The Facebook company recently announced a name change to Meta, as well as its plans to build a “metaverse” with a set of “interconnected digital spaces” — yes, it’s nauseating, isn’t it. While that’s already worrying enough on its own, this newly rebranded company comes with equally renewed hardware aspirations that aim to bridge our digital and physical worlds, with VR and AR both in its list of priorities. As those plans begin to materialize, the company will also be involved in other hardware ventures. One such product is a smartwatch, and of course, it has a camera.
The watch was leaked by Bloomberg. It was spotted in the Facebook View app, which was made to be used with Ray-Ban Stories, the recently-launched smart glasses made in collaboration with Facebook Meta. The smartwatch looks somewhat similar to an Apple Watch, with its square display and rounded corners, but there are differences that make it immediately stand out.
Meta-smartwatch: leaked image
The main one is the presence of a camera that lives within a notch poking out of the bottom bezel. It’s obviously worrying that Meta seems to be adding cameras onto every piece of hardware it releases (the Ray-Ban Stories alone have two), but it’s unsurprising seeing as many of their hardware launches revolve around video chat.
It’s not uncommon to take pictures using a smartwatch by pairing it with a smartphone so you can use the camera remotely, but actually having a camera on a smartwatch is something that we’ve not seen too often. It could give it the edge in functionality compared to rival watches, though, as it would allow for video calls to take place without using a phone. We’re not sure what the Meta smartwatch will be called — Portal Watch perhaps — but it’s expected to be released at some point next year.
As with most of Facebook’s strategy announcements, Thursday’s rebranding formalized a shift that has been underway for years. The company already has more than 10,000 people working on augmented and virtual reality projects in its Reality Labs division — roughly twice as many people as are on Twitter’s entire staff — and has said it plans to hire 10,000 more in Europe soon. Earlier this week, the company announced that it would spend about $10 billion on metaverse-related investments this year, and it has been acquiring V.R. start-ups in what could amount to a metaverse land grab.
There are several types of questions one could ask about this metaverse strategy. The first and most basic is: What is a metaverse, and what will Facebook’s version of one look like?
That question was answered, at least partially, by Thursday’s presentation. Mr. Zuckerberg painted a picture of the metaverse as a clean, well-lit virtual world, entered with virtual and augmented reality hardware at first and more advanced body sensors later on, in which people can play virtual games, attend virtual concerts, go shopping for virtual goods, collect virtual art, hang out with each others’ virtual avatars and attend virtual work meetings.
People might hang out with each others’ virtual avatars in the metaverse.Credit…MetaAttending virtual concerts was another thing Mr. Zuckerberg said could happen.Credit…Meta
To understand why Mr. Zuckerberg is going all in, it helps to understand that a successful metaverse pivot could help solve at least four big, thorny problems Facebook faces here in the terrestrial world.
The first is one I’ve written about before, which is that Facebook’s core social media business is aging, and younger users are abandoning its apps in favor of TikTok, Snapchat and other, cooler apps. Facebook’s youth problem hasn’t hurt it financially yet, but ad revenue is a lagging indicator, and there is plenty of evidence that even Instagram — the supposedly healthy app in Facebook’s portfolio — is rapidly losing the attention of teenagers and twentysomethings.
The bleakest version of what Facebook might become in the next few years, if current trends hold — a Boomer-dominated sludge pit filled with cute animal videos and hyperpartisan garbage — is clearly not the kind of thing the company wants as its flagship product. (Mr. Zuckerberg explicitly endorsed a youth-focused strategy this week, saying that the company’s new focus was attracting and retaining young users.)
The metaverse could help with the company’s demographic crisis, if it encourages young people to strap on their Oculus headsets and hang out in Horizon — Facebook’s social V.R. app — instead of watching TikTok videos on their phones.
