Reels. Instagram created these fonts from handwriting samples submitted by content creators. The new fonts are scheduled to launch on June 20.
Meta Ray-Bans have been under increased public scrutiny following revelations about the facial recognition work Meta has been doing on its smart glasses. Consumers are rightly wary of products that could convert wearable tech into everyday surveillance devices.
In early June, an investigation by Wired exposed how Meta had quietly embedded code for dormant facial recognition software under the internal designation “NameTag.” The feature, if rolled out, could have allowed Meta smart glasses to biometrically identify anyone in view — in real time, without consent — using a stored digital faceprint. The code, which was never made active for users, was removed a day later.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Threat Lab verified the initial findings and reported that Meta reversed course following public blowback. But the privacy nonprofit noted that Meta deleting the code “does not equal a permanent change of heart.”
Now, just a week after Meta removed the code, the company is facing new questions about its facial recognition software prototype. A new investigation by Wired uncovered that Meta partnered with Rank One Computing, a supplier for the US military and law enforcement agencies, for its biometric identification technology. Wired said it uncovered a software license tying the Pentagon vendor to the Meta AI app, the same one used for Meta’s smart glasses products.
The license agreement would authorize Meta to use Rank One’s military-grade facial recognition and “liveness detection,” which confirms whether someone is seeing a live person or a mask or photo. This business relationship, as Wired pointed out, “shows how thin the line has grown between the surveillance technology sold to law enforcement and the military and the consumer products sold to everyone else.”
According to Wired, Rank One Computing declined to comment on the findings. The Denver-based firm, which earns roughly 80% of its revenue from government clients, didn’t respond to a request from CNET for comment.
A Meta spokesperson told CNET that it has made no final decisions on facial recognition software for Meta Glasses, but would not confirm whether the tech giant is licensing a military-grade engine for its glasses. In an emailed statement, Meta noted: “Nothing has shipped to consumers and no final decision has been made on what to do here, if anything. If we do decide to roll something out, we will take a thoughtful approach and do so with full transparency.”
Meta’s facial recognition controversies
In our previous coverage, CNET noted a dangerous precedent if Meta’s glasses store biometric face data in an embedded database architecture that can compare new faceprints to existing ones. At the time, a Meta spokesperson responded that the company is “not building a central face database.”
In late 2021, under public pressure, Meta announced plans to shut down its efforts to build a central facial recognition database on the Facebook platform. By that point, the company said, about 600 million users globally had already opted into the software, which could identify faces in photos and videos for tagging people on the social media site. Meta later settled a 2024 lawsuit filed by the state of Texas over the collection of facial recognition data for $1.4 billion.
Earlier this year, the New York Times reported that Meta was developing software for its smart glasses to identify people, presumably using data from its social networks, such as Facebook and Instagram. The article cited an internal memo from Meta that said political tumult in the US would distract critics from the feature’s release.
Privacy advocacy groups such as the EFF have long spelled out the harms of facial recognition technology, as biometric-enabled public surveillance severely undermines anonymity. Facial recognition technology also has a disproportionately negative impact on marginalized groups, as it can track movement, misidentify people of color and lead to wrongful arrests. Businesses and governments can also abuse faceprints without consent, creating risks for identity theft and cybersecurity.
Snap Inc. wants its Specs to be the future of everyday computing, but between the eye-watering price and lackluster demos, we don’t see it happening.
On Tuesday, Snapchat unveiled Specs, a $2,195 pair of augmented reality glasses. The glasses, notably, are fully standalone and do not need to be tethered to a computer or smartphone to work.
They come in two sizes, too. A 47mm model that weighs 132 grams, and a 52mm model that weighs 136 grams. The lens inserts are removable and support a wide range of prescriptions.
They’re hardly thin, though. The frames are somehow thicker than the Meta glasses, meaning it’ll be quite obvious that you’re wearing something on your face.
The display system is Snap’s own proprietary liquid crystal on silicon technology. It has a 51-degree field of view and can display 16 million colors.
The Apple Vision Pro’s field of view is almost twice that at 100 degrees horizontally and can display a billion distinct colors. Of course, Apple Vision Pro isn’t a pair of augmented reality glasses, either.
