Black Mirror-like glasses let you block ads in real life
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Finextra
8 hours ago
- Finextra
Innovation Doesn't Necessarily Mean Progress: By Scott Dawson
In 2013, Google launched an ambitious and attention-grabbing experiment: Google Glass. Marketed as a glimpse into the future, it promised a seamless blend of digital and physical reality through an augmented-reality headset. Journalists were enthusiastically promoting it as early as 2012, and by the time its soft launch came around industry observers were heralding the 'year of wearable tech'. Rather than going straight to stores, Glass was released to selected 'Explorers', most of them in the San Francisco Bay Area. In hindsight, this was the kiss of death for the project: it created literal haves and have-nots, with tech influencers being given access to the future while the rest of us could only watch – and be watched. Explorers soon became known as 'Glassholes' and articles were written on the privacy concerns raised by the product. Then, quietly and without fanfare, it disappeared. By 2015, production of commercial models had ceased, and what was once seen as a symbol of inevitable progress had become a cautionary tale. Google Glass didn't fail due to a lack of technical sophistication. It failed because Google misread the public's appetite for a solution to a problem they didn't have. This is the lesson we too often forget, particularly in sectors like financial services – not every innovation is progress. Sometimes, progress means making what we already have work better. What Counts as Innovation? At its simplest, innovation is the creation of something new. But new doesn't automatically mean better. Financial services, and payments in particular, have seen their fair share of novelty over the past decade. Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) stands out as a particularly visible example—disruptive, widely adopted, and clearly innovative. But it's also a model under increasing scrutiny and regulatory pressure. Critics argue that BNPL promotes overextension, encourages poor financial habits, and lacks the consumer protections built into traditional credit. BNPL reflects a key tension in financial innovation, offering convenience while avoiding exploitation. When the pace of innovation exceeds the frameworks of regulation or ethical practice, we risk creating systems that appear sleek but ultimately prove unsustainable. The last few years have also seen an explosion of blockchain-based financial products—decentralised finance (DeFi), NFTs, a proliferation of altcoins and memecoins. Much of this activity promised to 'democratise' finance and unseat traditional systems and yet, outside of a relatively niche audience, the vast majority of these projects have failed to achieve practical impact or long-term credibility. Their collapse, or stagnation, underscores the danger of mistaking novelty for necessity. Can there be progress without innovation? It's possible. Some of the most important changes don't come from new ideas, but systemic change – mandating that bank accounts must be able to be accessed by disabled people for instance. Holding up NFTs next to accessibility shows that there really is little link between progress and innovation. The Legacy Trap Financial services often rely on infrastructure that is decades old. Many of the systems that process our daily transactions are built on technologies that have been in place since the 1980s or earlier. These legacy systems may be trusted but that doesn't mean make them resilient enough for purpose. While these systems are desperately due for an upgrade, we need to be careful not to do away with the aspect that work while we're pruning the less effective ones. But modernising infrastructure doesn't always require a blank slate. In many cases, the more meaningful kind of progress is found in strengthening, streamlining and securing the systems that already underpin the global economy. In essence, that can mean using existing solutions more effectively or, as was the case with expanding access to bank accounts, making them more widely available. It's not that innovation is inherently dangerous—it's that innovation for its own sake, detached from purpose, regulation or practical application often leads nowhere. Often, what we need is to listen to what people need and respond to it – innovations like the iPod that seemingly arrive from the ether to give the world something that they never thought possible ('1000 songs in your pocket') are rare, and what is more common are creations like the Miracle Mop that apply smart thinking to existing creations. There's a common myth in fintech circles that regulation is an obstacle to innovation. In reality, it often serves as a crucial foundation. Regulation provides the clarity and stability needed for innovations to scale, especially when those innovations touch-sensitive areas like data privacy, fraud prevention or consumer protection. At the same time, innovation can easily outpace existing regulatory frameworks. That's not an argument for ignoring regulation, but for approaching innovation with caution and responsibility. The collapse of several unregulated or poorly regulated digital finance platforms in recent years serves as a stark reminder of what happens when innovation races ahead without guardrails. Progress, Properly Understood The real engine of progress in payments isn't the next flashy app or protocol—it's the intersection of clear regulatory thinking, problem-solving, and pragmatic use of technology. A prime example of this is the revised Payment Services Directive (PSD2). Introduced in response to growing concerns around fraud and digital security, it not only addressed immediate problems but also laid the groundwork for future innovation. PSD2 enabled the rise of Open Banking across Europe, giving consumers greater control over their data and creating new opportunities for fintech companies to offer better, more personalised services. This is innovation grounded in need, informed by regulation, and aligned with consumer interest. In other words, it's meaningful progress. Technology isn't the only—or even the most important—arena for innovation. One of the most overlooked opportunities lies in education. Financial literacy and inclusion remain deeply uneven across demographics and geographies. Without addressing this foundational issue, even the most elegant solutions will leave many behind. Progress that genuinely benefits people means ensuring they can understand and use financial tools with confidence. Sometimes the right innovation isn't an app, but a curriculum. Not a new platform, but a clearer explanation. The best technological systems are useless if they're inaccessible to those they're meant to serve. Rebuilding on Solid Ground The tech industry's long love affair with the mantra 'move fast and break things' is coming to an end. The collapse of several high-profile startups and the tightening of venture capital in a post-cheap-credit era have created a new mood—one that prizes resilience over risk, clarity over chaos. In this environment, payments companies and fintechs are beginning to ask smarter questions. Not 'What can we build?' but 'What do people need?' Not 'How can we replace what exists?' but 'How can we improve it?' Google Glass was not a total failure—it was an experiment, and experiments have value. But it reminds us that simply being ahead of your time isn't enough. The future doesn't belong to those who shout the loudest about change. It belongs to those who understand where change is needed—and then build responsibly and with purpose. Innovation is a means, not an end. Let's keep our eyes on progress.
