Law students getting ready to take the Bar exam digitally may run into a serious issue: one of the nation's most frequently-used test-taking software packages, Examplify, is incompatible with Intel's latest generation of processors. From a report: In a notice to users, ExamSoft, the company that owns Examplify, writes that 12th Gen Intel processors aren't compatible with its software. "New Windows devices containing the Intel 12th generation chipset are triggering Examplify's automatic virtual machine check," Examplify's notice reads. "These are NOT currently supported. Therefore, they cannot be used for the upcoming July 2022 bar exam." One user drew attention to the issue in a post on Twitter, and included a screencap of what appears to be a notice given to Bar applicants.

A former Central Intelligence Agency software engineer was convicted by a federal jury on Wednesday of causing the largest theft of classified information in the agency's history. From a report: The former C.I.A. employee, Joshua Schulte, was arrested after the 2017 disclosure by WikiLeaks of a trove of confidential documents detailing the agency's secret methods for penetrating the computer networks of foreign governments and terrorists. The verdict came two years after a previous jury failed to agree on eight of the 10 charges he faced then.

At the earlier trial, Mr. Schulte, 33, was found guilty of contempt of court and of making false statements to the F.B.I. He was convicted on Wednesday on nine counts, which included illegally gathering national defense information and illegally transmitting that information. Damian Williams, the United States attorney in Manhattan, where the trial was held, hailed the verdict. Mr. Schulte has been convicted of "one of the most brazen and damaging acts of espionage in American history," Mr. Williams said in a statement.

Twitter faced a brief outage on Thursday, leaving thousands of users without service for about an hour. From a report: At the peak, at 8:20 a.m. in New York, 54,582 users reported problems on Downdetector.com, an outage tracking platform. Twitter's website displayed an error message and prompted users to reload the page. It wasn't immediately clear what caused the outage. A message on Twitter's support account posted at 9:10 a.m. said: "Some of you are having issues accessing Twitter and we're working to get it back up and running for everyone. Thanks for sticking with us." By 9:16 a.m., about 1,600 users reported they were still having trouble. The last time Twitter faced an outage was in February, when the site crashed due to a "technical bug" on the page. In its early days, Twitter was famous for crashing amid high traffic, leading to the iconic "fail whale" image that popped up when service was down.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Popular Science: Internet Archive, a non-profit digital library and a massive repository of online artifacts, has been collecting mementos of the ever-expanding World Wide Web for over two decades, allowing users to revisit sites that have since been changed or deleted. But like the web, it too has evolved since its genesis, and in the aughts, it also began to offer a selection of ebooks that any internet user can check out with the creation of a free account. That latter feature has gotten the organization in some trouble. Internet Archive was sued by a suite of four corporate publishers in 2020 over copyright controversies -- with one side saying that what Internet Archive does is preservation, and the other saying that it's piracy, since it freely distributes books as image files without compensating the author. Last week, the ongoing case entered a new chapter as the nonprofit organization filed a motion for summary judgment, asking a federal judge to put a stop to the lawsuit, arguing that their Controlled Digital Lending program "is a lawful fair use that preserves traditional library lending in the digital world" since "each book loaned via CDL has already been bought and paid for." On Friday, Creative Commons issued a statement supporting Internet Archive's motion.

In 2006, Internet Archive started a program for digitizing books both under copyright and in the public domain. It works with a range of global partners, including other libraries, to scan materials onto its site (Cornell University made a handy guide on what works fall under copyright vs. the public domain). For copyrighted books, Internet Archive owns the physical books that they created the digital copies from and limits their circulation by allowing only one person to borrow a title at a time. Book publishers, namely Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins, John Wiley Sons, and Penguin Random House, were not keen on this practice, and they have been seeking financial damages for the 127 books (PDF) shared under copyright. Vox estimated that if the publishers win, Internet Archive would have to pay $19 million, which is about "one year of operating revenue."

In the most recent filings, the publishers accused Internet Archive of amassing "a collection of more than three million unauthorized in-copyright ebooks -- including more than 33,000 of the Publishers' commercially available titles -- without obtaining licenses to do so or paying the rightsholders a cent for exploiting their works. Anybody in the world with an internet connection can instantaneously access these stolen works via IA's interrelated archive.org and openlibrary.org websites." In its defense, Internet Archive, which is being represented by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, says that "libraries have been practicing CDL in one form or another for more than a decade," and that Internet Archive lends its digitized books on an "owned-to-loaned basis, backstopped by strong technical protections to enforce lending limits."

