United News of Bangladesh

TechCrunch, an American online news platform focusing on high tech and startups, says that a Bangladeshi government website has leaked the personal information of citizens. The data leak includes full names, phone numbers, email addresses, and national ID numbers of millions of Bangladeshi citizens, TechCrunch quoted a researcher who discovered the leak. Read: Personal data hack of 100s of German politicians, celebs The leak was “accidentally discovered” by Viktor Markopoulos who works for Bitcrack Cyber Security. He then contacted the Bangladeshi e-Government Computer Incident Response Team. Markopoulos said, finding the data “was too easy.” “It just appeared as a Google result and I wasn’t even intending on finding it. I was Googling an SQL error and it just popped up as the second result,” he told TechCrunch, referring to SQL, a language designed for managing data in a database. Read: 8 arrested in Hong Kong for posting personal data on police TechCrunch said it was able to verify that the leaked data was “legitimate” through using a portion to query a public search tool on the affected website. The government website apparently returned other data contained in the leaked database, such as the name of the person who applied to register, as well as — in some cases — names of their parents. TechCrunch, in the report published on July 7, 2023, said it attempted the process with 10 different sets of data, and all returned correct data. The US news platform, however, did not name the government website as data is still available online. It also said it has not heard back from any of the Bangladeshi government organisations that were emailed, asking for remarks and alerting of the data leak. Read more: Facebook: Hackers accessed personal data from 29M accounts

TikTok Inc. and a group of five content creators who are suing the state of Montana over its first-in-the-nation law to ban the video sharing app are now asking a federal judge to block implementation of the law while the case moves through the courts and before it takes effect in January. The separate requests for preliminary injunctions were filed Wednesday in federal court in Missoula. The cases challenging the law were filed in May and have since been consolidated by U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy. Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen had the bill drafted over concerns — shared by the FBI and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken — that the app, owned by the Chinese company ByteDance, could be used to allow the Chinese government to access information on U.S. citizens or push pro-Beijing misinformation that could influence the public. TikTok has said none of this has ever happened. Also read: What is Threads? All your questions about Meta's new Twitter rival, answered The motions for injunctions make the same arguments as the cases against the state — that the ban is an unconstitutional violation of free speech rights and that the state has no authority to regulate foreign affairs. Attorneys on both sides have agreed to a schedule that calls for the state to respond to the motions by mid-August and for the plaintiffs to file their replies by mid-September, court records state. The company and the Montana content creators argue a preliminary injunction should be granted because the plaintiffs are likely to succeed in their challenges to the law and if the ban took effect it would cause irreparable harm by depriving them of the ability to express themselves and communicate with others. TikTok has safeguards to moderate content and protect minors, and would not share information with China, the company has argued. But critics have pointed to China’s 2017 national intelligence law that compels companies to cooperate with the country’s governments for state intelligence work. Also read: What is Threads? All your questions about Meta's new Twitter rival, answered “TikTok users don’t use the app – the app uses them and turns them into a spying apparatus for the Chinese Communist Party," Emily Flower, a spokeswoman for the Attorney General's Office, said in a statement that also noted recent reporting that TikTok is paying for the lawsuit filed by the content creators. "TikTok’s ‘support’ is bought and paid for – Montanans recognize the threat that the app poses to their privacy and national security.” More than half the U.S. states, including Montana, and the federal government have banned TikTok from government-owned devices. Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte signed the bill into law in May, saying Montana was taking "the most decisive action of any state to protect Montanans’ private data and sensitive personal information from being harvested by the Chinese Communist Party.” Also read: TikTok now 2nd biggest social media platform in South Africa: Study As of June 1, Gianforte also prohibited the use of any social media apps tied to foreign adversaries on state equipment and for state businesses. Among the apps he listed are WeChat, whose parent company is headquartered in China; and Telegram Messenger, which was founded in Russia.  