Another problem Facebook’s metaverse strategy could address, if it works, is platform risk. For years, Mr. Zuckerberg has been irked that because Facebook’s mobile apps run on iOS and Android, its success is highly dependent on Apple and Google, two companies whose priorities are often diametrically opposed to its own. This year’s “app tracking transparency” changes by Apple, for example, dealt a blow to Facebook’s advertising business by making it harder for the company to collect data about users’ mobile activity. And if smartphones remain the dominant way that people interact online, Facebook will never truly control its own destiny.
During last year’s racial protests in Atlanta, rapper Clifford “T.I.” Harris tried to bring some calm to the violent clashes with police by referring to his hometown as Wakanda, the technologically advanced homeland of comic book hero Black Panther.
But Ricardo Miguel Martinez, president of the Latino Association for Parents of Public Schools, an advocacy group drawing attention to persistent achievement gaps, wasn’t buying it. “We’ve got to stop saying Atlanta is Wakanda,” he told The 74. “In Wakanda, Black and brown kids know how to read.”
Martinez is among those looking to next Tuesday’s school board election in Atlanta — where all nine seats are up for grabs — as an opportunity to address long-standing inequities in the 51,000-student, majority Black district. Pre-pandemic test scores showed that only about a third of Hispanic and a quarter of Black students scored proficient or higher in math and English language arts, compared with over 80 percent of white students.
“This election is where we start to say no more,” Martinez said.
In a district experiencing seismic demographic shifts, candidates represent a wide cross section of residents, from some who prioritize the most marginalized students to those who are well-connected to the city’s power structure. Atlanta is an emerging tech hub, where projects like Microsoft’s westside campus are driving up local real estate costs. Lower-income families are increasingly fleeing the city for more affordable housing in the suburbs, leaving some advocates to wonder if their voices are being heard.
Ricardo Miguel Martinez, president of Latino Association for Parents of Public Schools, discussed the organization’s equity report at an Atlanta Public Schools board meeting. (Atlanta Public Schools)
“It really feels like our families are being forced out,” said Kimberly Dukes, the executive director of Atlanta Thrive, which helps parents track the quality of their children’s schools. “A lot of people look to Altanta as a dream. If you have money, you may be all right.”
This is the last time all seats will be on the ballot at once. A new state law, passed last year, will stagger the terms of board members. That means five of the winners will run again in two years, and four will serve a full four years.
Four incumbents, including board Chairman Jason Esteves, are running for re-election, along with 18 challengers. Only one incumbent, Michelle Olympiadis, is running unopposed. The board manages a $1.4 billion budget, roughly twice that of the Atlanta City Council. But in a year when voters are also choosing the mayor and council members — and when crime rates and a lack of affordable housing have dominated the news — Esteves wonders if education is getting the attention it deserves.
From left, Atlanta Board of Education incumbents Michelle Olympiadis, Eshé Collins and Jason Esteves (Courtesy of Jason Esteves)
“We’re at a pivot point as a school system and as a city. We have the opportunity to tackle generational issues,” he said. “The issues we have with poverty are manifested in the things we’re seeing related to crime. How we tackle those issues directly impacts the school system.”
A September FBI report showed a staggering 62 percent increase in homicides between 2019 and 2020. The fatal stabbing in July of a woman and her dog in the city’s Piedmont Park is among the senseless crimes leaving the city on edge and calling for solutions.
Crime has also become a central issue in the mayor’s race, with some candidates drawing connections between the role of education and improving the quality of life for residents. With Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms not running for re-election, the slate includes former mayor Kasim Reed, who has promoted increased use of recreation centers to deter youth crime. Meanwhile, Courtney English, a former school board chairman, is running for city council president. He’s currently director of community development for a nonprofit providing afterschool programs in apartment complexes near low-performing schools.
City leaders don’t have any authority over the district, but a platform that includes coordination between the board, the council and the mayor’s office can “carry a lot of weight,” said Greg Clay, who served on a task force that wrote the district’s equity and social justice policy in 2019. He added that council and mayoral candidates who say, “That’s not my responsibility” when asked about education won’t be well-received.