David Matthews writes via Nature: See whether this sounds familiar: you build a piece of software to solve a research question. But when you move on to the next project, there's no one to maintain it. As it ages, it becomes obsolete, and the next academic to tackle a similar problem finds themselves having to reinvent the wheel. [...] Now, a funding initiative hopes to help ease that burden. [...] In January, Schmidt Futures, a science and technology-focused philanthropic organization founded by former Google chief executive Eric Schmidt and his wife Wendy, launched the Virtual Institute for Scientific Software (VISS), a network of centers across four universities in the United States and the United Kingdom. Each institution will hire around five or six engineers, says Stuart Feldman, Schmidt Futures' chief scientist, with funding typically running for five years and being reviewed annually. Overall, Schmidt Futures is putting US$40 million into the project, making it among the largest philanthropic investments in this area. The aim is to overcome a culture of relative neglect in academia for open-source scientific software, Feldman says, adding that support for software engineering is "a line item, just like fuel" at organizations such as NASA. "It's only in the university research lab environment where this is ancillary," he says. [...]

Those setting up VISS centers say Schmidt Futures' steady, relatively long-term funding will help them to overcome a range of problems endemic to academic software. Research grants rarely provide for software development, and when they do, the positions they fund are seldom full-time and long-term. "If you've got all of this fractional effort, it's really hard to hire people and provide them with a real career path," says Andrew Connolly, an astronomer who is also helping to set up the Washington centre. What's more, software engineers tend to be scattered and isolated across a university. "Peer development and peer community is really important to those types of positions," says Stone. "And that would be extraordinarily rare in academia." To counter this, VISS centers hope to create cohesive, stable teams that can learn from one another. [...]

Dario Taraborelli, who helps to coordinate another privately funded scientific-software project at the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI) in California, says that such initiatives fill a key gap in the scientific-software ecosystem, because funding agencies too often fail to prioritize crucial software infrastructure. Although there are now "substantial" grants dedicated to creating software, he says, there's precious little funding available to maintain what is built. Computer scientist Alexander Szalay, who is helping to set up a VISS centre at Johns Hopkins, agrees, noting that very few programs get to a point where enough researchers use and update them to remain useful. "They don't survive this 'Valley of Death,'" he says. "The funding stops when they actually develop the software prototype."

Google has counter-sued Match seeking monetary damages and a judgement that would let it kick Tinder and the group's other dating apps out of the Play Store, Bloomberg has reported. Engadget reports: Earlier this year, Match sued Google alleging antitrust violations over a decision requiring all Android developers to process "digital goods and services" payments through the Play Store billing system. Following the initial lawsuit in May, Google and Match reached a temporary agreement allowing Match to remain on the Play Store and use its own payments system. Google also agreed to make a "good faith" effort to address Match's billing concerns. Match, in turn, was to make an effort to offer Google's billing system as an alternative.

However, Google parent Alphabet claims that Match Group now wants to avoid paying "nothing at all" to Google, including its 15 to 30 percent Play Store fees, according to a court filing. "Match Group never intended to comply with the contractual terms to which it agreed... it would also place Match Group in an advantaged position relative to other app developers," the document states. Match group said that Google's Play Store policies violate federal and state laws. "Google doesn't want anyone else to sue them so their counterclaims are designed as a warning shot," Match told Bloomberg in a statement. "We are confident that our suit, alongside other developers, the US Department of Justice and 37 state attorneys general making similar claims, will be resolved in our favor early next year."

An anonymous reader writes: Posing as a scholar, a Chinese woman spent years writing alternative accounts of medieval Russian history on Chinese Wikipedia, conjuring imaginary states, battles, and aristocrats in one of the largest hoaxes on the open-source platform. The scam was exposed last month by Chinese novelist Yifan, who was researching for a book when he came upon an article on the Kashin silver mine. Discovered by Russian peasants in 1344, the Wikipedia entry goes, the mine engaged more than 40,000 slaves and freedmen, providing a remarkable source of wealth for the Russian principality of Tver in the 14th and 15th centuries as well as subsequent regimes. The geological composition of the soil, the structure of the mine, and even the refining process were fleshed out in detail in the entry.