Meta unveiled an app to rival Twitter on Wednesday, appearing to target users looking for an alternative to the social media platform owned — and frequently changed — by Elon Musk. Called Threads, the new offering is billed as a text-based version of Meta's photo-sharing app Instagram that the company says provides “a new, separate space for real-time updates and public conversations.” Also read:Meta is set to take on Twitter with a rival app called Threads The app went live just after midnight Wednesday in the U.K. in Apple and Google Android app stores in more than 100 countries including the U.S., Britain, Australia, Canada and Japan. Early celebrity users include chef Gordon Ramsay, the pop star Shakira and Mark Hoyle, better known as the YouTuber LadBaby. Users get a Twitter-like microblogging experience, according to screenshots provided to media, suggesting that Meta Platforms has been gearing up to directly challenge the platform after Musk's tumultuous ownership has resulted in a series of unpopular changes that have turned off users and advertisers. There are buttons to like, repost, reply to or quote a “thread,” and counters showing the number of likes and replies that a post has received. Also read: Musk's Twitter disbands its Trust and Safety advisory group “Our vision is that Threads will be a new app more focused on text and dialogue, modeled after what Instagram has done for photo and video,” the company said. Posts are limited to 500 characters, which is more than Twitter's 280-character threshold, and can include links, photos and videos up to five minutes long. Instagram users will be able to log in with their existing usernames and follow the same accounts on the new app. New users will have to set up an Instagram account. Meta emphasized measures to keep users safe, including enforcing Instagram's community guidelines and providing tools to control who can mention or reply to users. Meta's new offering, however, has raised data privacy concerns. Also read: Twitter relaunching subscriber service after debacle Threads could collect a wide range of personal information, including health, financial, contacts, browsing and search history, location data, purchases and “sensitive info,” according to its data privacy disclosure on the App Store. Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey pointed it out in a snarky tweet saying, “All your Threads are belong to us” that included a screenshot of the disclosure. Musk replied “yeah.” One place Threads won't be rolled out is in the European Union, which has strict data privacy rules. Meta has informed Ireland's Data Privacy Commission that it has no plans yet to launch Threads in the 27-nation bloc, commission spokesman Graham Doyle said. The Irish watchdog is Meta's main privacy regulator for the EU because the company's regional headquarters is based in Dublin. While Meta had teased Threads with a listing on Apple’s U.K. App Store earlier this week, it could not be found in the French, German or Dutch versions. The company is working on rolling the app out to more countries but cites regulatory uncertainty for its decision to hold off on a European launch. Analysts said its success is far from guaranteed, citing Meta's track record of starting standalone apps that were later shut down. Also in question is whether it's the right move for Meta, which has announced tens of thousands of layoffs over the past year amid a tech industry slowdown. CEO Mark Zuckerberg also has been focusing on the metaverse, investing tens of billions of dollars in the virtual reality concept. Meta risks “spreading itself too thin,” said Mike Proulx, a research director at Forrester, a global market research company. “Meta is banking on a moment in time amidst peak Twitter frustration. However, this window of opportunity is already flooded with Twitter alternatives including Bluesky, Mastodon, Spill, Post.News and Hive, which are all competing for Twitter’s market share." Even so, Threads could be a fresh headache for Musk, who acquired Twitter last year for $44 billion. He's made a series of changes that have triggered backlash, the latest being daily limits on the number of tweets people can view to try to stop unauthorized scraping of potentially valuable data. He also is now requiring paid verification for users to access the online dashboard TweetDeck. Musk’s rivalry with Zuckerberg could end up spilling over into real life. In an online exchange the two tech billionaires seemingly agreed to a cage match face-off, though it’s unclear if they will actually make it to the ring.