Atlanta Board of Education candidate Royce Carter Mann, right, worked as the legislative director for March for Our Lives Georgia and introduced the late Sen. John Lewis at the 2018 event. (Courtesy of Royce Carter Mann)
Mann nurtured his interest in education policy while interning for the Atlanta school board. He pushed for the district’s new Center for Equity and Social Justice and wants students to have more say in their education.
“When students are included, it’s almost as a reward for being a high-achieving student,” he said. “It’s the students who are struggling in the system that we need to listen to the most.”
Several candidates for the Atlanta Board of Education participated in a Sept. 28 forum hosted by North Atlanta Parents for Public Schools. (North Atlanta Parents for Public Schools)
Mann supported a campaign to rename his school Midtown High last year, dropping the name of Henry W. Grady, a Civil War-era journalist who didn’t support equality for freed slaves. Last week, another school was renamed for Atlanta baseball legend Hank Aaron, replacing that of Confederate general and Ku Klux Klan leader Forrest Hill.
While the symbolism is important, parents in the city’s predominantly Black southside neighborhoods want more than just school name changes. At the September candidate forum, board member Mitchell, whose constituents include those families, said, “We need to have equitable options in our schools so we can retain our students in our area, so they can be proud of the schools they’re attending.”
A somewhat subjective rating of the day’s weather, on a scale of 0 to 10.
2/10: Very early or late plans today may be “okay” but there are too many weather threats, overall. Damaging winds, flooding rains, coastal inundation — even an outside risk of a quick tornado.
Express forecast
Today: Strong winds, heavy rains. Highs: Low to mid-60s.
Tonight: Mostly cloudy, a few showers. Calmer. Lows: 50s.
Tomorrow: Partly sunny. Shower chance. Highs: Low to mid-60s.
Sunday: Partly to mostly sunny. Sprinkle? Highs: Low to mid-60s.
Forecast in detail
While we may not have much rain at sunrise and sunset, today’s 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Flood Watch in the D.C. and Baltimore area covers the time frame during which the heaviest wind-whipped rains may fall. Heavier showers and storms may bring damaging wind gusts to our region this afternoon and early evening. A brief tornado or two cannot be ruled out, especially in southern Maryland. Things turn better this weekend.
Today (Friday): The central portion of the day has periodic rains and afternoon storms with lightning, flooding rains and damaging wind gusts. We will also keep an eye on a slight tornado threat, especially south and east of town. A low-pressure system to our west is rotating by the area.
Rainfall amounts of at least one to two inches are likely. Even outside of storms, easterly winds could gust as high as 45 mph. This is exacerbating significant coastal flooding in parts of the area. Muggy high temperatures top out in the low to mid-60s. Confidence: Medium-High
Tonight: Final downpours, storms and showers try to move out before midnight. Skies remain mostly cloudy. Rain totals above two inches in a few spots are not out of the question. Remember: “Turn around, don’t drown” if you encounter a water-covered path forward. Gusty winds near 20 mph early evening are possible, but they slowly wane. Low temperatures should stay in the 50s regionwide. Confidence: Medium
Tomorrow (Saturday): Skies are partly to mostly cloudy at times, though a few hours should see some sunshine. Pop-up showers remain possible almost anytime, but stay tuned in case we can get a better read on timing. Southerly winds could briefly gust near 20 mph. More often wind is generally tame, under 10 mph. High temperatures are again in the familiar range of low to mid-60s. Confidence: Medium
Tomorrow night: A couple of showers could move through early in the evening and again nearer dawn. Skies remain at least partly cloudy. Low temperatures fall into a range of near 50 to mid-50s. Confidence: Medium-High
Sunday: Less spooky weather for Halloween with slightly brighter skies than Saturday and a much lower shower chance — perhaps just a stray early morning sprinkle. High temperatures are comfortable for wearing any costumes, too, in the low to mid-60s (yet again!). West-northwesterly winds around 15 mph add a bit of mysterious character, unfortunately a couple gusts near 30 mph can’t be ruled out midday into midafternoon. Confidence: Medium
If you’re planning a trip to China, here’s what you’ll need to know and expect if you want to visit during the global coronavirus pandemic.