Yifan thought he'd found interesting material for a novel. Little did he know he'd stumbled upon an entire fictitious world constructed by a user known as Zhemao. It was one of 206 articles she has written on Chinese Wikipedia since 2019, weaving facts into fiction in an elaborate scheme that went uncaught for years and tested the limits of crowdsourced platforms' ability to verify information and fend off bad actors. "The content she wrote is of high quality and the entries were interconnected, creating a system that can exist on its own," veteran Chinese Wikipedian John Yip told VICE World News. "Zhemao single-handedly invented a new way to undermine Wikipedia."

Yifan was tipped off when he ran the silver mine story by Russian speakers and fact-checked Zhemao's references, only to find that the pages or versions of the books she cited did not exist. People he consulted also called out her lengthy entries on ancient conflicts between Slavic states, which could not be found in Russian historical records. "They were so rich in details they put English and Russian Wikipedia to shame," Yifan wrote on Zhihu, a Chinese site similar to Quora, where he shared his discovery last month and caused a stir. The scale of the scam came to light after a group of volunteer editors and other Wikipedians, such as Yip, combed through her past contributions to nearly 300 articles. "As a punishment, Zhemao and her affiliated accounts were suspended permanently," adds VICE World News. "Most of her articles were deleted based on community consensus. Some Wikipedians even wrote to experts, seeking help to separate the wheat from the chaff." A spokesperson of the Wikimedia Foundation told VICE World News in an email that volunteers are still "continuing to review additional articles that may have been affected."

The report goes on to say that Zhemao speaks neither English nor Russian and is a housewife with only a high school degree. She came clean in an apology letter issued on her Wikipedia account last month. "The hoax started with an innocuous intention," reports VICE. "Unable to comprehend scholarly articles in their original language, she pieced sentences together with a translation tool and filled in the blanks with her own imagination. [...] Before long, they had accumulated into tens of thousands of characters, which she was reluctant to delete."

"The alternative accounts were imaginary friends she 'cosplayed' as she was bored and alone, given her husband was away most of the time and she didn't have any friends. She also apologized to actual experts on Russia, whom she had attempted to cozy up to and later impersonated."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Earlier this month, Google sent a request (PDF) to the Federal Election Commission seeking an advisory opinion on the potential launch of a pilot program that would allow political committees to bypass spam filters and instead deliver political emails to the primary inboxes of Gmail users. During a public commenting period that's still ongoing, most people commenting have expressed staunch opposition for various reasons that they're hoping the FEC will consider. "Hard pass," wrote a commenter called Katie H. "Please do not allow Google to open up Pandora's Box on the people by allowing campaign/political emails to bypass spam filters."

Out of 48 comments submitted (PDF) as of July 11, only two commenters voiced support for Google's pilot program, which seeks to deliver more unsolicited political emails to Gmail users instead of marking them as spam. The rest of the commenters opposed the program, raising a range of concerns, including the potential for the policy to degrade user experience, introduce security risks, and even possibly unfairly influence future elections. Business Insider reported that the period for public commenting ends on Saturday, July 16, which is longer than what was shared in conflicting reports that said the initial deadline to comment was July 11. That means there's still time for more Gmail users and interested parties to chime in. "For some opposing commenters, it's about rejecting unnecessary strains on the Gmail user experience," adds Ars. "In short: People don't want emails coming to their inbox that they did not sign up for."

"Other commenters were more concerned over a perceived government overreach." There were also commenters that said the move could introduce security risks, influence elections, and make Gmail more vulnerable to "emotionally charged" messaging that they never signed up for.

Hundreds of people with disabilities have complained about issues with automated accessibility web services, whose popularity has risen sharply in recent years because of advances in A.I. and new legal pressures on companies to make their websites accessible. From a report: Over a dozen companies provide these tools. Two of the largest, AudioEye and UserWay, are publicly traded and reported revenues in the millions in recent financial statements. Some charge monthly fees ranging from about $50 to about $1,000, according to their websites, while others charge annual fees in the several-hundred-dollar or thousand-dollar range. (Pricing is typically presented in tiers and depends on how many pages a site has.) These companies list major corporations like Hulu, eBay and Uniqlo, as well as hospitals and local governments, among their clients. Built into their pitch is often a reassurance that their services will not only help people who are blind or low vision use the internet more easily but also keep companies from facing the litigation that can arise if they don't make their sites accessible. But it's not working out that way.