Meta is poised to unveil a new app that appears to mimic Twitter in a direct challenge to the social media platform owned by Elon Musk. A listing for the app, called Threads, appeared on Apple's App Store, indicating it would debut as early as Thursday. It is billed as a “text-based conversation app" that is linked to Instagram, according to the listing, which teased a Twitter-like microblogging experience. “Threads is where communities come together to discuss everything from the topics you care about today to what'll be trending tomorrow,” it said. Instagram users will be able to keep their user names and follow the same accounts on the new app, according to screenshots displayed on the App Store listing. Meta declined to comment on the app, and Twitter sends a crude automated reply to most media queries. Threads could be the latest headache for Musk, who acquired Twitter last year for $44 billion and has been making changes to the platform that have unnerved advertisers and turned off users. In the latest such tweak, Twitter said Monday that it will require users to be verified before they can use the online dashboard TweetDeck. The new policy takes effect in 30 days and appears to be aimed at raising extra revenue because users need to pay have their accounts verified under Musk's changes. TweetDeck is popular with companies and news organizations, allowing users to manage multiple Twitter accounts. Twitter is already facing backlash after Musk announced that Twitter has limited the number of tweets users can view each day — restrictions that the billionaire Tesla CEO described as an attempt to stop unauthorized scraping of potentially valuable data. Musk's rivalry with Meta Platforms also could end up spilling over into real life. In an online exchange between Musk and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, the two tech billionaires seemingly agreed to a cage match face-off, though it's unclear if they will actually make it to the ring.      

Twitter owner Elon Musk has limited the amount of tweets that most users can view each day — restrictions he described as an attempt to prevent unauthorized scraping of potentially valuable data from the social media platform. The site is now requiring people to log on to view tweets and profiles — a change in its longtime practice to allow everyone to peruse the chatter on what Musk has frequently touted as the world’s digital town square since buying it for $44 billion last year. The restrictions could result in users being locked out of Twitter for the day after scrolling through several hundred tweets. Thousands of users complained Saturday of not being able to access the site. Twitter users run into service issues after Elon Musk imposes daily limits on reading tweets In a Friday tweet, Musk described the new restrictions as a temporary measure that was taken because “we were getting data pillaged so much that it was degrading service for normal users!” Musk has pushed back on what he calls misuse of Twitter data to train popular artificial intelligence systems like ChatGPT. They scour reams of information online to generate human-like text, photos, video and other content. Musk elaborated on the limits Saturday, saying unverified accounts will temporarily be restricted to reading 600 posts per day, while verified accounts will be able to scroll through up to 6,000. After facing backlash, he tweeted that the thresholds would be raised to 800 posts for unverified accounts and 8,000 for verified accounts before later settling on 1,000 and 10,000 tweets, respectively. Tech billionaires' cage match? Musk throws down the gauntlet and Zuckerberg accepts challenge The crackdown began to have ripple effects, causing more than 7,500 people at one point Saturday to report problems using the social media service, based on complaints registered on Downdetector, a website that tracks online outages. Although that's a relatively small number of Twitter's more than 200 million worldwide users, the trouble was widespread enough to cause the #TwitterDown hashtag to trend in some parts of the world. The higher threshold allowed on verified accounts is part of an $8-per-month subscription service that Musk rolled out earlier this year in an effort to boost Twitter revenue. It has fallen sharply since the billionaire Tesla CEO took over the company and laid off roughly three-fourths of the workforce to cut costs and stave off bankruptcy. Advertisers have since curbed their spending on Twitter, partly because of changes that have allowed more sometimes-hateful and prickly content that offends a wider part of the service's audience. EU official says Twitter abandons bloc's voluntary pact against disinformation Musk recently hired longtime NBC Universal executive Linda Yaccarino as Twitter's CEO to try to win back advertisers. An Associated Press inquiry about Saturday's access problems triggered a crude automated reply that Twitter sends to most media queries without addressing the question.

