Latest news with #Brilliant
Engadget
6 hours ago
- Engadget
Brilliant Labs launches its second-generation smart glasses
Brilliant Labs is the startup behind Frame, the open-source smart glasses designed for hackers and other creative types. Today, the company is launching Halo, a new pair of glasses that, predictably for the age we live in, are being sold on the back of their AI features. Halo is a wayfarer-style pair (compared to the Panto-styled Frame) and, if you're a spectacles wearer, you'll be able to get prescription lenses in more than 100 countries thank to a partnership with SmartBuyGlasses. Brilliant is happy to brag that Halo includes a camera, microphone and bone-conduction speakers in its slender chassis. A natural pitfall of many smart glasses has been the compromises necessary to keep weight down while still offering enough functionality to be useful. Being able to keep the weight to a trim 40 grams is one hell of an achievement, especially given the glasses have a color OLED display and a battery that promises to run for 14 hours on a single charge. Unfortunately, instead of a display that overlays onto the lens, Halo "works" by projecting into your peripheral vision. I'll be honest, these displays are becoming more of an irritation the more I use them, especially compared to models that have prisms inside the lenses. ADVERTISEMENT Advertisement Last year, Brilliant introduced Noa, its AI agent which it said was designed from the ground up to be used within the context of a pair of glasses. The company says that, when paired with Halo, Noa will be able to talk to you in a way that is natural and intuitive, as if 'speaking with a real person.' It claims the secret sauce is in the fact Noa will be able to 'understand what it hears and sees within its environment and responds with contextually relevant information in real time.' That's a lot of braggadocio, especially given the promises that come next about Narrative, its agentic memory system. Narrative will, so it is said, remember the name of a person you met or the details of a conversation you've had 'years or even decades later.' This will harness the glasses' optical sensors and microphones to keep tabs on what's going on from your point of view. And since audio and video are both being constantly recorded, the system will build a 'private and personalized knowledge base' about you. Naturally, a pair of AI-enabled smart glasses will raise privacy hackles, and Brilliant says Noa will act as a VPN between you and the AI model behind it. Your interactions will be private by default, and users will get a lot of fine-grain privacy controls to ensure they're happy with how much data they share. Plus, you'll have voice commands to turn off the microphone, camera and the glasses themselves should you need to. Although if you're doing something you'd rather not be recorded, the smartest advice is to not wear a pair of AI glasses in the first place. Not to mention that your general concerns about having a database built of every single thing you do in a day (and your social graph) is likely to be easily de-anonymized if necessary. Brilliant also promises Halo will enable users to build custom applications for their glasses just from natural language commands. The company says that you just need to tell Noa what you need, and it'll build an app to serve your purpose 'within seconds.' Pre-orders for Halo are opening today, but shipping isn't due to begin until late November 2025, with the price set at $299. Compatible prescription lenses will be available to purchase through SmartBuyGlasses, too. The company is also taking great pains to tell users that it will, again, be releasing a limited number of pairs and so anyone interested in owning one will need to get in the line.
Los Angeles Times
23-07-2025
- Politics
- Los Angeles Times
Letters to the Editor: Palestinians' ‘right to self-determination' needs to be considered too
To the editor: Guest contributor Mark Brilliant makes his opinions clear but fails to convince ('Anti-Zionism is antisemitism — university leaders settle the question,' July 21). His assertion regarding the House testimony ignores how the Trump administration has punished students and researchers at schools that failed to toe its line. Brilliant claims anti-Zionism is 'denying to the Jewish people the right to self-determination.' Here is the question he should ask: Is Zionism a denial of the Palestinians' right to self-determination? Further, were the Palestinian people treated fairly by the partition of their land? Should we continue to support Israel's 70 years of gradual seizure of more Palestinian land in the West Bank, its intention in the long run to prevent the Palestinians from ever having a state of their own and the violence that has ensued as both side's extremists fight for their 'rights'? Is the revulsion many of us feel about how Israel is slaughtering civilians in Gaza 'anti-Zionism' or human decency? Few Americans question Israel's right to exist, but many question the senseless violence of its government in response to the senseless violence of Hamas. Michael Snare, San Diego .. To the editor: Brilliant takes an affirmative response to a gotcha question ('Is denying the Jewish people their rights to self-determination … antisemitism? Yes or no?') and leaps to his desired conclusion: that the university officials agreed that anti-Zionism is antisemitic. But he is wrong when he says that the Jewish right to self-determination is the textbook definition of Zionism. In fact, Zionism is the movement to establish a Jewish state in biblical Israel. I believe everyone has a right to self-determination, so I might have answered the gotcha question affirmatively too. But no one has the 'right' to occupy land where others live just as no one has a right to seize homes and orchards, to tell people where they must live and that they can't leave or to deny others their right to self-determination by basing democratic rights such as the right to vote or the right to travel on one's ethnicity. And, of course, no one has a 'right' to bomb hospitals and starve