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Begun just months before his death in 2016, a memoir by the legendary singer-songwriter Prince is now being published as "The Beautiful Ones." Jamie Yuccas reports on how the manuscript by Prince Rogers Nelson came to light, and talks with editor Dan Piepenbring, who helped Prince tell his story, including how the people in Prince's life made him the artist he was. Yuccas also talks with representatives of Prince's estate about the vault of previously-unreleased music that is now being made public.

Harriet Tubman, a tiny woman who could neither read nor write, pulled off superheroine-like exploits in the years before the Civil War. With the help of the Underground Railroad, she not only escaped from a Maryland plantation to freedom in the North, she went back, 13 times over 10 years, to guide more than 70 enslaved people to freedom. And during the war, she became the first American woman to lead troops into battle, near Beaufort, S.C. Martha Teichner visits historic sites that were part of Tubman's remarkable life story, and with actress Cynthia Erivo, who plays the iconic figure in a new biopic, "Harriet."

Herbert Hoover had been president for less than a year when the Crash of 1929 initiated the Great Depression, an epochal event in American history that would place his name near the bottom of presidential rankings. But the engineer and business magnate, who made several fortunes in his 20s, is also remembered as a great humanitarian for feeding several million starving Belgians during World War I, and for introducing a variety of innovations in American life, from standardized traffic lights to milk cartons. Mo Rocca examines Hoover's remarkable rise (from humble beginnings to the White House) and his remarkable fall.

Virtual and augmented reality are still pretty new frontiers with a lot of potentially cool ideas yet to be developed. The latest product in the mixed reality space could be coming from a startup called Dopple Works. Lowpass reported that the secrecy-shrouded business from Etsy co-founder and former CEO Robert Kalin is working on a new device called Loop.

Dopple Works has submitted an application to the Federal Communications Commission. Many of the details are not publicly available, but that filing indicates that Loop is battery-powered and will use both WiFi and Bluetooth networks. Lowpass also unearthed a patent application that dubs Loop a "dedicated hand-held spatial computing device." The application comes with images that show a camera, speaker and tracking sensor that could capture details on an environment, along with a screen for viewing the mixed reality content.

At this stage, there's not enough information available to speculate on what Loop's purpose will be. But the photos from the government filings do spark some entertaining mental images of a future where people wandering about doing their best Sherlock Holmes imitations with mixed reality magnifying glasses. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ar-vr/etsy-co-founders-new-startup-is-making-what-really-looks-like-a-mixed-reality-magnifying-glass-224247515.html?src=rss

Her real name is Melissa Jefferson, but she's known by her childhood nickname, Lizzo, and you might say this has been her year. She's still riding the wave of an acclaimed new album, "Cuz I Love You"; and this summer she had the #1 song AND the cover of Elle magazine, plus she stole the show on MTV's biggest night. Yet, the 31-year-old described her career as "the slowest build of all time." Lizzo sat down with Tracy Smith to discuss overcoming bouts of poverty, homelessness, and crippling self-doubt, and how her high school band teacher gave her the focus she needed to make her mark.

Melissa Jefferson, who's known by her childhood nickname, Lizzo, has been having quite a year. She's still riding the wave of an acclaimed new album, "Cuz I Love You"; and this summer she had the #1 song AND the cover of Elle magazine, plus she stole the show on MTV's biggest night. Yet, the 31-year-old describes her career as "the slowest build of all time." Lizzo sat down with Tracy Smith to discuss overcoming bouts of poverty, homelessness, and crippling self-doubt, and how her high school band teacher gave her the focus she needed to make her mark.

Meta is developing its Aria Gen 2 smart glasses, which come packed with sensors and AI featuresThe smart glasses can track your gaze, movement, and even heart rate to gauge what's happening around you and your feelings about itThe smart glasses are currently being used to help researchers train robots and build better AI systems that could be incorporated into consumer smart glassesThe Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses are still relatively new, but Meta is already ramping up work with its new Aria Gen 2 smart glasses. Unlike the Ray-Bans, these smart glasses are only for research purposes, for now, but are packed with enough sensors, cameras, and processing power that it seems inevitable some of what Meta learns from them will be incorporated into future wearables.Project Aria's research-level tools, like the new smart glasses, are used by people working on computer vision, robotics, or any relevant hybrid of contextual AI and neuroscience that draws Meta's attention. The idea for developers is to utilize these glasses to devise more effective methods for teaching machines to navigate, contextualize, and interact with the world.The first Aria smart glasses came out in 2020. The Aria Gen 2s are far more advanced in hardware and software. They’re lighter, more accurate, pack more power, and look much more like glasses people wear in their regular lives, though you wouldn't mistake them for a standard pair of spectacles.The four computer vision cameras can see an 80° arc around you and measure depth and relative distance, so it can tell both how far your coffee mug is from your keyboard, or where a drone’s landing gear might be heading. That's just the beginning of the sensory equipment in the glasses, including an ambient light sensor with ultraviolet mode, a contact microphone that can pick up your voice even in noisy environments, and a pulse detector embedded in the nose pad that can estimate your heart rate.Future facewearThere's also plenty of eye-tracking technology, able to tell where you’re looking, when you blink, how your pupils change, and what you're focusing on. It can even track your hands, measuring joint movement in a way that could help with training robots or learning gestures. Combined, the glasses can figure out what you're looking at, how you're holding an object, and if what you're seeing is getting your heart rate up because of an emotional reaction. If you're holding an egg and see your sworn enemy, the AI might be able to figure out you want to throw the egg at them, and help you aim it accurately.As stated, these are research tools. They’re not for sale to consumers, and Meta hasn’t said if they ever will be. Researchers have to apply to get access, and the company is expected to start taking those applications later this year.But the implications are far larger. Meta's plans for smart glasses go well beyond checking for messages. They want to link human interactions with the real world to machines, teaching them to do the same. Theoretically, those robots could look, listen, and interpret the world around them like humans do.It's not going to happen tomorrow, but the Aria Gen 2 smart glasses prove it's a lot closer than you might think. And it’s probably only a matter of time before some version of the Aria Gen 2 ends up for sale to the average person. You'll have that powerful AI brain sitting on your face, remembering where you left your keys and sending a robot to pick them up for you.You might also likeMeta AI is here to take on ChatGPT and give your Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses a fresh AI upgradeWhy Google working with Warby Parker and Gentle Monster gives me confidence about the future of smart glassesWhy 2025 will be the year of the AI smart glasses