A new report by Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism suggests that Facebook is becoming significantly less important as a source of news. The report titled “Digital News Report -2023” found that only 28% of people surveyed accessed news through Facebook in 2023, compared to 42% in 2016.  The figures were based on interviews with some 94,000 people across 46 countries, conducted for the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, part of Britain's University of Oxford. “Facebook remains one of the most-used social networks overall, but its influence on journalism is declining as it shifts its focus away from news,” Lead author Nic Newman said in a press release. Also read: CNN head Chris Licht is out at the global news network after a brief, tumultuous tenure Newman highlighted that Facebook now faces new challenges from established networks such as YouTube and vibrant youth-focused networks such as TikTok. “The Chinese-owned social network reaches 44% of 18–24s across markets and 20% for news. It is growing fastest in parts of Asia-Pacific, Africa, and Latin America,” he said. Meanwhile, the report found that influencers and celebrities are increasingly taking over from journalists as the main source of news for young people across almost all social media platforms except for Twitter and Facebook. A new report by Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism suggests that Facebook is becoming significantly less important as a source of news. Also read: Lack of transparency exposes Bangladeshi news sites to disinformation risks: new report The report titled “Digital News Report -2023” found that only 28% of people surveyed accessed news through Facebook in 2023, compared to 42% in 2016.  The figures were based on interviews with some 94,000 people across 46 countries, conducted for the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, part of Britain's University of Oxford. “Facebook remains one of the most-used social networks overall, but its influence on journalism is declining as it shifts its focus away from news,” Lead author Nic Newman said in a press release. Newman highlighted that Facebook now faces new challenges from established networks such as YouTube and vibrant youth-focused networks such as TikTok. Also read: Trial begins in case against Fox News for false election claims “The Chinese-owned social network reaches 44% of 18–24s across markets and 20% for news. It is growing fastest in parts of Asia-Pacific, Africa, and Latin America,” he said. Meanwhile, the report found that influencers and celebrities are increasingly taking over from journalists as the main source of news for young people across almost all social media platforms except for Twitter and Facebook. According to the report, 55 percent of TikTok and Snapchat users and 52 percent of Instagram users get their news from "personalities" — compared to 33 percent of Tiktok, 36 percent of Snapchat and 42 percent of Instagram users who get it from mainstream media and journalists on those platforms, which are most popular among the young.  “We find that, while mainstream journalists often lead conversations around news in Twitter and Facebook, they struggle to get attention in newer networks like Instagram, Snapchat, and TikTok, where personalities, influencers, and ordinary people are often more prominent, even when it comes to conversations around news,” Newman said. Also read: Tucker Carlson leaves Fox News  Trust and interest in news Among other indicators, the news industry has seen a sharp decline in terms of trust and interest. According to the report, trust in the news has fallen across markets by further 2-percentage points in the last year, reversing in many countries the gains made at the height of the pandemic. “On average, 40% of our sample say they trust most news most of the time,” the lead author of the report said. Meanwhile, around 36% of the interviewees said they actively avoided the news sometimes or often, seven points above the figure in 2017 but two points lower than last year. Read more: Journalism award to recognize outstanding reporting on Bangladesh-China trade, investment ties In interviews, many said that news stories are too repetitive or too “emotionally draining”. According to the report, 55 percent of TikTok and Snapchat users and 52 percent of Instagram users get their news from "personalities" — compared to 33 percent of Tiktok, 36 percent of Snapchat and 42 percent of Instagram users who get it from mainstream media and journalists on those platforms, which are most popular among the young.  “We find that, while mainstream journalists often lead conversations around news in Twitter and Facebook, they struggle to get attention in newer networks like Instagram, Snapchat, and TikTok, where personalities, influencers, and ordinary people are often more prominent, even when it comes to conversations around news,” Newman said. Trust and interest in news Among other indicators, the news industry has seen a sharp decline in terms of trust and interest. Read more: Women’s participation in journalism still very low: Dialogue According to the report, trust in the news has fallen across markets by further 2-percentage points in the last year, reversing in many countries the gains made at the height of the pandemic. “On average, 40% of our sample say they trust most news most of the time,” the lead author of the report said. Meanwhile, around 36% of the interviewees said they actively avoided the news sometimes or often, seven points above the figure in 2017 but two points lower than last year. In interviews, many said that news stories are too repetitive or too “emotionally draining”. Read more: Russian House lauds growing presence of online journalism in Bangladesh