children. It is not antisemitic of me to say so. Clyde Leland, Berkeley .. To the editor: In response to Brilliant's op-ed that equates anti-Zionism with antisemitism, I would like to point out that people who criticize Zionism probably don't object to Jewish rights to self-determination or statehood. The problem is real estate. The Bible may have promised the land of Israel to the Jews, but if you look at things from a strictly historical perspective, a lot more non-Jews have lived on the land in question than Jews. Many of the people who established the state of Israel came from Europe (for admittedly good reasons) and pushed the native Arab population into refugee camps where it's lived for the last 70-odd years. Now government officials in Israel and the U.S. are talking openly about completely removing this population. That's ethnic cleansing, and as uncomfortable as it is for many to admit, it's hard to see that ethnic cleansing is not intrinsic to Zionism. You can't establish a Jewish state in a place where other people already live without kicking those people out. That's what people don't like about Zionism. If you could take away the mandatory Arab eviction part, I don't think anybody would have a problem with it. William Griffith, Oxnard
Los Angeles Times
13-07-2025
- Health
- Los Angeles Times
U.S. aid cuts halt HIV vaccine research in South Africa, with global impact
JOHANNESBURG — Just a week had remained before scientists in South Africa were to begin clinical trials of an HIV vaccine, and hopes were high for another step toward limiting one of history's deadliest pandemics. Then the email arrived. Stop all work, it said. The United States under the Trump administration was withdrawing all its funding. The news devastated the researchers, who live and work in a region where more people live with HIV than anywhere else in the world. Their research project, called BRILLIANT, was meant to be the latest to draw on the region's genetic diversity and deep expertise in the hope of benefiting people everywhere. But the $46 million from the U.S. for the project was disappearing, part of the dismantling of foreign aid by the world's biggest donor earlier this year as President Trump announced a focus on priorities at home. South Africa has been hit especially hard because of Trump's baseless claims about the targeting of the country's white Afrikaner minority. The country had been receiving about $400 million a year via USAID and the HIV-focused PEPFAR. Now that's gone. Glenda Grey, who heads the Brilliant program, said the African continent has been vital to the development of HIV medication, and the U.S. cuts threaten its capability to do such work in the future. Significant advances have included clinical trials for lenacapavir, the world's only twice-a-year shot to prevent HIV, recently approved for use by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. One study to show its efficacy involved young South Africans. 'We do the trials better, faster and cheaper than anywhere else in the world, and so without South Africa as part of these programs, the world, in my opinion, is much poorer,' Gray said. She noted that during the urgency of the COVID-19 pandemic, South Africa played a crucial role by testing the Johnson & Johnson and Novavax vaccines, and South African scientists' genomic surveillance led to the identification of an important variant. A team of researchers at the University of the Witwatersrand has been part of the unit developing the HIV vaccines for the trials. Inside the Wits laboratory, technician Nozipho Mlotshwa was among the young people in white gowns working on samples, but she may soon be out of a job. Her position is grant-funded. She uses her salary to support her family and fund her studies in a country where youth unemployment hovers around 46%. 'It's very sad and devastating, honestly,' she said of the U.S. cuts and overall uncertainty. 'We'll also miss out collaborating with other scientists across the continent.' Professor Abdullah Ely leads the team of researchers. He said the work had promising results indicating that the vaccines were producing an immune response. But now that momentum, he said, has 'all kind of had to come to a halt.' The BRILLIANT program is scrambling to find money to save the project. The purchase of key equipment has stopped. South Africa's health department says about 100 researchers for that program and others related to HIV have been laid off. Funding for postdoctoral students involved in experiments for the projects is at risk. South Africa's government has estimated that universities and science councils could lose about $107 million in U.S. research funding over the next five years due to the aid cuts, which affect not only work on HIV but also tuberculosis — another disease with a high number of cases in the country. South Africa's government has said it will be very difficult to find funding to replace the U.S. support. And now the number of HIV infections will grow. Medication is more difficult to obtain. At least 8,000 health workers in South Africa's HIV program have already been laid off, the government has said. Also gone are the data collectors who tracked patients and their care, as well as HIV counselors who could reach vulnerable patients in rural communities. For researchers, Universities South Africa, an umbrella body, has applied to the national treasury for over $110 million for projects at some of the largest schools. During a visit to South Africa in June, UNAIDS executive director Winnie Byanyima was well aware of the stakes, and the lives at risk, as research and health care struggle in South Africa and across Africa at large. Other countries that were highly dependent on U.S. funding including Zambia, Nigeria, Burundi and Ivory Coast are already increasing their own resources, she said. 'But let's be clear, what they are putting down will not be funding in the same way that the American resources were funding,' Byanyima said. Magome writes for the Associated Press. Associated Press writer Michelle Gumede in Johannesburg contributed to this report.