Users like Mr. Perdue [an anecdote in the linked story] say the software offers little help, and some of the clients that use AudioEye, accessiBe and UserWay are facing legal action anyway. Last year, more than 400 companies with an accessibility widget or overlay on their website were sued over accessibility, according to data collected by a digital accessibility provider. "I've not yet found a single one that makes my life better," said Mr. Perdue, 38, who lives in Queens. He added, "I spend more time working around these overlays than I actually do navigating the website." Last year, over 700 accessibility advocates and web developers signed an open letter calling on organizations to stop using these tools, writing that the practical value of the new features was "largely overstated" and that the "overlays themselves may have accessibility problems." The letter also noted that, like Mr. Perdue, many blind users already had screen readers or other software to help them while online.

The second quarter of 2022 brought major disruption to the PC market, as COVID lockdowns in China stymied manufacturing. Research firm Canalys: The latest Canalys data shows total shipments of desktops and notebooks fell 15.0% annually to 70.2 million units, the lowest level since a similar disruption occurred in Q1 2020. Demand headwinds, especially from consumers, have also ramped up as inflation remains unchecked in many of the world's largest PC markets. Notebook shipments fell 18.6% in Q2 2022 at 54.5 million units, down for a third consecutive quarter as education procurement remained muted compared with the same quarter a year ago. Desktops fared much better, posting modest growth of 0.6% to 15.6 million units as the strength of commercial demand amid the further opening of economies helped spur investment in desktop refreshes and upgrades. The premium commercial segment will remain a bright spot for the overall PC market this year, despite mounting challenges in the global macroeconomic outlook.

A report commissioned by cloud security company Barracuda found that 94% of respondents have experienced some form of attack on their industrial IoT (IIoT) or operational technology (OT) systems during the last 12 months. From a report: The State of Industrial Security in 2022 report surveyed 800 senior IT and security officers responsible for these industrial systems. "In the current threat landscape, critical infrastructure is an attractive target for cybercriminals, but unfortunately IIoT/OT security projects often take a backseat to other security initiatives or fail due to cost or complexity, leaving organizations at risk," said Tim Jefferson, senior vice president for data protection, network, and application security at Barracuda said in a statement accompanying the report.

Recent attacks such as those targeted through the SolarWinds attack, and the Russian DDoS attack on Lithuania last month, have raised concerns over nation state-backed attacks on industrial systems. As a result, the survey found that 89% of the respondents are very or fairly concerned about the current geopolitical situation. Constellation Research analyst Liz Miller acknowledged that "the Russian invasion of Ukraine set the world on high alert as it anticipated vulnerabilities in IIoT devices becoming prime targets should the battle enter the cyberspace."

Netflix: In April we announced that we will introduce a new lower priced ad-supported subscription plan for consumers, in addition to our existing ads-free basic, standard and premium plans. Today we are pleased to announce that we have selected Microsoft as our global advertising technology and sales partner. Microsoft has the proven ability to support all our advertising needs as we work together to build a new ad-supported offering. More importantly, Microsoft offered the flexibility to innovate over time on both the technology and sales side, as well as strong privacy protections for our members. It's very early days and we have much to work through. But our long term goal is clear. More choice for consumers and a premium, better-than-linear TV brand experience for advertisers. We're excited to work with Microsoft as we bring this new service to life.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Ring, Amazon's perennially controversial and police-friendly surveillance subsidiary, has long defended its cozy relationship with law enforcement by pointing out that cops can only get access to a camera owner's recordings with their express permission or a court order. But in response to recent questions from Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., the company stated that it has provided police with user footage 11 times this year alone without either. Last month, Markey wrote to Amazon asking it to both clarify Ring's ever-expanding relationship with American police, who've increasingly come to rely on the company's growing residential surveillance dragnet, and to commit to a raft of policy reforms. In a July 1 response from Brian Huseman, Amazon vice president of public policy, the company declined to permanently agree to any of them, including "Never accept financial contributions from policing agencies," "Never allow immigration enforcement agencies to request Ring recordings," and "Never participate in police sting operations."

Although Ring publicizes its policy of handing over camera footage only if the owner agrees -- or if judge signs a search warrant -- the company says it also reserves the right to supply police with footage in "emergencies," defined broadly as "cases involving imminent danger of death or serious physical injury to any person." Markey had also asked Amazon to clarify what exactly constitutes such an "emergency situation," and how many times audiovisual surveillance data has been provided under such circumstances.