Image credit: Snap
According to Snap, Specs feel like a 24-inch desktop monitor when you’re working or a 115-inch home cinema screen placed 10 feet away when you’re watching a movie.
Snap’s press release says the goal isn’t to create augmented content for content’s sake, but rather to make computing useful at the moment.
That’s a bit of a contrast to the tech demos they displayed during the official unveiling stream. Nearly every single thing showcased was some sort of game or novel toy use.
Of course, those things also have a higher visual impact than, say, using the glasses to measure a wall.
Snap says that developers have already built hundreds of Lenses (their word for apps). It also seems to be adamant that, rather than showing existing software, the benefit of AR comes from unique “experiences,” which is one way to say that Snap has no plans on making Specs deeply integrate with your phone or computer.
Specs features four hours of mixed-use battery life, which includes audio and video playback, Lenses, AI assistance, Bluetooth notifications, and more. The included charging case will provide up to four additional charges, extending the life to 20 hours of mixed use.
Whether or not Specs will be a hit remains to be seen. However, at nearly $2,200 for what is, functionally, a toy, it seems highly likely there’s no space for it in the current market.
Through research, innovation and determination, these six women exemplify success in the Industry 4.0 space.
If you are in an Industry 4.0 career then you know just how quickly the sector can transform and change. Some of the ways people in this area stay up to date include making an effort to attend industry events, engaging with learning opportunities via online courses, shadowing more experienced colleagues, and carrying out personal research and projects to advance skill.
Another useful and highly effective method of staying clued in is following the careers of talented, skilled and notable professionals who have played a role in making the ecosystem what it is today through their contributions and insights.
If you intend to move into an Industry 4.0 role, or want to better understand the potential of committing to a career in this area, then make sure you are following the careers of these six women.
Jennifer Kelly
With more than 20 years of experience as an international director and senior manager across a range of multinational companies and sectors, Jennifer Kelly is the co-founder and COO of WrxFlo, an Irish SaaS platform tailored for manufacturing and logistics operations.
She has significant experience working within the global supply chain space, with large teams, top multinationals and SMEs. She has worked globally throughout Europe and the US on acquisitions and on multi-complex projects and has significant insight into the key challenges and opportunities that often arise in the industry.
Cynthia Breazeal
Considered by many to be a pioneer of social robotics and human-robot interaction, Cynthia Breazeal is a professor of media arts and sciences at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the founder and director of the Personal Robots group at MIT’s Media Lab. She is the dean for digital learning at MIT, with vast experience leveraging emerging digital technologies, business, research and strategic initiatives.
With a deep interest in AI literacy, she is the founding director of MIT’s Initiative on Responsible AI for Social Empowerment and Education, which is a research and outreach effort that aims to improve opportunities and education in AI for young people and adults in the workplace. Her ‘Day of AI’ programme has brought AI literacy education to more than 1m students in 170 countries. She also co-founded the consumer social robotics company Jibo, where she served as chief scientist and chief experience officer.
The recipient of multiple commendations for her work, she is also an author, has sat on several high-profile boards and has vast experience speaking at key industry events such as TED, the World Economic Forum, the UN, SXSW, CES and top academic conferences.
Dr Sabina Jeschke
Dr Sabina Jeschke is the CEO of KI Park, a Berlin-based organisation that aims to accelerate AI innovation across Germany and wider Europe, with the larger goal of making the continent a global leader in AI by 2030.
Jeschke’s primary focus is in the areas of highly innovative technologies such as AI, digital twins, 5G and 6G applications and quantum computing software. She is a consultant and a non-executive board member for several organisations supporting companies in their digital transformation. She also develops automation strategies for robots and cobots, in a landscape that is changing globally.
Jeschke has been recognised by her peers and been the recipient of a number of commendations and awards, including from the German Informatics Society and the International Society for Engineering Education.
Dr Tara McGuire
An emerging figure in the Industry 4.0 space, Dr Tara McGuire is a postdoctoral fellow at University College Dublin (UCD).