The Mainichi
13-07-2025
- Health
- The Mainichi
US aid cuts halt HIV vaccine research in South Africa, with global impact
JOHANNESBURG (AP) -- Just a week had remained before scientists in South Africa were to begin clinical trials of an HIV vaccine, and hopes were high for another step toward limiting one of history's deadliest pandemics. Then the email arrived. Stop all work, it said. The United States under the Trump administration was withdrawing all its funding. The news devastated the researchers, who live and work in a region where more people live with HIV than anywhere else in the world. Their research project, called BRILLIANT, was meant to be the latest to draw on the region's genetic diversity and deep expertise in the hope of benefiting people everywhere. But the $46 million from the U.S. for the project was disappearing, part of the dismantling of foreign aid by the world's biggest donor earlier this year as President Donald Trump announced a focus on priorities at home. South Africa hit hard by aid cuts South Africa has been hit especially hard because of Trump's baseless claims about the targeting of the country's white Afrikaner minority. The country had been receiving about $400 million a year via USAID and the HIV-focused PEPFAR. Now that's gone. Glenda Grey, who heads the Brilliant program, said the African continent has been vital to the development of HIV medication, and the U.S. cuts threaten its capability to do such work in the future. Significant advances have included clinical trials for lenacapavir, the world's only twice-a-year shot to prevent HIV, recently approved for use by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. One study to show its efficacy involved young South Africans. "We do the trials better, faster and cheaper than anywhere else in the world, and so without South Africa as part of these programs, the world, in my opinion, is much poorer," Gray said. She noted that during the urgency of the COVID-19 pandemic, South Africa played a crucial role by testing the Johnson & Johnson and Novavax vaccines, and South African scientists' genomic surveillance led to the identification of an important variant. Labs empty and thousands are laid off A team of researchers at the University of the Witwatersrand has been part of the unit developing the HIV vaccines for the trials. Inside the Wits laboratory, technician Nozipho Mlotshwa was among the young people in white gowns working on samples, but she may soon be out of a job. Her position is grant-funded. She uses her salary to support her family and fund her studies in a country where youth unemployment hovers around 46%. "It's very sad and devastating, honestly," she said of the U.S. cuts and overall uncertainty. "We'll also miss out collaborating with other scientists across the continent." Professor Abdullah Ely leads the team of researchers. He said the work had promising results indicating that the vaccines were producing an immune response. But now that momentum, he said, has "all kind of had to come to a halt." The BRILLIANT program is scrambling to find money to save the project. The purchase of key equipment has stopped. South Africa's health department says about 100 researchers for that program and others related to HIV have been laid off. Funding for postdoctoral students involved in experiments for the projects is at risk. South Africa's government has estimated that universities and science councils could lose about $107 million in U.S. research funding over the next five years due to the aid cuts, which affect not only work on HIV but also tuberculosis -- another disease with a high number of cases in the country. Less money, and less data on what's affected South Africa's government has said it will be very difficult to find funding to replace the U.S. support. And now the number of HIV infections will grow. Medication is more difficult to obtain. At least 8,000 health workers in South Africa's HIV program have already been laid off, the government has said. Also gone are the data collectors who tracked patients and their care, as well as HIV counselors who could reach vulnerable patients in rural communities. For researchers, Universities South Africa, an umbrella body, has applied to the national treasury for over $110 million for projects at some of the largest schools. During a visit to South Africa in June, UNAIDS executive director Winnie Byanyima was well aware of the stakes, and the lives at risk, as research and health care struggle in South Africa and across Africa at large. Other countries that were highly dependent on U.S. funding including Zambia, Nigeria, Burundi and Ivory Coast are already increasing their own resources, she said. "But let's be clear, what they are putting down will not be funding in the same way that the American resources were funding," Byanyima said. ___
