An anonymous reader shared this report from Reuters: In a new front in the U.S.-China tech war, President Joe Biden's administration is facing pressure from some lawmakers to restrict American companies from working on a freely available chip technology widely used in China — a move that could upend how the global technology industry collaborates across borders...

RISC-V can be used as a key ingredient for anything from a smartphone chip to advanced processors for artificial intelligence... The lawmakers expressed concerns that Beijing is exploiting a culture of open collaboration among American companies to advance its own semiconductor industry, which could erode the current U.S. lead in the chip field and help China modernize its military. Their comments represent the first major effort to put constraints on work by U.S. companies on RISC-V...

Executives from China's Huawei Technologies have embraced RISC-V as a pillar of that nation's progress in developing its own chips. But the United States and its allies also have jumped on the technology, with chip giant Qualcomm working with a group of European automotive firms on RISC-V chips and Alphabet's Google saying it will make Android, the world's most popular mobile operating system, work on RISC-V chips...

Jack Kang, vice president of business development at SiFive, a Santa Clara, California-based startup using RISC-V, said potential U.S. government restrictions on American companies regarding RISC-V would be a "tremendous tragedy." "It would be like banning us from working on the internet," Kang said. "It would be a huge mistake in terms of technology, leadership, innovation and companies and jobs that are being created."
One U.S. Representative said the Chinese Communist Party was "abusing RISC-V to get around U.S. dominance of the intellectual property needed to design chips.

"U.S. persons should not be supporting a PRC tech transfer strategy that serves to degrade U.S. export control laws."

In downtown San Francisco two vehicles were stopped at a red light on Monday night, reports the Washington Post — a regular car and a Cruise robotaxi. Both vehicles advanced when the light turned green, according to witness accounts and video recorded by the Cruise vehicle's internal cameras and reviewed by The Post. As the cars moved forward, the pedestrian entered the traffic lanes in front of them, according to the video, and was struck by the regular car. The video shows the victim rolling onto that vehicle's windshield and then being flung into the path of the driverless car, which stopped once it collided with the woman. According to Cruise spokesperson Hannah Lindow, the autonomous vehicle "braked aggressively to minimize the impact" but was unable to stop before rolling over the woman and coming to a halt. Photos published by the San Francisco Chronicle show the woman's leg sticking out from underneath the car's left rear wheel.
"According to Cruise, police had directed the company to keep the vehicle stationary, apparently with the pedestrian stuck beneath it," reports the San Francisco Chronicle.

Also from the San Francisco Chronicle: Austin Tutone, a bicycle delivery person, saw the woman trapped underneath the Cruise car and tried to reassure her as they waited for first-responders. "I told her, 'The ambulance is coming' and that she'd be okay. She was just screaming." He shared a photo of the aftermath with The Chronicle that appears to show the car tire on the woman's leg. San Francisco firefighters arrived and used the jaws of life to lift the car off the woman. She was transported to San Francisco General Hospital with "multiple traumatic injuries," said SFFD Capt. Justin Schorr. The victim was in critical condition as of late Tuesday afternoon, according to the hospital.

It appears that once the Cruise car sensed something underneath its rear axle, it came to a halt and turned on its hazard lights, Schorr said. Firefighters obstructed the sensors of the driverless car to alert the Cruise control center. He said representatives from Cruise responded to firefighters and "immediately disabled the car remotely." More from the San Francisco Chronicle: "When it comes to someone pinned beneath a vehicle, the most effective way to unpin them is to lift the vehicle," Sgt. Kathryn Winters, a spokesperson for the department, said in an interview. Were a driver to move a vehicle with a person lying there, "you run the risk of causing more injury." Once the person is freed, the car must stay in place as police gather evidence including "the location of the vehicle and/or vehicles before, during and after the collision," said Officer Eve Laokwansathitaya, another spokesperson.
The human driver who struck the pedestrian immediately fled the scene, and has not yet been identified.

Hyundai and Kia said on Thursday that they will adopt Tesla's electric vehicle charging technology in the United States. Reuters reports: Joining their global peers, including Ford Motor, General Motors and Nissan in adopting Tesla's North American Charging Standard (NACS), Hyundai's and Kia's moves take the Elon Musk-led company's superchargers closer to becoming the industry standard at the expense of the rival Combined Charging System (CCS). Hyundai and Kia's new EVs will come with a NACS port, starting in the fourth quarter of 2024 in the United States, the companies said.

