Snap’s cofounder and CEO, Evan Spiegel, gave this morning’s keynote at AWE, the augmented reality industry’s big annual conference. He came with news: Snap, best known for its Snapchat ephemeral messaging app, is releasing a pair of AR-enabled glasses called Specs. It intends to ship them this fall for $2,195, and is taking preorders.

Leaders of the Group of Seven gathered on Tuesday to discuss Russia’s war in Ukraine along with a tentative deal struck by U.S. President Donald Trump to end the conflict with Iran.

The first full day of the G7 summit of leading industrialized nations is being held in the French town of Evian-les-Bains.

Shortly before his arrival, Trump announced an agreement to end the 3 1/2-month-old U.S. war against Iran.

“Now that this (Iran) is finished, we’re going to be focusing on that,” Trump said.
The leaders will also hold a working session focused on ending crises and ensuring stability in the Middle East. They are expected to discuss the global economic crisis resulting from the war and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.

Egypt, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates will join the talks.

The G7 includes France, the United States, Canada, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United Kingdom. Guest nations at this summit include Brazil, Egypt, India, Kenya, South Korea, Qatar, Ukraine and the UAE.

Two days after going public, SpaceX is already bigger than both Amazon and Microsoft.

Yet another study shows that the more you let artificial intelligence do the thinking for you, the less capable you are on your own.

A tentative deal to end the Iran war makes it reasonable to ask how soon prices will drop for gasoline, groceries, airline tickets and other items that got more expensive during the conflict.

Not so fast, experts say.

Even after oil starts flowing again from the Middle East, it could take a while for consumers to see a difference at local fuel pumps, supermarkets and other places they shop, according to economists and industry analysts.

Fighting over the Strait of Hormuz disrupted not only supplies of crude and refined fuel but also the supply chains for fertilizer, food and even footwear. Businesses expect higher costs to linger, which means their customers might need to prepare for that too.

“It is not clear, despite three months of war, that anything has been achieved that makes the American consumer better off,” Brett House, an economist who teaches at Columbia Business School, said. “In fact, by almost any measure, not just the American consumer, but the world, is worse off as a result of this attack.”

If the deal between the U.S. and Iran holds, here’s how experts see the war’s effects receding — or not — in the weeks ahead:

Fast food company Yum Brands is selling its most iconic brand: Pizza Hut.

A light saber with Luke Skywalker’s severed hand from “The Empire Strikes Back” that is expected to sell for seven figures headlines an upcoming auction of valuables from movies, music and other corners of pop culture.

The Hollywood & Entertainment Signature Auction presented by Heritage Auctions announced Tuesday and held July 13-17 also includes hats from “The Wizard of Oz” and “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory,” hoverboards from “Back to the Future II,” rugs from “The Big Lebowski” and a pair of Rocky’s boxing boots.

More than 15 years ago, David Barnett was working as a philosophy professor at the University of Colorado when he came across a problem. His headphones kept getting tangled up.

Like people, brands make mistakes. And when they do, in order to rebuild trust with the public, it’s important that they acknowledge their errors. 

Blue Bottle Coffee, the coffee chain, has long been known for its cold drinks—particularly its New Orleans-style iced coffee cold brewed with chicory root. But while cold brewing in this traditional way has more or less been perfected, the need to pull hot shots of espresso has remained a damper on iced lattes everywhere. 

Walt Disney Imagineering, the media and entertainment company’s design and engineering firm behind its parks and cruises, has its own new bespoke AI model from Adobe. The goal is to use the technology to help create attractions and environmental design, like storefronts and architecture, at a pace that wouldn’t otherwise be possible.

OpenAI ushered in the current AI era with the release of ChatGPT, but a lot of competitors have emerged since that day in November 2022.

Every major enterprise is running an AI program. Almost none of them are ready for it.

There’s a seemingly ever-expanding number of tools to find restaurants and reserve a table. It’s convenient for consumers and potentially good for restaurants, which have more ways than ever to reach customers. But behind the scenes, managing multiple reservation platforms can be a headache for restaurant staff.

Colleges and universities are at the forefront of innovative design. Collaborations linking students, professors, and groundbreaking technology bring seemingly impossible ideas to life.

Even as the AI revolution moves toward agentic tools, there are still hosts of uses for more classical machine-learning and computing—particularly in healthcare.

Innovation in the Asia-Pacific region is quickly finding new ways to engage people. This year’s World Changing Ideas honorees from the region operate in different worlds, but both are game changers. Ovum is a tech-forward solution, transforming women’s health with AI tools.

There is apparently no problem too big for the EMEA region to solve, as the 2026 World Changing Ideas honorees clearly show. Across the European continent, companies are reckoning with the issues of our time, including curbing water waste in farming, domesticating lithium mining, and showing therapeutic activity within cancer cells in real time.

The five honorees in North America and the honoree from Latin America illustrate the diversity and scope of the problems being solved across the western hemisphere. Some are standout local and state initiatives, such as climate-proofing homes in California and improving access to healthcare in the rural Midwest; others are exceptional innovations with global reach, such as breakthroughs in food tech and copper mining.