Time of India
13-07-2025
- Health
- Time of India
US aid cuts halt HIV vaccine research in South Africa, with global impact
Johannesburg: Just a week had remained before scientists in South Africa were to begin clinical trials of an HIV vaccine , and hopes were high for another step toward limiting one of history's deadliest pandemics. Then the email arrived. Stop all work, it said. The United States under the Trump administration was withdrawing all its funding. The news devastated the researchers, who live and work in a region where more people live with HIV than anywhere else in the world. Their research project, called BRILLIANT , was meant to be the latest to draw on the region's genetic diversity and deep expertise in the hope of benefiting people everywhere. But the $46 million from the U.S. for the project was disappearing, part of the dismantling of foreign aid by the world's biggest donor earlier this year as President Donald Trump announced a focus on priorities at home. South Africa hit hard by aid cuts South Africa has been hit especially hard because of Trump's baseless claims about the targeting of the country's white Afrikaner minority. The country had been receiving about $400 million a year via USAID and the HIV-focused PEPFAR. Now that's gone. Glenda Grey, who heads the Brilliant program, said the African continent has been vital to the development of HIV medication, and the U.S. cuts threaten its capability to do such work in the future. Significant advances have included clinical trials for lenacapavir, the world's only twice-a-year shot to prevent HIV, recently approved for use by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. One study to show its efficacy involved young South Africans. "We do the trials better, faster and cheaper than anywhere else in the world, and so without South Africa as part of these programs, the world, in my opinion, is much poorer," Gray said. She noted that during the urgency of the COVID-19 pandemic , South Africa played a crucial role by testing the Johnson & Johnson and Novavax vaccines, and South African scientists' genomic surveillance led to the identification of an important variant. Labs empty and thousands are laid off A team of researchers at the University of the Witwatersrand has been part of the unit developing the HIV vaccines for the trials. Inside the Wits laboratory, technician Nozipho Mlotshwa was among the young people in white gowns working on samples, but she may soon be out of a job. Her position is grant-funded. She uses her salary to support her family and fund her studies in a country where youth unemployment hovers around 46%. "It's very sad and devastating, honestly," she said of the U.S. cuts and overall uncertainty. "We'll also miss out collaborating with other scientists across the continent." Professor Abdullah Ely leads the team of researchers. He said the work had promising results indicating that the vaccines were producing an immune response. But now that momentum, he said, has "all kind of had to come to a halt." The BRILLIANT program is scrambling to find money to save the project. The purchase of key equipment has stopped. South Africa's health department says about 100 researchers for that program and others related to HIV have been laid off. Funding for postdoctoral students involved in experiments for the projects is at risk. South Africa's government has estimated that universities and science councils could lose about $107 million in U.S. research funding over the next five years due to the aid cuts, which affect not only work on HIV but also tuberculosis - another disease with a high number of cases in the country. Less money, and less data on what's affected South Africa's government has said it will be very difficult to find funding to replace the U.S. support. And now the number of HIV infections will grow. Medication is more difficult to obtain. At least 8,000 health workers in South Africa's HIV program have already been laid off, the government has said. Also gone are the data collectors who tracked patients and their care, as well as HIV counselors who could reach vulnerable patients in rural communities. For researchers, Universities South Africa, an umbrella body, has applied to the national treasury for over $110 million for projects at some of the largest schools. During a visit to South Africa in June, UNAIDS executive director Winnie Byanyima was well aware of the stakes, and the lives at risk, as research and health care struggle in South Africa and across Africa at large. Other countries that were highly dependent on U.S. funding including Zambia, Nigeria, Burundi and Ivory Coast are already increasing their own resources, she said. "But let's be clear, what they are putting down will not be funding in the same way that the American resources were funding," Byanyima said.