What’s on offer
This is of course one of the world’s greatest ancient civilizations. China brought us papermaking, printing, and, of course, tea. Its many dynasties have left their marks in world-famous heritage sites, such as the Great Wall, the Terracotta Warriors of Xi’an, and ancient towns such as Lijiang. But it’s also thoroughly modern, with mushrooming cities and skyscrapers pricking the clouds.
Who can go
China closed its borders to nearly all travelers in March 2020, when the pandemic started spreading throughout Europe.
On March 15, 2021, restrictions were eased for a select number of travelers from 23 countries. Those coming for work or for humanitarian reasons — such as reuniting with family — can apply for visas, as can holders of the APEC Business Travel Card. Residents may also return. All categories, however, must have been vaccinated with Chinese-made vaccines at least 15 days earlier.
China already has a Fast Lane agreement with Singapore, allowing business travelers. Business travelers from South Korea are also allowed in.
Government officials have stated that their goal is to have 40 percent of Chinese citizens vaccinated by June. On June 19, the country officially passed the milestone of giving out more than one billion doses of the vaccine.
Despite rumors that the country would only grant travel visas to people who had gotten the China-created Sinovac vaccine, the Chinese embassy in the United States confirmed on April 20 that travelers with confirmed history of vaccines from Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines would also be eligible.
The “Return2HK” program will kick off on September 15. Under this program, 2,000 eligible people from Macao and the Chinese mainland will be able to enter Hong Kong per day without quarantining.
Half will be permitted to enter via the Shenzhen Bay port and the other half via the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge Hong Kong Port. Proof of a negative Covid test will still be required.
What are the restrictions?
All travelers must present two negative tests — PCR and antibody tests — taken within 48 hours of travel.
For the newly qualified entrants, entry depends on having received two doses of Covid-19 vaccines at least 14 days prior to entry. They must apply for a visa in advance, and show their proof of vaccination on arrival, as well as the negative tests.
Arrivals are screened once more at the airport. Those failing the checks will be sent to government facilities. You must then quarantine on arrival. Some regions demand 14 days; others, 21. This might take place at a government facility or at your home.
All tourism activities in northern central Gansu province, which borders Mongolia and is home to a section of the Great Wall, have been suspended following an uptick in cases in mid-October. All of the confirmed cases have been identified as the Delta variant.
Eyes in Beijing and Moscow are trained on Central Asia, prompted by the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan.
The security threat in Afghanistan and the desire to shut off Central Asia from other powers, such as the U.S., is motivating Beijing and Moscow to cooperate and gloss over their differences, according to Emil Avdaliani, director of Middle East Studies at Georgian think tank Geocase.
While China is the economic power in the Central Asian region, Russia plays more of a role as security guarantor, according to Avdaliani.
Main security backer
Moscow has been the dominant security partner for the countries within the Russia-led Collective Security Treaty Organization framework and has been the largest supplier of arms. Russia remains the main security backer of Central Asia, accounting for 62 percent of the regional arms market, while its economic dominance dropped from 80 percent of the region’s total trade in the 1990s ($110 billion) to just two-thirds that of Beijing ($18.6 billion).
Beijing’s arms transfers through donations and sales to the regional countries, such as Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, were modest until 2014. Since that year, China has ramped up arms transfers to the region, according to a Wilson Center report this year.
China built its Tajik military outpost in 2016, with facilities in the country’s mountainous Gorno-Badakhshan province near the Afghan border.
FILE – Pakistan Air Force personnel check an FC-1 Xiaolong multirole fighter at the 8th China International Aviation and Aerospace Exhibition in Zhuhai, southern China, Nov. 15, 2010.
Other bordering nations
In addition to Russia, China has cooperated with Pakistan and Iran, countries that border Central Asia, and have economic, security or political interests in that region.