However, in Canada, Hyundai EVs equipped with the NACS port would be available in the first half of 2025, while Kia's EVs with the technology by the end of 2024. The move gives Hyundai and Kia EVs with NACS ports access to more than 12,000 Tesla Superchargers across the United States, Canada, and Mexico, the companies said. The South Korean automakers also said that they would offer adapters to owners of existing and future Hyundai and Kia EVs with the current CCS giving them access to Tesla's Supercharging Network in the first quarter of 2025.

Paul Kunert writes via The Register: Talking on stage at the Canalys EMEA Forum 2023, Luca Rossi, senior vice resident at Lenovo and president of its Intelligent Devices Group, said the company has committed to a net zero emission policy by 2050, and analyzing the components used in its hardware is part of the equation. "On repairability, we have a plan that by 2025 more than 80 percent of the repair parts will be repaired again so that they they enter into the circular economy to reduce the impact to the environment." He added: "More than 80 percent of our devices will be able to be repaired at the customer, by the customer or by the channel and we are enabling this with a design for serviceability kind of approach." This means that "batteries, SSD, many things, will not any longer be sealed into the product but will be available for the customer to be to repaired on site and then save a lot of waste."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from MIT Technology Review: Thirteen US states are now implementing underground thermal energy networks to reduce buildings' carbon emissions as part of a nationwide push to adopt cleaner energy sources. Thermal energy networks use pipe loops that connect multiple buildings and provide heating and cooling through water-source heat pumps. Geothermal heat is commonly used in these networks, but it is also possible to bring in waste heat from other buildings through the sewer system. When installed, these networks can provide efficient, fossil fuel-free heating and cooling to commercial and residential buildings. Thanks to legislative backing and widespread support from utility companies and labor unions they're likely to become an increasingly significant part of the future energy mix in the US.

"Heat is the largest source of waste energy and it's an untapped resource," says Zeyneb Magavi, co-executive director at clean energy nonprofit HEET (Home Energy Efficiency Team). "Once we have a thermal energy network, we can tap into that resource by moving it to where we need it." While the projects are still at the planning and regulatory stage in most of the 13 states, construction is already underway in some. [...] The advantages of thermal energy networks extend beyond reducing carbon emissions. Scaling them up from a few buildings to a community or utility level can also help make the grid more resilient and efficient. Magavi says every time a "loop" of thermal energy network is added to the grid, its ability to predict and manage power flow becomes more accurate. This interconnectedness helps the system become more resilient in high-stress situations.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Tom's Hardware: Resin printer company Peopoly created quite a buzz with the unveiling of a prototype beltless FDM 3D printer, the Magneto X, at the East Coast RepRap Festival. The new printer is a desk top machine with a huge 400 x 300 x 300 mm build volume and print speeds up to 800mm/s. It borrows a design feature seen on CNC machines: magnetic linear motors. Normally, 3D printers move their components with rotating stepper motors attached to gears and pulleys. The linear motor can be thought of as a flat, unrolled motor with the "rotor" attached to the moving component -- the tool head -- and the stator forming a track along one axis. Dubbed the "MagXY" system, the tool head seems to levitate across the gantry without obvious means. It has a top print speed of 800 mm/s with a max acceleration of 22,000 mm/s, which would make it faster than modern Core XY printers from Bambu Lab.

Peopoly is using and supporting both Klipper firmware and OrcaSlicer, which founder Mark Peng said greatly helped speed up their development time. [...] Peopoly is leaning hard into the Open Source community. Not only have they become backers of Klipper firmware, they are also using -- and supporting -- Open Source OcraSlicer. The Magneto X's nozzles are compatible with the popular E3D's V6 volcano which suggests the machine will be open to modification by users. Peopoly also states its machine can be used without joining a cloud-based system and promises customer data will not be collected.

Alongside the Pixel 8 and Android 14, Google today launched the new Pixel Watch 2 -- a $350 second-gen smartwatch featuring a faster processor, overhauled sensor array, and longer battery life. The Verge reports: At a glance, the main difference is that the screen sits flush with the digital crown, where the original had a slight cutout. Another change imperceptible to the naked eye: the body is now made of 100 percent recycled aluminum instead of stainless steel. The result is a slightly lighter watch, but not by much. The Pixel Watch weighed 36 grams, while the Pixel Watch 2 is 31g. That's a bit disappointing, considering the Watch 2's price remains the same as last year. We're looking at the same 41mm case size and OLED display on top. But flip the watch over, and you'll find a completely different sensor array. Instead of a single line of LEDs, there are now multiple LEDs and photodiodes to take measurements from several angles and positions. That then feeds into an algorithm that Fitbit CEO James Park says is 40 percent more accurate for vigorous activities.

