Author: dailyguardian.ae

Meta seemed to be quietly testing face recognition software for its Ray-Ban and Oakley smart glasses. A new WIRED investigation reveals that the company licensed it from Rank One Computing, a Denver-based firm that earns roughly 80% of its revenue from government clients, including the US military and police departments nationwide. This is the first known evidence of a business relationship between Meta and Rank One, and it raises serious questions about where consumer technology ends and surveillance infrastructure begins. So what exactly is Rank One Computing? Rank One is not your average tech company. It supplies face recognition to…

Portable chargers are boring — that’s not necessarily a criticism. Most power banks are supposed to be boring. They sit in a backpack, save your phone from dying, and disappear back into a drawer when they’re done. Every year, companies try to spice things up with bigger batteries, faster charging, or sleeker designs, but the basic formula rarely changes. That’s why Nimble’s new SharePower immediately caught my attention. It may be the coolest power bank idea I’ve seen in years, not because it charges faster than the competition, but because it solves a surprisingly human problem. SharePower is a 10,000mAh…

Peacock is going all in on vertical video. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the NBCUniversal-owned streamer is rolling out original Bravo microdramas and a TikTok-style, scrollable feed this month as part of a major push to get you to watch more content on your phone. Inside Peacock’s new vertical video lineup Campus Confidential is Peacock’s first original series designed specifically for a phone screen held upright. It is a short-form unscripted series built around the kind of soap opera drama Bravo has always done well. Alongside it, Peacock is rolling out a dedicated vertical video feed this month, starting with…

Portable chargers are usually designed with a simple goal: keep one person’s devices alive for as long as possible. Nimble thinks there’s a better approach. The company has unveiled SHAREPOWER, a new portable charger that can physically split into two independent power banks, allowing users to share battery power with someone else without giving up their own charge. Announced as part of Nimble’s Summer 2026 lineup, SHAREPOWER combines two 5,000mAh battery modules into a single 10,000mAh portable charger. When attached, the device functions as a standard power bank. However, users can detach one half and hand it to a friend,…

A network of X accounts is pushing AI nudify apps into more feeds, giving abuse-prone tools another route to users while victims fight to contain the fallout. In a Wall Street Journal report, Graphika senior researcher Matthew Patane said some nudify services are promoted through coordinated social accounts that reuse similar wording. One network included 45,000 X accounts, with posts leaning on indirect phrasing and censored visuals to avoid moderation. The finding puts new pressure on X and on sites such as Undress AI, a Belize-based service that advertises explicit image tools and teases paid video creation. Undress AI and…

Laser-powered lightsails are one of the coolest answers to spaceflight. It might not be as sci-fi-sounding as a warp drive, but now, its practicality has also come under question. Using lightsails, a spacecraft could unfurl an ultra-thin reflective sail and let a powerful laser push it toward another star, without relying on fuel. The tech was simple and elegant–except it’s also more complicated than it sounds. A new preprint from researchers Chao Shen and Jiaze Li of the Harbin Institute of Technology suggests that relativistic lightsails may run into a hidden propulsion problem once they start moving extremely fast. How…

Ironsmith is a free AI Mac app builder for Mac users with a narrow problem and no patience for the usual developer workflow. The open source menu bar app, shared by developer Jade Westover, turns plain-language requests into native macOS tools. Its target is the quick desktop helper, the kind of utility built around one personal task that would be hard to find in the App Store. It can use on-device models or cloud LLMs, so users aren’t boxed into one provider or one style of AI setup. Ironsmith is still in beta, so it’s better suited to low-risk experiments…

Global Wood & Wood Products Market to Reach Nearly $964 Billion by 2027, Driven by Smart Manufacturing and Material Innovation Dubai, United Arab Emirates – 11 June 2026: The global woodworking industry is entering a new era of transformation, driven by rapid advances in artificial intelligence, robotics, and advanced material innovation; technologies that are redefining how wood products are designed, processed, and delivered at scale. This transformation is unfolding alongside strong market growth. The global woodworking machinery market projected to reach $6.1 billion by 2027 reflecting rising demand from construction, furniture, and industrial applications worldwide. Dubai WoodShow 2026 is set…

The United Kingdom is preparing one of the world’s toughest restrictions on children’s access to social media after Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced plans to ban users under the age of 16 from accessing major social networking platforms. If implemented, the proposal would affect some of the world’s largest online services, including TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, YouTube, and X. While the first phase of the regulations is not expected to take effect until spring 2027, the announcement signals a significant shift in how governments are tackling online safety concerns among young people. The proposed measures come amid growing concerns about…

Gore Verbinski has a blunt message for filmmakers thinking about handing the script over to AI. According to Variety, the Pirates of the Caribbean and Rango director called for a rating system that would disclose how artificial intelligence is used in movies. His sharpest example was screenwriting. Verbinski reportedly said that if AI is used to write a script, the film should receive an F in that system. With Hollywood still trying to figure out where AI fits into the picture, this is a spicy take about AI-generated visuals and automated writing tools. How this is a report card for…