Metro
9 hours ago
- Metro
Black Mirror-like glasses let you block ads in real life
Hiyah Zaidi Published July 4, 2025 4:58pm Updated July 4, 2025 4:58pm Link is copied Comments We are always being exposed to adverts. Even Netflix has changed its model just so it can create an ad plan where you pay less but you have to endure ad breaks. Often online we can press that handy little 'X' in the corner to shut down the pop-up, but there's no such solution in real life, right? Well, maybe soon there will be. A software engineer posted an experiment of a pair or augmented reality glasses that could block ads (Picture: Stijn Spanhove) Do you remember that Black Mirror episode where people could block other people in real life? It works something like that, just not quite as dystopian. When you wear the smart glasses and look at a billboard, a red rectangle pops up to block the offending visual clutter from your view (Picture: Stijn Spanhove) Stin Spanhove, a Belgian programmer, is the brain behind the glasses, who used Snap's fifth-generation AR Spectacles. He engineered Google's Gemini AI to identify advertisements visible through the smart glasses and promptly blocked them, replacing the advertisement with a red square, while also naming the brand it has hidden (Picture: Stijn Spanhove) In a post on X, he wrote: 'I've been building an XR app for a real-world ad blocker using Snap Spectacles. It uses Gemini to detect and block ads in the environment. It's still early and experimental, but it's exciting to imagine a future where you control the physical content you see.' A video shows the glasses in action, with the app correctly identifying and visually blocking out ads on posters, pedestrian billboards, and a newspaper, and it can even block out brand names on food packaging (Picture: Stijn Spanhove) Although the app is still in its early stages, it reveals the possibilities of removing ads from your life, and the programmer is even thinking of a way that lets users customise the red squares, replacing them with anything from personal photos to to-do lists. Unfortunately, however, the app is put together using Snap's Depth Cache dev tools, so right now it is only available exclusively to Snap's AR Spectacles, so Meta Quest and Apple Vision Pro wearers will have to wait (Picture: Stijn Spanhove) Augmented reality (AR) enhances the world we live in, and creates a partial digital world on top of what we ordinarily see. Whereas virtual reality creates a fully virtual world which allows for a complete immersion of the human senses – which isn't so great for when you're out and about (Picture: Stijn Spanhove) Snap Spectacles are developed by Snap Inc, the company behind Snapchat. The company plans to release a sixth-generation of its augmented reality glasses in 2026. Its next-generation glasses will be called Specs – however, they are still yet to release a price and launch date. Their most recent Spectacles were released in September 2024 to developers only, and only available under a leasing model that required users to commit to paying $99 (£73) a month for a full year. The company launched its first Spectacles glasses in 2016, but that was limited to simple features like helping users shoot short videos that they could post to Snapchat. The update to augmented reality displays happened in 2021 (Picture: Getty)
Reuters
14 hours ago
- Reuters
Exclusive: Google's AI Overviews hit by EU antitrust complaint from independent publishers
BRUSSELS, July 4 (Reuters) - Alphabet's (GOOGL.O), opens new tab Google has been hit by an EU antitrust complaint over its AI Overviews from a group of independent publishers, which has also asked for an interim measure to prevent allegedly irreparable harm to them, according to a document seen by Reuters. Google's AI Overviews are AI-generated summaries that appear above traditional hyperlinks to relevant webpages and are shown to users in more than 100 countries. It began adding advertisements to AI Overviews last May. The company is making its biggest bet by integrating AI into search but the move has sparked concerns from some content providers such as publishers. The Independent Publishers Alliance document, dated June 30, sets out a complaint to the European Commission and alleges that Google abuses its market power in online search. "Google's core search engine service is misusing web content for Google's AI Overviews in Google Search, which have caused, and continue to cause, significant harm to publishers, including news publishers in the form of traffic, readership and revenue loss," the document said. It said Google positions its AI Overviews at the top of its general search engine results page to display its own summaries which are generated using publisher material and it alleges that Google's positioning disadvantages publishers' original content. "Publishers using Google Search do not have the option to opt out from their material being ingested for Google's AI large language model training and/or from being crawled for summaries, without losing their ability to appear in Google's general search results page," the complaint said. The Commission declined to comment. The UK's Competition and Markets Authority confirmed receipt of the complaint. Google said it sends billions of clicks to websites each day. "New AI experiences in Search enable people to ask even more questions, which creates new opportunities for content and businesses to be discovered," a Google spokesperson said. The Independent Publishers Alliance's website says it is a nonprofit community advocating for independent publishers, which it does not name. The Movement for an Open Web, whose members include digital advertisers and publishers, and British non-profit Foxglove Legal Community Interest Company, which says it advocates for fairness in the tech world, are also signatories to the complaint. They said an interim measure was necessary to prevent serious irreparable harm to competition and to ensure access to news. Google said numerous claims about traffic from search are often based on highly incomplete and skewed data. "The reality is that sites can gain and lose traffic for a variety of reasons, including seasonal demand, interests of users, and regular algorithmic updates to Search," the Google spokesperson said. Foxglove co-executive director Rosa Curling said journalists and publishers face a dire situation. "Independent news faces an existential threat: Google's AI Overviews," she told Reuters. "That's why with this complaint, Foxglove and our partners are urging the European Commission, along with other regulators around the world, to take a stand and allow independent journalism to opt out," Curling said. The three groups have filed a similar complaint and a request for an interim measure to the UK competition authority. The complaints echoed a U.S. lawsuit by a U.S. edtech company which said Google's AI Overviews is eroding demand for original content and undermining publishers' ability to compete that have resulted in a drop in visitors and subscribers.