Another regional power is India, which, like China, aims to maintain security in Afghanistan. India worries about a spillover of the insurgency into the disputed territory of Kashmir, which borders Afghanistan.
“Beijing is clearly the dominant power in Central Asia, with India likely to lose some of the influence it used to enjoy over Kabul as a result of the substantial aid it provided before the U.S. withdrawal,” said Alexander Cooley, director of the Harriman Institute at Columbia University.
The grouping, also known as the QUAD, is a strategic dialogue among the United States, India, Japan and Australia that involves coordination and cooperation among the member countries, all of which have strained relationships with China.
China-Russia security agenda
Beijing’s and Moscow’s security agendas are complementary, according to Cooley, and can be mutually accommodated because each views the region as key to its own security, and neither wishes for the United States to return.
“Russia is concerned about potential instability on Central Asian borders, maintaining security cooperation with the Central Asian states and curbing the influx of refugees into Eurasia,” Cooley told VOA. “China is primarily concerned with ensuring that the Taliban clamp down on Uyghur groups residing near the border and securing the Afghan and Tajik borders with Xinjiang.”
Russia may not be happy, though, Cooley said, about China’s recently increased security footprint in Central Asia — including the military facility in Tajikistan, expanded military exercises with the Central Asian states, surveillance technologies “transferred” to Central Asian cities and increased activities by Chinese private security companies to help protect Belt and Road Initiative infrastructure projects.
“But the two countries have every reason to reject talk of ‘competition’ and emphasize their joint opposition to U.S. hegemony and the U.S.-led liberal international order,” Cooley underscored.
Under Japanese law, female imperial family members forfeit their status upon marriage to a “commoner” although male members do not.
She also skipped the usual rites of a royal wedding and turned down a payment offered to royal females upon their departure from the family.
She is the first female member of the royal family to decline both.
The couple are expected to move to the US – where Mr Komuro works as a lawyer – after marriage. The move has drawn inevitable comparisons with British royals Meghan Markle and Prince Harry, earning the newlyweds the nickname “Japan’s Harry and Meghan”.
Like Ms Markle, Mr Komuro has come under intense scrutiny since his relationship with Ms Mako was announced. He was most recently criticised for sporting a ponytail when he returned to Japan.
“I am very sorry for the inconvenience caused and I am grateful for those… who have continued to support me,” she said, according to an NHK report. “For me, Kei is irreplaceable – marriage was a necessary choice for us.”
Mr Komuro added that he loved Ms Mako and wanted to spend his life with her.
Princess Mako left her Tokyo residence at around 10:00 local time on Tuesday (01:00 GMT) to register her marriage, bowing several times to her parents, Crown Prince Fumihito and Crown Princess Kiko. She also hugged her younger sister before she left, news outlet Kyodo reported.
There has been excessive media coverage around the couple over the years, which has caused the princess to suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, the Imperial Household Agency (IHA) had earlier said.
Her relationship has been met with controversy in the country.
On Tuesday, people were pictured protesting against the marriage in a Japanese park.
Many slogans appeared to bring up financial issues around Mr Komuro’s family – specifically his mother.
The reaction to Princess Mako and Kei Komuro’s relationship by some media and people in Japan, has highlighted the pressure women in Japan’s imperial family face.
The Imperial Household Agency has said Princess Mako suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder because of the harsh criticism from the media and on social media around her engagement since it was announced nearly four years ago.
She is not the first woman in the Japanese royal family to be affected this way.
Her grandmother Empress Emerita Michiko temporarily lost her voice nearly 20 years ago when criticised by the media as being somehow unfit to be the Emperor’s wife. Her aunt-in-law Empress Masako, suffered depression after she was blamed for failing to produce a male heir.
Royal women have been forced to strictly adhere to certain expectations – they must be supportive of their husbands, produce an heir, and be a guardian of Japan’s traditions. If they fall short they are savagely criticised.
This is also true of Princess Mako, who said she would give up her royal status. But even that has not been enough to stop the attacks on her, her husband, and their marriage.
