A federal judge's long-awaited ruling in Epic Games' antitrust lawsuit against Apple gave both sides opportunities to claim wins.
Driving the news: The ruling, delivered Friday morning, requires Apple to let Epic, and other developers, tell users about alternative payment mechanisms and to link out to their own transaction systems.
Looking just at Ray-Ban Stories as a consumer product, minus the social questions, there is a lot to like, starting with the fact that they look just like regular Ray-Bans.
Between the lines: There are other glasses that are more capable, but Ray-Ban Stories are comfortable, stylish and work with prescription lenses while offering a few useful features. For me, the key selling point is the ability to take pictures without having to take out my phone.
Facebook executive Andrew Bosworth says a key goal of the company's new $299 smart glasses is to kickstart a societal conversation on the norms around such products. On that front, the company has already succeeded.
State of play: Coverage of the launch of the Ray-Ban Stories focused as much on privacy issues as on the product themselves.
Airport security continues to evolve since 9/11, and it's possible that within the next decade or so, passengers will be able to sail through a virtually invisible screening portal without stopping.
That means shoes stay on, electronics stay in the bag and pockets don't have to be emptied.
Epic Games says it "intends" to re-release its popular "Fortnite" battle royale game on iPhones and iPads in South Korea, citing the country's new law involving in-app purchases.
Why it matters: Epic's plan, announced tonight via a Tweet, would allow it to achieve one of its key goals in its ongoing fight with Apple, at least in one country.
Sony’s 40-minute showcase of upcoming PlayStation games was highlighted by reveals of big Marvel superhero surprises and the first gameplay of a "God of War" sequel.
Why it matters: Sony hasn’t run a major gaming showcase in over a year — due to COVID-19 and a de-emphasis on the E3 trade show — but filled Thursday afternoon's event with major announcements.
Ray-Ban Stories, the smart glasses being debuted by Facebook and Ray-Ban today, are most notable for just how much they look like a standard pair of the brand's sunglasses.
Why it matters: That speaks to both the most promising and troublesome aspect of the $299 glasses: They look and feel just like a standard pair of Ray-Bans while adding the ability to capture photos and video.
Technology that automates recruiting and hiring can be partly to blame for the current labor shortage, according to a new Harvard Business School and Accenture study.
Driving the news: More than 90% of employers in the U.S., U.K, and Germany surveyed said that they use automated systems to filter or rank candidates first. Those systems often eliminate candidates that could be a good fit for jobs with training, but whose resumes don’t precisely match the pre-set criteria.
At the opening of Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes' trial, the prosecution and the defense offered two divergent portrayals of the defendant to the jury: she is either a calculating CEO who lied to get money, or a zealous entrepreneur who made mistakes along the way.
Why it matters: The trial in San Jose, which is expected to last 13 weeks, is the highest-profile fraud case yet to come out of Silicon Valley, where startups often "fake it 'til they make it."
Amazon's proposed $8.45 billion purchase of Hollywood studio MGM is presenting the Federal Trade Commission, which will soon decide whether to block the deal, with a kind of ideological Rorschach test.
Progressives see it as self-evident that regulators should not allow Amazon to further extend its already vast market power. They expect to find an ally in FTC chair Lina Khan, who built her reputation making the case that Amazon is a monopolist that should be checked.
Ads for next year's Super Bowl LVI are nearly gone, NBC executives said Wednesday. Some of the most recently sold units went for $6.5 million — a new record.
Why it matters: Despite a decline in viewership, Super Bowl ads continue to become more expensive, given that the big game is the single-best opportunity for advertisers to reach a large amount of people at once.