This year, Google also added a skin temperature and continuous electrodermal activity (EDA) sensor. Both help enable proactive stress tracking, which Fitbit introduced with its Sense 2. The EDA sensor detects minuscule amounts of sweat, which can help determine bodily stress when combined with metrics like heart rate variability, heart rate, and skin temperature. As with the Sense 2, you're supposed to get a slightly delayed notification when a stressful event has been detected. You're then encouraged to log how that event made you feel. Battery life was a major pain point when the Pixel Watch first launched. Park acknowledges that you couldn't use the always-on display on the first-gen watch if you wanted that 24-hour battery life. This time around, he says that the team has worked hard to make sure the Pixel Watch 2's 306mAh battery can get 24 hours with the always-on display enabled. Users should also be able to get a 50 percent charge in 30 minutes and a full day's worth in 75 minutes. Helping that should be Wear OS 4 -- which Google says ought to extend battery life -- and the new, more power-efficient Qualcomm Snapdragon W5 processor. (Speaking of Wear OS 4, Google says that, at first, it'll be exclusive to Pixel Watch 2.) Other features include the ability to automatically record workouts and do heart rate zone training; a new Safety Check feature that will alert your loved ones of your location after a preset timer expires (e.g. taking an Uber across town or going on a late-night walk); and support for Google services like Gmail, Google Wallet, and Calendar.

You can learn more about the Pixel Watch 2 here.

Google's newest flagship phone is finally official. The Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro were both unveiled today, with the headline changes being a whopping seven years of updates, flat screens across the board, new CPUs, and a $100 price increase. The Pixel 8 Pro is officially $999, while the Pixel 8 is $699. ArsTechnica: As for specs, the Pro display is a 6.7-inch, 120 Hz, 2992x1344 OLED. Google is branding this display "Super Actua" because it's one of the brightest phone displays on the market at 1600 nits for HDR content and 2400 nits in sunlight mode. That beats the sunlight modes on the S23 Ultra (1750 nits) and iPhone 15 Pro Max (2000 nits) but not the Xiaomi 13T Pro (2600 nits). The storage situation here isn't great. The Pixel 8 Pro has 12GB of RAM and storage tiers of 128GB, 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB. Most other phones in this price range start at 256GB, and the 8 Pro uses slower UFS 3.1 storage instead of the speedy UFS 4.0 a lot of phones ship with now. The 8 Pro battery is 5050 mAh, and there's 30 W wired charging. Wireless charging will hit 23 W on the Pixel charging stand, while Qi chargers will only hit 12 W (it would be great if Qi2 would get its act together). Both phones have IP68 dust and water resistance. On the software update support lifecycle: This year, there is finally something tangible to point to -- 7 years of OS updates. Unlike with previous models, there are no games being played here, as Google says there are "7 years of OS, security, and Feature Drop updates." That's more major OS updates than even iPhone owners are getting, with the iPhone X getting iOS versions 11-16.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNBC: Intel said it will treat its programmable chip unit as as a standalone business, with an aim to spin it out through an IPO in the next two to three years. Intel's Programmable Solutions Group will have its own balance sheet as it heads toward independence. The company will continue to support the business and retain a majority stake, and could also seek private investment. Sandra Rivera, who leads Intel's broader Data Center and AI group, will become PSG CEO. Intel will manufacture the group's chips.

The move also highlights the strong demand in the semiconductor industry for field programmable gate arrays, or FPGAs. [...] FPGAs are simpler than the powerful processors at the heart of servers and PCs but are often more flexible, respond faster and can be more power-efficient. They're "programmed" after they're shipped for specific uses in data centers, telecommunications, video encoding, aviation and other industries. FPGAs can also be used to run some artificial intelligence algorithms.

Intel's FPGAs are sold under the Agilex brand. Intel doesn't break out PSG sales yet, but said in July that the unit had three record quarters in a row, offsetting a slump in server chip sales. PSG has been part of Intel's Data Center and AI group, which generated $4 billion in sales in the second quarter.