She was actively involved with a team of researchers from the RCSI University of Medicine and Health Sciences that recently developed a new 3D implant solution to help heal spinal cord injuries. At the time, McGuire was a member of RCSI’s Tissue Engineering Research Group.
Currently, as a postdoctoral researcher in UCD’s neuromuscular systems and neural engineering group, her work focuses on the computational modelling of deep brain stimulation for Parkinson’s disease, with the goal of creating better simulations and treatment strategies. McGuire’s work has led to high-impact publications in the bioinformatics and bioengineering spaces and she has been recognised for her insights at both national and international conferences.
Bronagh Riordan
An AI and data partner at EY, Bronagh Riordan helps deliver data, analytical and AI-powered strategies and solutions to help users meet global business needs. Before joining the organisation, she held senior roles across the industry at companies such as Primark, Evanta and Deutsche Bank, where she was largely responsible for developing strategies, transforming data, analytics and AI capabilities and delivering impactful technology products.
In 2023 and 2024, she was recognised as a Global Data Power Woman, which acknowledges the recipient as a successful woman holding a leadership position in a prominent global organisation. She also featured in the Top 100 Influential Women in Irish Tech in 2025 and was named the Analytics & AI Data Leader of the Year in 2023.
Riordan regularly speaks at industry events and is particularly passionate about serving as a role model for other women in the space.
In 2022, she became the first female board chair of any technology centre in Ireland after being appointed to the Industry Steering Board at CeADAR – Ireland’s Centre for Applied AI. She is also a member of the Government of Ireland’s Artificial Intelligence Advisory council.
Emma McKenna
Emma McKenna is the head of sustainable manufacturing at the Advanced Manufacturing Innovation Centre.
She has a wide range of experience working within the public and private sectors with the goal of accelerating the shift to a circular economy, working towards net zero and tackling real-world challenges to achieve a sustainable and inclusive future.
Her previous experience includes work as the head of net zero at Innovate UK Business Connect, a circular economy business adviser at ReLondon and a sustainable cities engagement project officer for the Peterborough Environment City Trust. In 2025 McKenna, alongside colleague Dr Lauren McGarry, was recognised at the 2025 Northern Ireland Women in Tech Awards for her work and leadership in manufacturing innovation.
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Verdict
An e-reader and tablet hybrid that solves a couple of issues of Kindles and their contemporaries, while introducing a few issues of its own.
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Far better motion than E Ink ereaders
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Can run (almost) any Android app
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Neat anti-reflective glass screen
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Low-contrast display
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Fairly weak processor
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Relatively low screen resolution
Key Features
Introduction
The Hannspree Lumo is a different kind of reader. At a glance, it looks like a larger Amazon Kindle Colorsoft, but it uses entirely different screen technology.
Instead of E Ink, found in most conventional readers, the Hannspree Lumo uses a kind of LCD with some of E Ink’s properties. It uses a front light rather than an intense backlight, so it’s easier on your eyes, and since it doesn’t have a clunky “flash” screen refresh, it handles motion well too.
Best of all worlds? Not quite, as there are significant compromises too. Sharpness and contrast are actually significantly worse than a Kindle’s — or a rival Boox or Kobo reader — which has a real impact on the good old reading experience.
As such, it’s best to think of this as an unusual tablet-reader hybrid. It limits the Hannspree Lumo’s appeal, but certainly doesn’t get rid of it entirely.
Design
- Matte glass screen
- Aluminium body
- Included case
The Hannspree Lumo is larger than most ereaders, and uses somewhat more upmarket materials than plenty of them too. This is a 7.8-inch screen device, making it potentially a better fit for graphic novels than a Kindle Paperwhite or Colorsoft.
It also has a metal casing and a glass screen. The vast majority of ereaders have plastic bodies and plastic screens — the old Kindle Voyage is an outlier here, as it had a lovely etched-glass display. But presumably that was a bit too costly, as it was certainly more scratch-resistant than plastic.
As such, the Hannspree Lumo can come across as much like a small tablet as an e-reader. However, I do find its body a little on the sharp side. E-readers tend to have rounded sides and corners for a reason — they are more comfortable to hold for extended periods. Hannspree does offer a case, though, which will solve that problem. It’s even included.