Hong Kong’s legislature has passed a new law banning films deemed to violate China’s national security interests, the latest blow to freedom of expression in the territory.
Punishment for violating the law includes up to three years imprisonment and $130,000 (£95,000) in fines.
Critics say the legislation will stifle the vibrant local film industry.
Last year, China imposed a national security law on Hong Kong that effectively outlawed dissent.
The legislation, which came after huge pro-democracy protests in 2019, criminalises secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces. Critics say it is aimed at crushing dissent but China says it is meant to maintain stability.
The film censorship law was approved in the opposition-free Legislative Council. It gives the chief secretary – the second-most powerful figure in the city’s administration – the power to revoke a film’s licence if it is found to “endorse, support, glorify, encourage and incite activities that might endanger national security”.
Filmmakers will certainly be concerned. Dr Kenny Ng of the Hong Kong Baptist University’s Film Academy said the new law would see film distributors worrying if their already-approved films would be withdrawn, meaning more uncertainty in the industry.
As for the lawmakers, it is time to prepare for winning their job back as the election takes place in December – under completely new election laws.
Anti-Asian hate crimes increased more than 73 percent in 2020, according to newly corrected FBI data. It’s a disproportionate uptick compared to hate crimes in general, which rose 13 percent.
The FBI’s data, originally released in August, was reposted Monday morning after an error was found in Ohio’s reporting system. The misreported statistics have been corrected, according to a bureau press release, and the new data reflects the accurate count for the 15,138 law enforcement agencies that reported numbers.
An online breakdown confirmed what scholars, activists and community leaders have known for a long time — that anti-Asian incidents took a dramatic upswing during the pandemic. The FBI reported 279 hate crimes against Asians in 2020, compared to 161 in 2019.
Out of all incidents reported in 2020, including in categories other than race, anti-Asian bias ranked the eighth most common motivator. Anti-Black and anti-Latino crimes were higher in raw numbers, but neither demographic saw the steep increase that anti-Asian incidents did.
White people made up more than 55 percent of the offenders across the board, the FBI said, a contrast to what viral clips perpetuated in the wake of anti-Asian violence.
“The way that the media is covering and the way that people are understanding anti-Asian hate at this moment, in some ways, draws attention to these long-standing anti-Asian biases in U.S. society,” Janelle Wong, a professor of American Studies at the University of Maryland, told NBC Asian America in June. “But the racist kind of tropes that come along with it — especially that it’s predominantly Black people attacking Asian Americans who are elderly — there’s not really an empirical basis in that.”
Graphic videos of attacks on Asian elders and a shooting that killed six women of Asian descent at spas in the Atlanta area in March reopened national conversations on Asian American civil rights and led many to ask what it takes to constitute a hate crime. They can be hard to prosecute, experts say, and the laws that define them can vary largely from state to state.
The California Supreme Court on Wednesday refused to consider Brad Pitt’s appeal of a court ruling that disqualified the judge in his custody battle with Angelina Jolie.
The court denied a review of a June appeals court decision that said the private judge hearing the case should be disqualified for failing to sufficiently disclose his business relationships with Pitt’s attorneys.
The state Supreme Court’s decision finalizes that ruling. It means the fight over the couple’s five minor children — which was nearing an end — could just be getting started.
Pitt’s attorney had previously argued that Jolie’s effort to disqualify the judge was aimed at preventing his tentative custody decision, which was favorable to Pitt, from taking effect.
A statement from a representative for Pitt on Wednesday said the Supreme Court decision “does not change the extraordinary amount of factual evidence which led the trial judge — and the many experts who testified — to reach their clear conclusion about what is in the children’s best interests.”
Jolie, 46, and Pitt, 57, were among Hollywood’s most prominent couples for 12 years. A former Los Angeles County Superior Court judge, John Ouderkirk, officiated at their 2014 wedding, then was hired to oversee their divorce when Jolie filed to dissolve the marriage in 2016.
He ruled the couple divorced in 2019, but he separated the child custody issues.