Strider Technologies scours open-source data in China to identify technologies most at risk of being stolen -- and the people who might be tempted to steal them. China's government calls IP theft allegations 'malicious slandering.' From a report: Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee has for decades been a hotbed of US nuclear experimentation. It's also a target for countries seeking to steal American secrets. More than 1,700 technologies developed in the lab are in China's crosshairs, according to three-year-old startup Strider Technologies. The list includes ion beams, nuclear power equipment and energy storage materials. Using custom software to scour widely available sources of information on China's internet, Strider executives said they identified two postdoctoral researchers in nanotechnology who, while working at Oak Ridge, were recruited into China's Youth Thousand Talents Program. The researchers were lured by perks including a grant of 500,000 yuan (about $75,000) apiece and other subsidies worth up to 3 million yuan (about $450,000), the executives said. Both relocated to China and are now employed by university labs with ties to China's defense industry, they said.

This is the potential power of Strider, which uses open-source data from China to identify technologies most at risk of being stolen -- and to spot the people who might be tempted to steal them. The company's pitch coincides with a debate in the US over how to investigate Chinese industrial espionage while protecting civil liberties, and follows a decision by the Justice Department to shut down a program targeting crimes involving China amid allegations that the agency was targeting people based on their ethnicity. The brainchild of globetrotting American twin brothers, Strider, which is based in suburban Salt Lake City, used Oak Ridge only as an example of its prowess; the lab isn't a client. "Companies around the world have been dealing with nation-state threats and IP theft for a decade or more, with little to no tools," said Eric Levesque, Strider's chief operating officer. "Governments can't solve for this and there is huge unmet demand in the market. We're enabling companies to get ahead of the threat rather than just react to issues post-incident."

The TikTok threat to Google's business isn't just limited to YouTube, as it turns out. Core Google services, including Search and Maps, are also being impacted by a growing preference for social media and videos as the first stop on younger users' path to discovery, a Google exec acknowledged today, speaking at an industry event. From a report: Senior Vice President Prabhakar Raghavan, who runs Google's Knowledge & Information organization, referenced the popular social apps in a broader conversation at Fortune's Brainstorm Tech conference about the future of Google's products and its use of AI. In a discussion about the evolution of search, he somewhat offhandedly noted that younger users were now often turning to apps like Instagram and TikTok instead of Google Search or Maps for discovery purposes.

"We keep learning, over and over again, that new internet users don't have the expectations and the mindset that we have become accustomed to." Raghavan said, adding, "the queries they ask are completely different." These users don't tend to type in keywords but rather look to discover content in new, more immersive ways, he said. "In our studies, something like almost 40% of young people, when they're looking for a place for lunch, they don't go to Google Maps or Search," he continued. "They go to TikTok or Instagram."

Prices in June climbed 9.1 percent from a year earlier, the fastest pace since 1981, as soaring gas prices, rising rents and swelling grocery bills made everyday life more expensive for American households. The pickup in prices was broad and faster than expected, spelling trouble for the Federal Reserve. From a report: The inflation index, including food and gas could slow down in July's data because prices at the pump have moderated in recent weeks. The national average cost of a gallon of unleaded gas peaked at about $5 last month. This week, it was around $4.65. But gas prices are volatile and could shoot up again. The report contained unwelcome news beyond the headline number. A core inflation index that strips out food and fuel prices -- giving a sense of underlying inflation trends -- remains high and came in faster than economists expected The core index climbed 5.9 percent the year through June, barely a slowdown from 6 percent in the previous report.

The core measure actually climbed 0.7 percent from May to June, more than the previous monthly increase and bad news for central bankers. The question is whether that deceleration will last, and the answer is unclear. The global economy has been buffeted by a series of shocks that have not ceased since the coronavirus pandemic began. Factory shutdowns and shipping shortages have roiled supply chains, worker shortages are making it harder for airlines to fly at capacity and hotels to rent out rooms, and Russia's invasion of Ukraine has disrupted oil and gas supplies. Economists have spent more than a year struggling to predict how and when inflation will settle back down.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNBC: Google parent Alphabet will slow the pace of hiring and investments through 2023, CEO Sundar Pichai said in an email to employees on Tuesday. "Like all companies, we're not immune to economic headwinds," Pichai wrote in the memo, which was viewed by CNBC. "We need to be more entrepreneurial working with greater urgency, sharper focus, and more hunger than we've shown on sunnier days." He started by acknowledging that "the uncertain global economic outlook has been top of mind."

