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SPECS standalone AR glasses could undercut VR headsets sans all the bulk
Smart glasses and VR headsets have a big, gaping rift that a keen manufacturer could fill. Evan Spiegel has been working to bring the best of both worlds to consumers with a pair of glasses that combine the Ray-Ban AI glasses with popular VR headsets like the Meta Quest 3. Evan’s brand, Snap, has been working under the covers on AR glasses ever since the early 2020s, and now they have revealed something that looks practical and cuts the competition in half.
These are SPECS, a pair of fancy frames that are more than just Snapchat-worthy. The glasses employ the SPECS Intelligence AI service to understand the user’s priorities and routines to show only the most relevant information that makes sense at that point in time. Most importantly, the inherent software works well with iOS, and already the preview is available in the US, with the early-access Mac experience soon to follow via an invitation-only model.
Designer: Snap
As I said, the flames are much more than just smart glasses, as they hold their own computational power, letting the developers create unique AR experiences with the Lens Studio. Enterprise partners like NVIDIA, AWS, and Salesforce are already exploring the possibilities for hands-free applications in workspaces and field operations. The AR and the preemptive AI work in conjunction to bring the next level of smart capabilities to the SPECS, much beyond the ability to click hands-free selfies. According to Evan Spiegel, co-founder and CEO of Snap, “Computers should fit into our lives, not the other way around. SPECS Intelligence is designed to help you spend less time managing your life and more time living it.”
Unlike other smart glasses on the market that have 2D notifications and navigation cues, SPECS brings the whole Augmented Reality gamut in front of your eyes. For instance, the Soccer Skills app trains you while dribbling the ball in real-time with directional arrows. But there are limitations as to how real things seem when wearing these glasses, even with the improved 51 degrees FOV. The virtual 115-inch display (supporting 16 million colors) is placed around 10 feet away from the eye to enable non-intrusive translations in 60 languages, a Shopify Catalog of 3D products to shop using just voice commands and hand gestures, as well as stream content from popular services like HBO Max or YouTube. In fact, Snap has struck a partnership to bring the HBO Original Series Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, premiering on Christmas, to these smart glasses.
Staying a step ahead in terms of real-world usage, two SPECS can be connected together to share digital experiences in a common physical space. In light of the recent controversies surrounding the smart glasses being used for public recording, Snap says these glasses don’t record the world around you or constantly capture videos. The standalone glasses made from high-performance Swiss TR90 polymer come in two sizes – a 47mm version weighing 132 grams and a 52 mm model weighing 136 grams. For people with a prescription, the glasses support removable inserts. The electrochromic lenses on the glasses boast tinting technology adapted from the Boeing 787 Dreamliner windows to gently shift from clear to tinted in just 10 seconds.
For now, SPECS can be pre-ordered for $2,195 ($200 refundable deposit), and shipping to the US, UK, and France is expected to begin later this year, most likely in time for the holiday season. The augmented reality glasses will also be on display at Westfield Century City on October 1.
The post SPECS standalone AR glasses could undercut VR headsets sans all the bulk first appeared on Yanko Design.
This DIY Computer Build Looks Like a Muppet and Works Like a Real PC
Nearly every DIY computer build chasing the cyberdeck label ends up looking like a prop from a gritty sci-fi film, all exposed wires and grungy metal panels borrowed straight from Neuromancer’s aesthetic playbook. This build ignores that entire tradition on purpose, wrapping a fully functional single-board computer inside a soft, orange, furry puppet head with a mouth that actually opens. It’s a cyberdeck that looks like it wandered off the set of a children’s show instead of a hacker den.
A single-board computer sits at the center of the whole thing, running the Linux side of its chip rather than tapping into the onboard microcontroller some builders use to drive servo motors. That decision kept the mechanics simple. A 5-inch HDMI screen handles the display duties, paired with a compact Bluetooth keyboard and touchpad combo for actual typing, while a USB battery bank keeps the entire rig running without hunting for an outlet mid-performance.
Designer: Natasha Dzurny
A webcam tucked into the build adds a function most puppets never get, letting its creator record herself running an actual puppet show through the lens mounted somewhere in that fuzzy head. That’s the kind of detail that turns a novelty prop into something genuinely useful for someone practicing puppetry, since reviewing your own performance afterward is a lot easier when the camera is already part of the puppet doing the performing.
Getting all that hardware to fit inside a rounded puppet skull took real spatial planning rather than just stuffing components wherever they’d squeeze in. The head itself started as a spherical mold, cut into two halves specifically so the mouth could open and close during a performance. A frame built inside that sphere anchors the electronics in place, giving the soft fur exterior something rigid to hold onto underneath all that plush material.
Fitting a human hand inside the same space the electronics occupy created its own puzzle, since puppeteering requires room for fingers to move the mouth while the board, screen wiring, and battery pack all compete for that same interior volume. A mounting platform above the hand cavity solved that conflict, giving the electronics their own dedicated shelf instead of floating loose around whatever space a puppeteer’s fingers happened to need that day.
Small engineering choices reveal how seriously the functional side of this build got treated despite the whimsical shell around it. The board itself sits on a piece of foam board rather than glued directly to the frame, which keeps adhesive away from sensitive components while also helping dissipate heat that would otherwise build up inside an enclosed, fur-covered space. A modified stereo jack even gets its own reinforced pocket near the mouth so headphones can plug in without disrupting the puppet’s face.