Hugh Morris writes via the New York Times: When the musician and artist Paul Purgas was invited in 2017 by the National Institute of Design in Ahmedabad, India, to play some of the music he'd found in its archives that year, he was initially very keen. These were tapes that had been hidden from the public for decades; they proved the existence of a fertile avenue for electronic music in 1960s and '70s India, and he was determined for people to hear them. But as he went to use the institute's aging reel-to-reel machine, he got a nasty surprise: an electric shock. "I think that sobered me up," he said in an interview. The project, he realized, was about to become "a bit of a lifetime journey."

Purgas, 43, is a London-based sound artist and curator, and half of the electronic music duo Emptyset. Initially, he had been on the trail of the lost Moog synthesizer that the American experimentalist David Tudor used while in India, which led him to the library of the NID. In "a victory for good record keeping," Purgas found details of some unknown Tudor recordings noted in a handwritten logbook by a diligent archivist in the 1960s. He requested them from the archives, and was presented with box after box of carefully annotated tapes, all taken from a neglected cupboard. Purgas returned to England to undertake training in tape restoration to properly conserve what he'd found: music from a group of Indian composers who, aided initially by Tudor, had used the Moog and some accompanying homemade modular devices between 1969 and 1972 to create some of India's earliest electronic music.

Following a 2020 BBC radio documentary, "Electronic India," in which Purgas situated the music in its cultural context, a new compilation -- "The NID Tapes: Electronic Music from India 1969-1972," out Friday -- presents the restored pieces in their full variety. There are manipulated field recordings, pieces linked to birds and nature, compositions inspired by Indian classical music, imagined voyages to outer space, and tracks reminiscent of bleep techno or Aphex Twin. What the recordings demonstrate, Purgas said, is "electronic sound and music existing free from any baggage," away from "any vestiges of what could be conceived as a kind of Western continuum."

Several scientists from NASA told the New York Times that the agency is planning to build houses on the moon by 2040. Forbes reports: The agency is set to return to the moon and is hoping its astronauts can stay long-term -- in a house built on the moon via a 3D printer. The idea is to build the house structure out of a special lunar concrete from the moon's surface, and NASA has found just the company to do it: Austin-based 3D printing company, ICON. In what's been dubbed Project Olympus, ICON

ICON created its first 350-square-foot prototype home in Austin in March 2018 with a proprietary machine called Vulcan. This year, it showcased its first model home at Wolf Ranch in Georgetown, Texas, which is part of its 3D-printed 100-home community project. The start-up first received funding from NASA in 2020, and in 2022 it announced an additional $60 million for a space-based construction system that can be used beyond earth. The idea is to send a 3D printer up to the moon via a rocket, and the printer completes its job from there. "We've got all the right people together at the right time with a common goal, which is why I think we'll get there," NASA's director of technology maturation, Niki Werkheiser told The New York Times. "Everyone is ready to take this step together, so if we get our core capabilities developed, there's no reason it's not possible."

A Tokyo startup has developed a 4.5-meter-tall, four-wheeled robot modeled after the "Mobile Suit Gundam" from the Japanese animation series. It has a price tag of $3 million. Reuters reports: Called ARCHAX after the avian dinosaur archaeopteryx, the robot has cockpit monitors that receive images from cameras hooked up to the exterior so that the pilot can maneuver the arms and hands with joysticks from inside its torso. The 3.5-ton robot, which will be unveiled at the Japan Mobility Show later this month, has two modes: the upright 'robot mode' and a 'vehicle mode' in which it can travel up to 10 km (6 miles) per hour.

"Japan is very good at animation, games, robots and automobiles so I thought it would be great if I could create a product that compressed all these elements into one," said Ryo Yoshida, the 25-year-old chief executive of Tsubame Industries. "I wanted to create something that says, 'This is Japan.'" Yoshida plans to build and sell five of the machines for the well-heeled robot fan, but hopes the robot could one day be used for disaster relief or in the space industry.

An anonymous reader shares a report: It was never clear who the $10,000 to $17,000 18-karat gold Apple Watch was for, beyond celebrities and the ultrarich, but I hope whoever bought one way back in 2015 expected Apple to stop supporting them at some point. That day has come. Apple has now internally listed all first-gen Apple Watch models, including the solid-gold Edition, as "obsolete," MacRumors reports.

