Unless you’ve been in the dark the past few months, you’ve probably heard about the solar eclipse headed our way. On Monday, a solar eclipse will be visible across North America, and individuals along a nearly 70-mile-wide stretch of land — known as “path of totality” — will be able to gaze upon a total solar eclipse for nearly three minutes.
As the moon passes directly between the Earth and the sun, our star will be momentarily blotted out of the sky, with only the star’s outer atmosphere clearly visible to onlookers. As one can imagine, however, peering directly at the sun can cause irreparable damage to your eyes (even during the eclipse). Thankfully, the best solar eclipse glasses on the market can protect your eyes during the astronomical event.
To prevent optical injury (temporary or permanent) NASA recently released a catalog of safety information to consider before viewing the eclipse. The agency recommends using glasses that meet the ISO 12312-2 international standard for solar eclipse optics. Sadly, not all sunglasses claiming to be eclipse-certified meet these rigorous safety standards. Amazon even recently announced a massive recall on potentially hazardous models. The manufacturers listed below are currently producing solar eclipse sunglasses and handheld solar viewers that have been approved by NASA’s partner, the American Astronomical Society, to meet the international standard.
In the coming the days, nearly 5,000 libraries and other organizations across the country will also be distributing some 2,000,000 sunglasses. However, with nearly 100 million humans living within 200 miles of the path of totality, and troves of so-called “eclipse chasers” around the country already on the move for the event, there may not be enough free shades for everyone. In fact, many online retailers have already sold out of shades well in advance of the event. That’s why we’ve rounded up some of the better offerings still available.
Note: We will be updating this article in the days leading up to the eclipse, adding and removing manufacturers according to their inventory.
The American Paper Products disposable model is only sold in larger quantities, which may be of little use for individuals seeking an individual pair for the upcoming eclipse. However, those attempting to buy shades for a larger group, organization, or workplace will be hard pressed to top this offer, especially if one of the other manufacturers on this list is sold out in the weeks prior to the event. Unfortunately, due to high demand the company recently reduced its minimum order to 25 glasses.
If you need to whet your astronomical whistle in the weeks prior to the eclipse, feel free to feast your eyes on our list of the best space photos or maybe take a virtual tour of the International Space Station. NASA will also stream a live event called Eclipse Across America: Through the Eyes of NASA, for individuals who would prefer to enjoy coverage of the celestial event indoors.
AI companies spend enormous amounts of time convincing us their technology is safe and secure. But what happens when those same companies become targets of increasingly sophisticated AI-powered attacks? Anthropic, the company behind Claude, is now facing that question. According to a Washington Post report, cybersecurity startup Cathedral discovered vulnerabilities that let its researchers access sensitive information in Anthropic's internal systems.
The researchers used AI agents to identify potential entry points in less than 12 hours. Interestingly, they didn't need to crack Claude itself. Instead, they exploited weaknesses in third-party business applications that Anthropic uses for everyday operations. Anthropic's security testing program disclosed the findings, which allows outside researchers to identify and report vulnerabilities.
Military working dogs charge into places the rest of us would flee. So, I understand why anyone would want to breed tougher, healthier dogs for the job.
Warhound, a new startup from Colossal Biosciences co-founder Ben Lamm and Anduril co-founder Palmer Luckey, has stepped out of stealth with $200 million to clone and gene-edit working dogs for American troops, police departments, and emergency services (via TechCrunch).
AI can describe a picture, identify objects, and answer questions about what a camera sees. But when a blind user needs a quick answer, getting an entire spoken essay about the scene isn't exactly helpful. Researchers at the University of Maryland (UMD) have found that AI-powered visual assistance can leave blind users doing too much work to get the information they actually need.
The study, titled Say It My Way: Exploring Control in Conversational Visual Question Answering with Blind Users, examined how people interact with Be My AI, an AI-powered feature of the Be My Eyes app. The researchers found that users often received lengthy descriptions that didn't adequately address their immediate goals, forcing them to ask follow-up questions or find ways to steer the AI towards a more useful answer.