And for all its glass-and-metal glitz, the Hannspree Lumo has no water-resistance rating, so it should be used with caution in the bath or by the poolside.
Screen
- LCD screen
- 60Hz refresh
- Front light
The display is the most interesting part of the Hannspree Lumo. It’s a 7.8-inch “sunlight readable” LCD, recreating one of the top features of E Ink tech, that direct sunlight makes it clearer. Ambient light is not something a backlight has to fight against, which is a win for battery life and for making the screen less of an eye-strainer.
This is combined with radically better motion handling than any E Ink ereader. In an E Ink screen, black and white microcapsules are pulled to the front of the screen to create the image, which leaves ghosting residue until the screen is “flashed” to reset it.
There’s no such ghosting in the Hannspree Lumo, and its motion appears far smoother and more responsive. It’s a better e-reader for video than one of the Android-based Boox models that can also, for example, run YouTube.
My issue is that I don’t find the Hannspree Lumo nearly as good as a classic Kindle Paperwhite for actual reading. 1024 x 768 pixels spread over 7.8 inches leads to a pixel density of 164ppi, where a Kindle Paperwhite has a pixel density of 300ppi.
The small fonts of novels here appear quite soft and pixellated, and I find the lower pixel density look of the Hannspree Lumo’s LCD more distracting than that of an old low-res E Ink reader.
There’s more too. Even in a bright environment, I still feel I need to use the Hannspree Lumo front light to boost visibility as contrast is quite low and the “white” of the page is quite grey — even more so than the recent colour E Ink readers that sacrifice contrast for colour. Doing so also lightens up the screen’s blacks, so there’s no way to make contrast appear that satisfying.
I don’t love reading books on the Hannspree Lumo. And that is clearly a bit of a problem.
As in the colour E Ink crowd, like the Kindle Colorsoft, colour depth and punch are quite limited too, although the number of colours this can display is an order of magnitude greater. Current colour E Ink tech can reproduce around 4000 colours, whereas the Hannspree Lumo can recreate 16.7 million, which will lead to far better-looking gradients and transitions.
One of the key things I wanted to try first-hand with the Hannspree Lumo was comics and graphic novels. I think most ereaders are far too small to do the job well. The same is really true here for larger format comics that fit a lot of panels and text onto a page, but there’s one key difference.
E Ink ereaders make flicking and zooming around pages feel bad, while the Hannspree Lumo does not. The Lumo makes a pretty good comic book reader as a result.
Performance and software
- Plain Android 14 software
- (Almost) no non-Google apps preinstalled
- Low-end MediaTek G99 processor
Hannspree has put almost comically little effort into customising the Lumo’s software. But I don’t actually think that’s necessarily a problem.
The Hannspree Lumo runs a plain version of Android 14, and fresh out of the box, it only has Google apps preinstalled, plus a basic camera app and sound recorder. There’s no Hannspree ebook reader app or app store. It’s up to you to head into Google Play and find your own e-reader interface.
I’ve mostly used the Amazon Kindle app during testing, but you could just as easily use Libby, Kobo, or a plain e-reader app geared up to let you use your own digital files.
I wouldn’t like to see a super-standard Android interface in an E Ink reader as the display tech’s clunky motion calls for something simplified. But here? The Hannspree Lumo basically feels like a tablet so plain Android fits perfectly.
It doesn’t have a whole heap of power, though. The Hannspree Lumo has a MediaTek G99 processor, which was released back in 2022. It has 64GB storage and a lowly 4GB RAM.
It scores just 2006 points in Geekbench 6, equivalent to flagship Android device performance from 2018. A Lumo is still a bunch more powerful than a Kindle Paperwhite, but it’s also based around software that presumes such greater performance.
For fun, I tried out Fortnite on the Hannspree Lumo. It managed a frame about every five seconds initially. Toning down the visuals as much as possible didn’t really help much, and not only do matches take an eternity to load, but the game also crashes to the home screen before you get into gameplay more often than not.
The Lumo feels just fine for the basics, but come with realistic expectations.
Cameras, speakers and battery life
- Modest dual 5/8MP cameras
- Optional stylus
- Single speaker
The Hannspree Lumo has most of the features usually associated with tablets, including plenty generally missing from ereaders. There are front and rear cameras, with 5MP and 8MP sensors.
