Samsung and Google are betting they can avoid Meta's 'perv glasses' problem

Welcome back to Inbox, hope you’re enjoying your Thursday so far. Yesterday was a busy day for all of us and, mea culpa, I accidentally pressed send on a newsletter detailing the new Samsung foldables and wearables before it had been edited. As a pretty uncompromising editor myself, I can only believe this is the universe’s (or my former writers’) way of getting me back. Big L on my part.

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Samsung’s Unpacked event was, um, packed with announcements, from the wider Galaxy Z Fold 8 to a skinnier Galaxy Watch 9. But as companies are wont to do at keynotes like this, Samsung saved its “one more thing” for the end: a first good look at its upcoming smart glasses, made in collaboration with Google, Qualcomm, Warby Parker, and Gentle Monster.

At first glance the glasses, particularly the more traditional Warby Parker design, appear conspicuously similar to the Meta Ray-Bans that have been available for three years now and gone through a few hardware — and culture — cycles.

I own a first-gen pair of Meta Ray-Ban sunglasses and they’re great for taking photos and videos of my kids when I’m holding two water bottles in one hand and a couple of dripping popsicles in the other. I’ve taken them on vacation to capture the streets of Paris and to national parks to see the flora. But while most people’s use cases for these glasses are honorable and innocuous, a thriving grey market has made a tidy business modifying the glasses to disable their recording light, leading Meta this month to issue a mandatory update that bricks the recording capabilities completely when hardware modifications are detected.

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The problem is so bad that celebrities like Lorde are calling them out during concerts — “Don’t get the glasses – not sexy!” — while others have taken to calling them “pervert glasses” in an attempt to bring attention to the less scrupulous use cases for face cameras.

Samsung and Google are diving head-first into this cultural quagmire, and while neither company has Meta’s reputation for flamboyantly disregarding user privacy — and Samsung promises that it has accounted for tampering and abuse — by releasing these products they’re subject to the same scrutiny.

After seeing a demo at Unpacked yesterday, I’m encouraged by the various software integrations Samsung and Google are working on. You’ll be able to use the cameras for live demonstrations over Google Meet, or have Gemini parse the details of what the camera captures, like writing on a poster or identifying a plant. A core use case, and one that I trust Google with far more than Meta, is talking directly with an AI model; Gemini Live is a proven and reliable product at this point, and I suspect it will be a major differentiator when comparing the products. Plus, it sounds like Samsung and Google have the privacy light functionality correct out of the gate.

With nine hours of battery life and seven additional charges in the carrying case, we’re not quite at all-day usage like we are with phones and smartwatches, but we’re slowly getting there, and I think these will be a pretty big hit when they’re released later this year. Buyers should just expect a little side-eye while wearing them.

Over the past few days, I’ve been using a new phone mount from the folks at Statik. This is the company that makes ultra-durable, magnetic, modular USB-C cables and orange batterypacks that plug in like little feet.

The HyperMount (Gen 3) is a pretty beefy product because it tries to do a lot of things at the same time. Its base features a so-called Nanosuction Vaculock, which is a fancy way of saying it employs a combination of reusable adhesive and a manually locking suction to more confidently stick to things like glass. This was a major criticism of the first two models, particularly in hot cars, but Statik promises a much more solid experience on a variety of surfaces this time around.

The really fun part about using the HyperMount is its articulating magnetic mount. Because it can move both vertically and laterally, you can achieve practically any angle. Over the past few days I’ve been using it to watch YouTube while I make dinner, and it’s remarkable how useful it is to be able to manipulate the placement of your device as it hovers mid-air several inches in front of you.

The magnets are particularly strong, keeping up with heavy phones like my Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra (in a MagSafe-compatible case) and Pixel 9 Pro Fold (with a MagSafe adapter glued on back). It also comes with two adapters in the box for devices that aren’t called Pixel or iPhone.

At $35, I think this is pretty good value, and you can save some money by buying a 3-pack, too.

This section has some of our favorite stuff from around the internet. Great videos, weird memes, fun reads, recommended apps, whatever. Send us your recommendations!

Thus begins the manifesto of the Museum of the Human Web, a website and curated gallery of the many artifacts — odd, beautiful, audacious — people produced in parallel to the digital world over the past 50 years or so.

From Eudora email to Gateway’s ubiquitous beige towers to Google’s first server hardware (above) to the T-Mobile Sidekick, there is something for everyone here. Just make sure to check out this one, too — you won’t regret it.

Samsung kept things pretty low-key during its Galaxy Unpacked keynote yesterday, but it didn’t always approach its device announcements with such restraint.

Back in 2013, Samsung booked out Radio City Music Hall to showcase the Galaxy S4 and its bevy of gimmicks, including Air View, Air Gesture, Group Play, and others. But the phone itself was barely shown during the hour-long performance, which featured Broadway dancers, a full orchestra, and acrobatics.

A perfect example of how not to announce a product, the Galaxy S4 keynote stands as a low point for Samsung and the industry as a whole. Thirteen years later, Samsung has sharpened up its presenting skills, but it’s also replacing cringe with another unfortunate c-word: crypto.

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Thanks for reading, and have a great weekend. See you on Tuesday.