The United Kingdom will hold a global artificial intelligence (AI) summit this autumn to assess the technology's "most significant risks." A number of alarming warnings have been issued concerning the possibly existential threat that AI poses to humans, reports BBC. Regulators throughout the world are trying to create new laws to mitigate that danger. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak stated that he wants the United Kingdom to lead efforts to guarantee that the advantages of artificial intelligence are "harnessed for the good of humanity." Also read: Regulation must to control AI for surveillance, disinformation: rights experts "AI has an incredible potential to transform our lives for the better, but we need to make sure it is developed and used in a way that is safe and secure," he said. The summit's attendees are currently unknown, but the UK government stated that it will "bring together key countries, leading tech companies, and researchers to agree on safety measures to evaluate and monitor the most significant risks from AI." Speaking to reporters in Washington, DC, where Sunak is meeting with President Biden on the matter, the prime minister stated that the UK was the "natural place" to lead the discourse on AI. Downing Street pointed to the prime minister's recent talks with the CEOs of key AI businesses as proof of this. It also mentioned the 50,000 individuals engaged in the sector, which is worth £3.7 billion to the UK. Also read: UNESCO reveals new AI roadmap for classrooms 'Too ambitious' Some have questioned the UK's ability to lead in this sector. According to Yasmin Afina, a research fellow at Chatham House's Digital Society Initiative, the UK "could realistically be too ambitious." She stated that the EU and US had "stark differences in governance and regulatory approaches" that the UK would struggle to reconcile, as well as a number of existing global efforts, such as the UN's Global Digital Compact, that had "stronger foundational bases already." Afina went on to say that the UK was home to none of the world's most innovative AI startups. Also read: How to Use AI Tools to Get Your Dream Job "Instead of trying to play a role that would be too ambitious for the UK and risks alienating it, the UK should perhaps focus on promoting responsible behaviour in the research, development and deployment of these technologies," she told the BBC. Deep unease Since the chatbot ChatGPT first came on the scene in November, astounding people with its ability to answer complicated queries in a human-sounding manner, interest in AI has skyrocketed. It can do so because of the enormous processing capacity of AI systems, which has sparked widespread concern, the report said. Geoffrey Hinton and Prof Yoshua Bengio, two of the three so-called godfathers of AI, have been among those to issue concerns about how the technology they helped design has a high potential for disaster. Read more: China warns of artificial intelligence risks, calls for beefed-up national security measures These concerns have fueled calls for effective AI legislation, while many uncertainties remain about what that would include and how it would be implemented. Regulatory race The European Union is drafting an Artificial Intelligence Act, but even in the best-case scenario, it will take two and a half years to become law. Last month, EU technology head Margrethe Vestager said it would be "way too late" and that the EU was working on a voluntary code for the industry with the US, which they anticipated would be completed within weeks. China has also taken the lead in developing AI rules, including ideas requiring corporations to notify users anytime an AI algorithm is employed, the report added. Read more: ChatGPT's chief to testify before US Congress as concerns grow about artificial intelligence's risks The UK government published their opinions in a White Paper in March, which was criticized for having "significant gaps." However, Marc Warner, a member of the government's AI Council, has suggested a stricter approach, telling the BBC that some of the most powerful kinds of AI may eventually have to be outlawed. According to Matt O'Shaughnessy, visiting fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, there was nothing the UK could do about the fact that others were leading the charge on AI legislation - but it could still play an essential role. "The EU and China are both large markets that have proposed consequential regulatory schemes for AI - without either of those factors, the UK will struggle to be as influential," he said. Read more: AI & Future of Jobs: Will Artificial Intelligence or Robots Take Your Job? But he added the UK was an "academic and commercial hub", with institutions that were "well-known for their work on responsible AI". "Those all make it a serious player in the global discussion about AI," he told the BBC.