Apple's obsolete label doesn't just mean the end of software support. That ship has sailed; the original Apple Watches (widely referred to as Series 0) never updated beyond watchOS 4.3.2 in 2018. It means the end of hardware support: the company will no longer provide parts, repairs, or replacement services. The solid-gold Apple Watch Edition was something of a passion project for Apple's former lead designer, Jony Ive. When it launched, it was seen on the wrists of influential celebrities, including German fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld, who, like Beyonce, wore it with a gold link bracelet that was never available to the public.

Cooler Master's new Sneaker X mimics the exact look of an authentic sneaker but doesn't sacrifice its visuals for performance, coming with a full-blown i7-13700K and an RTX 4070 Ti graphics card. The only drawback of the system is its high price, coming in at a whopping $3,799.99. From a report: Cooler Master's sneaker case is anything but ordinary; the case has all the visual queues of a giant sneaker doused in red and white. Inside is a mini ITX chassis, equipped with a mini-ITX motherboard, Core i7-13700K CPU, GeForce RTX 4070 Ti graphics card, 32GB of DDR5 memory, 2TB of NVMe storage, and an 850W SFX power supply. Topping it all off is a massive 360mm AIO liquid cooler cooling the i7-13700K that sits at the bottom of the case, wholly hidden from prying eyes.

For ventilation, the shoe has perforated outline side panels and one sizeable RGB-illuminated intake fan on the side (which appears to be 120 mm in diameter). There are two cut-outs on the shoe's top and front, exposing the case's insides. To the rear (where your foot would slide if it were an actual shoe), a giant cut-out gives way to the large RTX 4070 Ti graphics card inside. The front cut-out is more obstructive but looks at the system's power supply, RGB-illuminated DDR5 RAM, and rear motherboard tray.

"Bear attacks in Japan have been rising at an alarming rate, so the city of Takikawa [about 570 miles from Tokyo] installed a robot wolf as a deterrent," reports the BBC. "The robot wolf was originally designed to keep wild animals from farmlands, but is now being used by local governments and managers of highways, golf courses, and pig farms." Digital Trends describes the "Monster Wolf" as "complete with glowing red eyes and protruding fangs." [T]he solar-powered Monster Wolf emits a menacing roar if it detects a nearby bear. It also has a set of flashing LED lights on its tail, and can move its head to appear more real... The robot's design is apparently based on a real wolf that roamed part of the Asian nation more than 100 years ago before it was hunted into extinction.

Japanese news outlet NHK reported earlier this month that bear attacks in the country are at their highest level since records began in 2007. The environment ministry said 53 cases of injuries as a result of such attacks were reported between April and July this year, with at least one person dying following an attack in Hokkaido in May.

This week America's Department of Energy announced $264 million for 29 projects as part of its Energy Earthshots Initiative "to advance clean energy technologies within the decade."

The funding will support 11 new research centers — along with 18 university research teams — studying things like industrial decarbonization, carbon storage, and offshore wind energy. The ultimate goal is a clean-energy revolution that will "accelerate innovations toward more abundant, affordable, and reliable clean energy solutions."

One ambitious example: The Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory has been selected to lead an Energy Earthshot Research Center focused on developing chemical processes that use sustainable methods instead of burning fossil fuels to radically reduce industrial greenhouse gas emissions to stem climate change and limit the crisis of a rapidly warming planet... The ORNL-led Non-Equilibrium Energy Transfer for Efficient Reactions center, or NEETER, will coordinate a research team from across the nation focused on replacing bulk heating for chemical processes with electrified means, providing a new way to do chemistry, and decarbonizing large-scale processes in the chemical industry. DOE has committed $19 million over four years for the center...

The scientists, in addition to using their own laboratories, will use Department of Energy Office of Science user facilities, including ORNL's Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility, Spallation Neutron Source, High Flux Isotope Reactor, and Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences. They will also include the beam line at Stanford's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. NEETER's proposed research is a radical departure from traditional chemistry and holds promise for transformational breakthroughs in energy-related chemical reactions. The NEETER EERC addresses the Department of Energy's Industrial Heat Shot announced in 2022, which aims to develop cost-competitive industrial heat decarbonization technologies with at least 85% lower greenhouse gas emissions by 2035. This EERC will employ new kinds of chemical catalysis as one pathway toward electrifying the delivery of process heat.
The projects include:

• Investigating hydrogen arc plasmas for carbon-free steelmaking

• Using exascale computer simulations and observations to produce more resilient clean energy systems.

