Apple’s feeling a little perplexed
Well, it was a fun idea while it lasted. Rather than nurture its home-grown AI talent after OpenAI snatched Apple’s best employees away, the Big Fruit Company would rather buy some. The higher-ups have reportedly discussed the potential of acquiring Perplexity AI, according to Bloomberg’s Apple guru Mark Gurman.
Perplexity AI is a hot commodity right now. Not only has Samsung attempted to secure its services for its devices, but Meta reportedly considered acquiring the company for itself earlier this year before it decided to invest heavily in Scale AI instead. Perplexity maintains that it has heard nothing from both Meta and Apple.
Gurman reckons that the deal has been discussed internally by Apple’s Adrian Perica, head of mergers and acquisitions, services chief Eddy Cue, and other “top AI decision-makers.” The deals are, however, still in the talking stages with Apple execs, and may not even lead to an offer. We find that… difficult to believe.
If Perplexity plays its cards right, it may be able to put a rather lucrative deal on the table. Apple’s recent missteps in the AI realm, while all its biggest rivals continue to make remarkable strides forward, likely have Apple sweating and willing to pay top dollar to secure a well-established path to AI success.
If a deal were to close — Gurman says that Apple could consider teaming up with Perplexity AI if a proper deal cannot be reached — it would help Apple stand up a new AI-powered search engine right inside of Safari, and could eventually be integrated into Siri down the line, fulfilling Apple’s promises at the same time.
Is Facebook a glasses company now?
Even with Meta’s $14 billion investment in Scale AI, the company formerly known as Facebook has its hands in so many pies it’s difficult to keep track. One of the more surprising collaborations in recent years was its team-up with Ray-Ban, delivering a pair of smart glasses that could record video or snap images on the fly, answer phone calls, and more. And now it’s doing it again, this time with Oakley.
It appears the key to Meta’s success is brand awareness. When it attempted to release a pair of its own Meta-branded glasses in 2021, they… didn’t sell very well. After it chucked its tech inside a decent-looking pair of Ray-Bans, that managed to sell more than a million pairs in 2024 alone. The company is hoping to replicate the feat with Oakley, though it’s making the task considerably more difficult for itself.
Meta calls these “Performance AI glasses, engineered to amplify human potential,” claiming that these are aimed more at athletes than regular folk. These start at $400 and go up to $500 (up from $300 for the Ray-Bans) for the gold model that features double the battery life, ‘3K’ video recording, and water resistance. The idea is for athletes to use Meta AI as a training ‘assistant’ and up their game on the move.
“We are increasingly seeing performance use cases with the Ray-Bans like people wearing them on roller coasters, cycling and being around water, so we’re trying to lean into that,” says Alex Himmel, Meta’s VP of wearables, in an interview with Bloomberg.
You’ve got competition, SpaceX
We’re still slightly baffled by the fact that SpaceX can send a rocket to space, catch it, and then use it all over again. Even more baffling is that Elon Musk’s space venture is not the only company that can claim to do this anymore after Honda took to the skies and proved itself capable of mimicking the impressive feat.
Okay, while SpaceX is technically more versed in the expertise required to send up a rocket to space before catching it again, Honda’s breakthrough with the “launch and landing test of an experimental reusable rocket,” developed in-house, is absolutely nothing to scoff at, even if it did only reach an altitude of around 272m.
The launch took place last week in Taiki Town, Japan, a self-described ‘space town’ where Honda has spent the better part of the last year “safely conducting engine combustion tests and hovering tests for its reusable rockets.” That hard work eventually paid off when Honda sent up the 6.4m-tall, 1,270kg rocket for 56 seconds before it touched back down within 37cm of its intended target.
There’s no telling what Honda will do with this power in the coming years. The company said that it was still in the “fundamental research phase,” and that no decisions “have been made regarding commercialization of these rocket technologies.”
It’s not you, it’s Microsoft
Struggling to open Google Chrome on your Windows device recently? It’s not just you; thousands of Windows users have reported similar issues, complaining that the browser either fails to open or crashes constantly after use. As it turns out, it was a bug introduced into Microsoft’s Family Safety feature suite, typically used by parents looking to keep an eye on their kids’ computer habits, that seemingly only affected Chrome.
“Our team has investigated these reports and determined the cause of this behavior,” said Chrome support manager, Ellen T. “For some users, Chrome is unable to run when Microsoft Family Safety is enabled.”
It appears as though the bug has yet to be squashed on Microsoft’s end, though Google has found a fairly simple workaround in the meantime. Parents can visit here, or open the Family Safety mobile app, select the child with the issue, and disable “Filter inappropriate websites” under the Edge tab. Or, visit the Windows Tab > Apps & Games > Unblock Chrome.