Instagram's recommendation algorithms linked and encouraged a "vast network of paedophiles" seeking illicit underage sexual content and conduct, according to the Wall Street Journal (WSJ). These algorithms also marketed the sale of unlawful "child-sex material" on the network, it said. The report is based on a joint investigation by the Wall Street Journal and researchers from Stanford University and the University of Massachusetts Amherst looking into child pornography on Meta's platform. Buyers might even "commission specific acts" or organize "meet ups" on some accounts. Also read: Instagram adds new tools to help content creators earn money "Pedophiles have long used the internet, but unlike the forums and file-transfer services that cater to people who have interest in illicit content, Instagram doesn't merely host these activities. Its algorithms promote them," the WSJ report said. "Instagram connects pedophiles and guides them to content sellers via recommendation systems that excel at linking those who share niche interests." According to the investigation, Instagram users may search for child-sex abuse hashtags. According to the researchers, these hashtags directed users to accounts that offered to sell paedophilic items and even included footage of minors harming themselves. Also read: Meta brings Facebook Reels to Bangladesh Anti-paedophile campaigners alerted the corporation to accounts purporting to belong to a girl selling underage sex content. The activists got automated answers that stated, "Because of the high volume of reports we receive, our team hasn't been able to review this post." In another situation, the message advised the user to conceal the account in order to avoid viewing its material, the report said. A Meta spokesperson confirmed receiving the reports but failing to act on them, attributing the failure to a technological glitch, it also said. Also read: Instagram adds new tools to help content creators earn money The company told the WSJ that it has repaired the flaw in its reporting system and is offering fresh training to its content moderators. "Child exploitation is a horrific crime. We're continuously investigating ways to actively defend against this behaviour," the spokesperson said. Meta claims to have shut down 27 paedophile networks in the last two years and is preparing more. It also stated that hundreds of hashtags that sexualize minors, some with millions of postings, had been banned, the report concluded. Read more: Wish you could tweak that text? WhatsApp is letting users edit messages

Microsoft will pay a fine of $20 million to settle Federal Trade Commission charges that it illegally collected and retained the data of children who signed up to use its Xbox video game console. The agency charged that Microsoft gathered the data without notifying parents or obtaining their consent, and that it also illegally held onto the data. Those actions violated the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, the FTC stated. Read:Twitter accuses Microsoft of misusing its data, foreshadowing a possible fight over AI In a blog post, Microsoft corporate vice president for Xbox Dave McCarthy outlined additional steps the company is now taking to improve its age verification systems and to ensure that parents are involved in the creation of child accounts for the service. These mostly concern efforts to improve age verification technology and to educate children and parents about privacy issues. McCarthy also said the company had identified and fixed a technical glitch that failed to delete child accounts in cases where the account creation process never finished. Microsoft policy was to hold that data no longer than 14 days in order to allow players to pick up account creation where they left off if they were interrupted. Read: Microsoft reports boost in profits, revenue, as it pushes AI The settlement must be approved by a federal court before it can go into effect, the FTC said.    