Neither one is particularly good, but either can capture serviceable photos with one annoying caveat. The front camera lacks autofocus, and the lens’s focal plane means you have to hold the Hannspree Lumo at full arm’s length, or your face will appear slightly out of focus.
Do that, though, and the results can be pretty respectable given this is a device that, let’s be honest, doesn’t really require a camera.
The higher expectations of rear cameras mean it’s this higher-spec 8MP that actually disappoints. Even when shooting in daylight, the detail looks fuzzy up close, there are not masses of it, and image integrity drops off dramatically in the corners of the frame. The Hannspree Lumo doesn’t need any better cameras than it has, though, and you need to transfer the images to another device to see them at their best anyway.
Similarly, the Hannspree Lumo’s speaker array isn’t great by tablet standards either. There’s a single speaker on the right side when the Lumo is held upright. It can’t produce any bass, and the treble is a bit insistent, but it will do the job for the occasional YouTube video. For longer-term audiobook listening, I’d consider using wireless headphones or a Bluetooth speaker, which the Hannspree Lumo can stream to.
And battery life? Hannspree claims the relatively small 3000mAh battery lasts up to 6.5 hours of use.
I tried playing a video with the front night at a very low setting, then at max. At the low setting, the Lumo can last up to around 10 hours. And even at max brightness, 93 minutes of video playback only took 18 per cent off the battery, suggesting stamina of up to 8.5 hours rather than 6.5. A conservative battery estimate is a rarity these days.
You can also get an active stylus for the Hannspree Lumo, available for a very reasonable £30-ish. It has a rechargeable battery and a replaceable nib, just like the more expensive digital pens from the bigger brands. It’s a fully pressure-sensitive pen with tilt sensing too, making it a solid option for digital artwork. It feels perfectly good in use.
Should you buy it?
You want an e-reader with far better motion handling
If you want the low eye strain look of an e-reader but can’t put up with the jerky, clunky-looking motion of E Ink, a Lumo is one of the better options out there right now. Great for scrolling through large PDFs.
You want a peak reading experience
We prefer classic E Ink readers for actual reading of novels, as they provide better contrast, higher sharpness and an all-round clearer representation of small fonts.
Final Thoughts
The Hannspree Lumo is an interesting tablet that doesn’t quite achieve its goal of merging the best bits of tablets and ereaders, like those in the Amazon Kindle range.
Yes, it does have a screen that can draw on ambient light and dramatically outclasses Kindles in motion and refresh. But few, if any, are going to argue that the Hannspree Lumo is better for reading plain old novels than a classic ereader.
There’s a decent argument, however, that its superior motion, navigation, and colour fidelity make the Hannspree Lumo a solid option for those more interested in comics and PDFs than in novels. For more options, take a look at our selection of the best E Ink tablets.
How We Test
We test every tablet we review thoroughly. We use industry-standard tests to compare features properly and we use the phone as our main device over the review period. We’ll always tell you what we find and we never, ever, accept money to review a product.
- Used as main E Ink tablet for over a week
- Read multiple books
- Taken a lot of notes
FAQs
Is the Hannspree Lumo E Ink?
The tablet uses an LCD screen, not an E Ink one.
Is the Hannspree Lumo waterproof?
It has no water resistance rating, so it should be used carefully around liquids.
Does the Hannspree Lumo have Google Play?
It has full access to the Google Play app store.
Full Specs
| Hannspree Lumo Review | |
|---|---|
| Manufacturer | Hannspree |
| Screen Size | 7.8 inches |
| Storage Capacity | 64GB |
| Rear Camera | 8MP |
| Front Camera | 5MP |
| IP rating | No |
| Battery | 3000 mAh |
| Size (Dimensions) | 134 x 6.6 x 185 MM |
| Weight | 250 G |
| Release Date | 2026 |
| Resolution | 1024 x 768 |
| Refresh Rate | 60 Hz |
| Ports | USB-C |
| Chipset | MediaTek Helio 99 |
| RAM | 4GB |
| Colours | black |
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