None of that hidden engineering shows once the fur and the big cartoonish eyes go on. What’s left looks entirely harmless, friendly enough to hand to a kid, right up until someone notices it also streams video, plays media, and somehow doubles as a bag you can carry over one shoulder. That kind of layered function inside a shape nobody would ever suspect is exactly what makes a build like this worth remembering.
The post This DIY Computer Build Looks Like a Muppet and Works Like a Real PC first appeared on Yanko Design.
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Holy Moly Is the Swiss Army Knife of Flat-Pack Furniture Hardware
Most flat-pack furniture ships with a plastic bag full of different screws, dowels, and brackets, each one doing exactly one job and nothing else. The Holy Moly Cabinet throws that entire parts bag away in favor of a single connector, a clover-shaped orange fitting that turns into a door pull, a leg, a hinge, and a shelf bracket depending on where it gets mounted. One piece of hardware ends up doing the work an entire drawer of assorted fasteners usually handles.
That fitting splits into two halves that snap together, and the design team baked its own name directly into the plastic rather than printing it on a box. The clover-shaped cap reads “HOLY” across its four petals, while the cylindrical stem underneath reads “MOLY” on its flat face. Pull the two apart, and the joke becomes obvious. Screw them together, and the joke disappears into a working piece of furniture hardware.
Designer: Liam de la Bedoyere (boredeye.design)
Every visible surface of the cabinet is a perforated steel panel, the kind of dense hole grid you’d expect on a pegboard rather than a piece of furniture. That choice turns the entire body into a mounting surface rather than just four solid walls, since the same connector can thread into practically any hole depending on where a shelf, a foot, or a door needs to land. Nothing about the placement is fixed once the manufacturing is done.
Standing the cabinet on its own four fittings turns it into a compact cube barely bigger than a nightstand, complete with a door pull mounted flush against the front panel and enough clearance underneath for airflow. Add a second cube on top using the same connectors at the seam, and the whole unit doubles in height without needing a different set of parts for the taller version. Scaling up means reordering the same hardware, not redesigning the furniture.
A shelf slots inside using that identical connector logic, locking into whichever row of holes puts it at the right height for whatever needs storing, whether that’s a stack of books or something taller that needs more headroom below it. Because the perforated steel body is the mounting surface everywhere, that shelf can move up or down later without drilling a single new hole or buying a different bracket to match a new position.
The perforation earns its keep beyond just anchoring the fittings. A pair of headphones hooks directly into the holes near the front panel with nothing extra required, treating the cabinet’s skin as a hanging surface the same way a pegboard in a garage holds tools. That’s a function most cabinets never offer, since a sealed door front usually has nowhere for anything to grab onto.
Reducing a whole cabinet’s hardware down to variations on one connector isn’t just a manufacturing shortcut. It changes how a piece of furniture ages in someone’s home, since a cracked foot or a worn door pull can be swapped using the exact same part sitting in a spare parts drawer, rather than hunting down a discontinued bracket from a company that stopped making that model years ago.
The post Holy Moly Is the Swiss Army Knife of Flat-Pack Furniture Hardware first appeared on Yanko Design.
Lucid and Bolt plan to deploy at least 25,000 robotaxis across Europe
At least that's the hope.
This Tiny Home Packs a Double Vanity, Trifold Glass Doors, & a Full Kitchen into 400 Square Feet
The word “compromise” gets thrown around a lot in tiny home conversations — and for good reason. Most builds force you to choose between a proper kitchen or a real bedroom, decent storage or actual floor space. JT Collective’s Summit refuses that trade-off entirely. Built on a quad-axle trailer and stretching 37 feet in length, this family-owned California builder’s flagship model is one of the more thoughtfully resolved tiny homes on wheels the market has seen in a while.
At 400 square feet, the Summit sits at the generous end of the tiny home spectrum without crossing into pretension. The exterior wears a combination of wood and dark metal paneling — a pairing that reads rugged and considered at once, the kind of facade that doesn’t beg for attention but earns it. Dual roof pitches break up what could have been a monotonous roofline, giving the structure genuine architectural character rather than the boxy silhouette that plagues so many THOW builds.
Designer: JT Collective
Inside, the layout centers around livability. Large trifold glass doors dissolve the boundary between the living room and the outdoors — a move that, on a square-footage-constrained floor plan, is less a design flourish and more a spatial strategy. Natural light pours in through dual-pane, fully tempered windows, and the open living area is generous enough to hold a proper sofa without feeling like a showroom floor model arrangement. The kitchen comes standard with a stove, hood vent, and refrigerator, with washer and dryer connections already roughed in — details that signal JT Collective is building for people who actually intend to live here, not just weekend in it.
The single bedroom comes with a dedicated closet, which sounds like a small thing until you’ve toured a dozen tiny homes that treat clothing storage as an afterthought. The bathroom includes a double vanity — an inclusion that shifts the Summit from aspirational novelty to practical daily driver. Starting at $179,000, it positions itself in a crowded segment, but the build quality and spatial intelligence justify the ask.
What JT Collective has built with the Summit isn’t just a capable tiny home — it’s an argument that downsizing doesn’t have to mean settling. The proportions are right, the material palette is restrained in the best possible way, and the floor plan reflects the kind of real-world thinking that usually gets designed out in favor of renderings that look good in a gallery. This one looks just as good lived in.
The post This Tiny Home Packs a Double Vanity, Trifold Glass Doors, & a Full Kitchen into 400 Square Feet first appeared on Yanko Design.
Razer refreshes the one-handed Tartarus Pro keyboard with improved switches
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POVA 8 Pro 5G Tonino Lamborghini Edition: Design Explained
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