Apple appears poised to unveil a long-rumored headset that will place its users between the virtual and real world, while also testing the technology trendsetter's ability to popularize new-fangled devices after others failed to capture the public's imagination. After years of speculation, the stage is set for the widely anticipated announcement to be made Monday at Apple's annual developers conference in a Cupertino, California, theater named after the company's late co-founder Steve Jobs. Apple is also likely to use the event to show off its latest Mac computer, preview the next operating system for the iPhone and discuss its strategy for artificial intelligence. But the star of the show is expected to be a pair of goggles — perhaps called “Reality Pro,” according to media leaks — that could become another milestone in Apple's lore of releasing game-changing technology, even though the company hasn't always been the first to try its hand at making a particular device. Apple's lineage of breakthroughs date back to a bow-tied Jobs peddling the first Mac in 1984 —a tradition that continued with the iPod in 2001, the iPhone in 2007, the iPad in 2010, the Apple Watch in 2014 and its AirPods in 2016. But with a hefty price tag that could be in the $3,000 range, Apple's new headset may also be greeted with a lukewarm reception from all but affluent technophiles. If the new device turns out to be a niche product, it would leave Apple in the same bind as other major tech companies and startups that have tried selling headsets or glasses equipped with technology that either thrusts people into artificial worlds or projects digital images with scenery and things that are actually in front of them — a format known as “augmented reality.” Apple's goggles are expected be sleekly designed and capable of toggling between totally virtual or augmented options, a blend sometimes known as “mixed reality." That flexibility also is sometimes called external reality, or XR for shorthand. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has been describing these alternate three-dimensional realities as the “metaverse.” It's a geeky concept that he tried to push into the mainstream by changing the name of his social networking company to Meta Platforms in 2021 and then pouring billions of dollars into improving the virtual technology. But the metaverse largely remains a digital ghost town, although Meta's virtual reality headset, the Quest, remains the top-selling device in a category that so far has mostly appealed to video game players looking for even more immersive experiences. Apple executives seem likely to avoid referring to the metaverse, given the skepticism that has quickly developed around that term, when they discuss the potential of the company's new headset. In recent years, Apple CEO Tim Cook has periodically touted augmented reality as technology's next quantum leap, while not setting a specific timeline for when it will gain mass appeal. “If you look back in a point in time, you know, zoom out to the future and look back, you’ll wonder how you led your life without augmented reality,” Cook, who is 62, said last September while speaking to an audience of students in Italy. “Just like today you wonder how did people like me grow up without the internet. You know, so I think it could be that profound. And it’s not going to be profound overnight.” The response to virtual, augmented and mixed reality has been decidedly ho-hum so far. Some of the gadgets deploying the technology have even been derisively mocked, with the most notable example being Google's internet-connected glasses released more than a decade ago. After Google co-founder Sergey Brin initially drummed up excitement about the device by demonstrating an early model's potential “wow factor” with a skydiving stunt staged during a San Francisco tech conference, consumers quickly became turned off to a product that allowed its users to surreptitiously take pictures and video. The backlash became so intense that people who wore the gear became known as “Glassholes,” leading Google to withdraw the product a few years after its debut. Microsoft also has had limited success with HoloLens, a mixed-reality headset released in 2016, although the software maker earlier this year insisted it remains committed to the technology. Magic Leap, a startup that stirred excitement with previews of a mixed-reality technology that could conjure the spectacle of a whale breaching through a gymnasium floor, had so much trouble marketing its first headset to consumers in 2018 that it has since shifted its focus to industrial, healthcare and emergency uses. Daniel Diez, Magic Leap's chief transformation officer, said there are four major questions Apple's goggles will have to answer: “What can people do with it? What does this thing look and feel like? Is it comfortable to wear? And how much is it going to cost?” The anticipation that Apple's goggles are going to sell for several thousand dollars already has dampened expectations for the product. Although he expects Apple's goggles to boast “jaw dropping” technology, Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives said he expects the company to sell just 150,000 units during the device's first year on the market — a mere speck in the company's portfolio. By comparison, Apple sells more than 200 million iPhones, its marquee product a year. But the iPhone wasn't an immediate sensation, with sales of fewer than 12 million units in its first full year on the market. In a move apparently aimed at magnifying the expected price of Apple's goggles, Zuckerberg made a point of saying last week that the next Quest headset will sell for $500, an announcement made four months before Meta Platform plans to showcase the latest device at its tech conference. Since 2016, the average annual shipments of virtual- and augmented-reality devices have averaged 8.6 million units, according to the research firm CCS Insight. The firm expects sales to remain sluggish this year, with a sales projection of about 11 million of the devices before gradually climbing to 67 million in 2026. But those forecasts were obviously made before it's known whether Apple might be releasing a product that alters the landscape. “I would never count out Apple, especially with the consumer market and especially when it comes to finding those killer applications and solutions,” Magic Leap's Diez said. “If someone is going to crack the consumer market early, I wouldn’t be surprised it would be Apple.”