Alphabet shares are down 21% so far this year, falling alongside the rest of the tech industry as investors rotate out of the stocks that drove the bull market of the past decade. The company missed analyst estimates for the first quarter, and Chief Financial Officer Ruth Porat warned another rough period could be ahead. Growth in the first quarter slowed to 23% from a year earlier, down from 34% growth in the first three months of 2021, when the economy was reopening from the pandemic. Still, Pichai said in the letter that the company has hired 10,000 employees in the second quarter. "Because of the hiring progress achieved so far this year, we'll be slowing the pace of hiring for the rest of the year, while still supporting our most important opportunities," he wrote. "For the balance of 2022 and 2023, the company will focus on hiring on engineering, technical and other critical roles."

Google, which has historically invested heavily in research and development, will also be more particular about where it spends money during this period of economic uncertainty. "In some cases, that means consolidating where investments overlap and streamlining processes," Pichai wrote. In other instances, it will mean "pausing development and re-deploying resources to higher priority areas," he said. Pichai ended the note by telling employees that "scarcity breeds clarity" and emphasizing that "I'm excited for us to rise to the moment again."

Early last month, TikTok users across Europe were told that, starting July 13th, the platform would begin using their on-app data to serve up targeted ads, even if those users didn't consent to the practice. Now, less than a day before that change would have rolled out European Union-wide, it looks like the company's reconsidering things a bit. Gizmodo reports: A company spokesperson told TechCrunch on Tuesday that TikTok is "pausing" the update while it "engage[s] on the questions from stakeholders," about the way it handles personalized ads. And needless to say, there are quite a lot of questions about that right now -- from data protection authorities in the EU, from lawmakers in the US, and from privacy experts pretty much everywhere.

For context: until this point, European users that opened the TikTok app needed to offer express consent to let the company use their data for targeted ads. This update planned to do away with the need for that pesky consent by on a legal basis known as "legitimate interest" to target those ads instead. In a nutshell, the "legitimate interest" clause would let TikTok process people's data, consent-free, if it was for a purpose that TikTok deemed reasonable. This means the company could say, for example, that because targeted ads bring in more money than their un-targeted equivalent, it would be reasonable to serve all users -- consenting or otherwise -- targeted ads. Reasonable, right?

US security technology provider L3Harris has courted controversial Israeli spyware firm NSO with an aim to buy it, according to reports. The Register reports: The New York Times claims L3Harris in recent months sent a team to Israel to try to smooth passage of the deal, which was made challenging by US president Joe Biden's decision to blacklist NSO following the use of its Pegasus software to crack phones of politicians and campaigners. The L3Harris executives delivered a message that the US government offers tacit support of its acquisition bid, although public statements were unlikely, according to five separate sources.

The claims run counter to statements from US officials who were said to be outraged to learn about the negotiations for an American company to purchase a blacklisted spy-tech vendor. Later, L3Harris told officials it planned to end its attempt to buy the company while conflicting accounts said it hoped to restart them. The Times says that the US military contractor hired lawyer Daniel Reisner, who once worked for Israeli Military Prosecutor's Office to advise on the deal. News website Intelligence Online has also reported L3Harris efforts to buy NSO, although it quoted White House officials as saying the deal could create "serious counterintelligence and security concerns" for the US.

Magic Leap's next AR headset is coming this fall, and it's not cheap. The self-contained Magic Leap 2 glasses, which CNET tried earlier this year, will cost at least $3,299, and be available Sept. 30. From a report: Unlike the first Magic Leap headset, which launched back in 2018 and aspired to be for creative consumers, the Magic Leap 2 is entirely business-focused. The smaller glasses have their own dedicated AMD hip-worn processor puck. They offer a wider field of view than any other AR headset we've tried recently, and a unique feature that dims parts of the real world to make virtual objects seem less ghostly. The headset will come in three variations: the $3,299 Magic Leap 2 Base is the hardware plus a one-year warranty; while the Magic Leap 2 Developer Pro comes with extra developer-focused software and sample projects for $4,099. A Magic Leap 2 Enterprise version, with two-year support for enterprise-ready software, costs $4,999. Magic Leap's website will indicate where headsets will be available to buy: in the US, UK, Germany, France, Spain, Italy and Saudi Arabia on Sept. 30, and Japan and Singapore by the end of the year.