• The University of Florida has reportedly teamed with Switzerland-based Synhelion to "research the production of green hydrogen, aiming for a lower cost to produce."

• The Center for Understanding Subsurface Signals and Permeability will attempt research to "advance enhanced geothermal systems with the goal of making them a widely accessible and reliable source of renewable energy"

• Another research center (also lead by the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory) will research effort to "make floating offshore wind a long-term viable energy source."

"Our Energy Earthshots are game-changing endeavors to unleash the technologies of the clean energy transition and make them accessible, affordable, and abundant," said U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm. "The Energy Earthshot Research Centers and the related work happening on college campuses around the country will be instrumental in developing the clean energy and decarbonization solutions we need to establish a 100% clean grid and beat climate change."

An anonymous reader shares this report from Futurism: Training large language models is an incredibly power-intensive process that has an immense carbon footprint. Keeping data centers running requires a ludicrous amount of electricity that could generate substantial amounts of greenhouse emissions — depending, of course, on the energy's source. Now, the Verge reports, Microsoft is betting so big on AI that its pushing forward with a plan to power them using nuclear reactors. Yes, you read that right; a recent job listing suggests the company is planning to grow its energy infrastructure with the use of small modular reactors (SMR)...

But before Microsoft can start relying on nuclear power to train its AIs, it'll have plenty of other hurdles to overcome. For one, it'll have to source a working SMR design. Then, it'll have to figure out how to get its hands on a highly enriched uranium fuel that these small reactors typically require, as The Verge points out. Finally, it'll need to figure out a way to store all of that nuclear waste long term...

Other than nuclear fission, Microsoft is also investing in nuclear fusion, a far more ambitious endeavor, given the many decades of research that have yet to lead to a practical power system. Nevertheless, the company signed a power purchase agreement with Helion, a fusion startup founded by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman earlier this year, with the hopes of buying electricity from it as soon as 2028.

Long-time Slashdot reader AmiMoJo shared this report from the Guardian: Heat pumps are more than twice as efficient as fossil fuel heating systems in cold temperatures, research shows. Even at temperatures approaching -30C, heat pumps outperform oil and gas heating systems, according to the research from Oxford University and the Regulatory Assistance Project thinktank...

Reports have spread that they do not work well in low temperatures despite their increasing use in Scandinavia and other cold climates. The research, published in the specialist energy research journal Joule, used data from seven field studies in North America, Asia and Europe. It found that at temperatures below zero, heat pumps were between two and three times more efficient than oil and gas heating systems.

The authors said the findings showed that heat pumps were suitable for almost all homes in Europe, including the UK, and should provide policymakers with the impetus to bring in new measures to roll them out as rapidly as possible.
"The Guardian and the investigative journalism organisation DeSmog recently revealed that lobbyists associated with the gas boiler sector had attempted to delay a key government measure to increase the uptake of heat pumps."

jizmonkey writes: The new version of Raspberry Pi is priced at $60 for the 4GB variant, and $80 for its 8GB sibling, and virtually every aspect of the platform has been upgraded. The new CPU is twice as fast and new features include simultaneous 5.0 Gbps USB 3.0 ports and a PCIe 2.0 x1 interface which can be used for an m.2 storage. Priority will be given to individual buyers through the end of the year.

Meta introduced its latest lineup of head-worn devices, staking fresh claim to the virtual- and augmented-reality industry just ahead of Apple pushing into the market. From a report: The company officially unveiled the Quest 3 headset on Wednesday, raising the price by $200 to $500, at its annual Connect developers conference. It also introduced second-generation smart glasses that it developed with luxury sunglass maker Ray-Ban. The Quest 3, which was previewed by Meta earlier this year after Bloomberg published a hands-on review of the device, offers improved performance over the Quest 2 from 2020. It also marks a pivot from VR to mixed reality, which melds virtual and augmented reality.

It's a high-stakes moment for Meta's hardware business. Though the company has dominated VR goggles for years, Apple is poised to release its Vision Pro headset in the coming months, setting up a showdown. Like the Quest 3, the Vision Pro is a mixed-reality headset -- though one with exclusive Apple technology and content. The Vision Pro will have Apple's marketing muscle behind it, but also a much higher price: $3,499. In addition to the competitive pressure, Meta also has struggled to sell consumers on the metaverse -- a collection of interlocking online worlds that make use of its headsets.