Bose has long been known for its forward-thinking audio experiments, but even the most dedicated first adopters among us couldn’t have predicted that the company would actually put its headphone/sunglasses concept — which the company shared earlier this year — into full-fledged production.
And yet, here we are: Bose, the company best-known for its high-end noise-canceling headphones and grandma-friendly boomboxes, is entering the world of augmented reality headsets.
Called the Frames, the headphone/sunglass combo will feature a proprietary augmented reality interface the company claims is the world’s first audio-based AR platform. Unlike products like Google Glass and others, that means there will be no visual interface for the AR functionality on the glasses — they will operate based on sound alone.
The Frames will have sensors that can tell what direction you’re facing, provide audio information about locations and trivia, and add effects if you’re playing a game, though specifics on how any of this will work are being witheld until the upcoming South by Southwest conference in March 2019, where Bose will launch its AR experiences to the public.
“Bose Frames are both revolutionary and practical,” said Mehul Trivedi, director of Bose Frames, in a press release. “They look and act like classic sunglasses — until you turn them on. And then you’re connected to your phone, contacts, the web, and all its audible content, just like headphones. There’s nothing else like them — they’re a breakthrough you have to see, wear, and hear to believe.”
We know a bit about the hardware inside of the Ray-Ban-like glasses, which will come in both square Wayfarer-style and round Snapchat Spectacle-style frames. The Frames will be Google Assistant- and Siri-enabled, and have a battery that will last for 3.5 hours of wireless playback (depending on volume). They will also have up to 12 hours of standby time for when you’re having fun in the sun.
Perhaps most interestingly (and in a move that may actually bode well for adoption in the mass market), the Frames will cost an actually reasonable $200, especially when compared to other high-end sunglasses and AR hardware. You can pre-order them today, and they’ll start shipping in January 2019 — and you better believe we’re excited to get our paws on a pair, if only for the sheer novelty.
Speech-to-text apps have flooded the App Store, making it easier than ever to type on our Macs with just our voice. I have previously covered one such app called TypeWhisper. However, there has been a dearth of good text-to-speech models, and most of the good ones are locked behind a subscription.
Ollama, an open-source app that lets you run local AI models on your computer, wants to change that. It works on macOS, Windows, and Linux, and your prompts are never stored or used for training.
Did you think hitting delete on your AI chatbot conversation actually makes it disappear? Georgia Tech researchers just proved that's not entirely true. They have built a forensic tool called ORISA that can dig deleted conversations from your phone and even rebuild them into a working chatbot session you can keep talking to.
How can ORISA bring deleted AI conversations back?
Touchscreen laptops have been around for years. You can get them in all sizes and shapes. Just not from Apple. For years, the Cupertino giant has treated the idea of a touchscreen MacBook the way I treat a meeting that could have been an email: with open contempt. However, Wednesday looks like the day the company could finally change its mind.
The latest Apple invite puts the “Pro and Tell” showcase in Los Angeles at 10 a.m. PT (1 p.m. ET) on October 28, 2026. Instead of a regular live-streamed keynote, it is an invitation-only, hands-on event for a handful of press and creators (similar to what the company did for the MacBook Neo earlier this year).