There are thousands, maybe even millions, of iPhone cases on the market. They come in all shapes, sizes, materials, and some are even multifunctional. But these days, it’s rare to see a case do something genuinely different and something that is more than just a gimmick. So when I saw the new XTREME E-Ink case, I knew I had to check this thing out. It claimed that you could instantly customize your case with any image, without needing batteries or a connection to your iPhone, and that it remained the same thickness as any other iPhone case you see today. After using this case, I can say that it has fully delivered and it’s awesome. Here is how it works.
The latest beta of Apple's Reality Composer Pro 3 , the content creation tool used to build spatial experiences for Apple Vision Pro, appears to contain traces of "The Machinery," an ambitious game development project that abruptly shut down in 2022 without explanation. Based on code discovered by Nicolás Alvarez and independently confirmed by MacRumors , binaries included with Reality Composer Pro 3 beta contain at least 40 mentions of "the machinery" or "our machinery," and match aspects of The Machinery's project structure, asset management system, and database architecture. The findings are notable because The Machinery was developed by Our Machinery – a company made up of veterans of the Bitsquid game engine. The project earned a devoted following among engine programmers for its unconventional approach to content creation workflows. And yet it disappeared without trace. Central to the project was a system known as " The Truth ," a database-driven architecture designed to unify assets, objects, dependencies, and editor state. Many of the same concepts appear in Apple's latest Reality Composer Pro release, announced during WWDC 2026. Things like reusable prototypes, live editing, asset dependency tracking, and rapid iteration workflows all pop up – ideas that have notable technological similarities to how The Machinery worked. The direct references in the code appear to confirm the connection. The links don't just extend to code strings, either. Tricia Gray, co-founder and CEO of Our Machinery, now works on Apple's spatial computing developer tools team, as evidenced in her LinkedIn profile . It's not clear whether Apple licensed The Machinery or acquired the company, or in some way inherited the referenced technology, but the presence of the identifiers throughout Apple's code suggests at least some of the project's ideas have somehow found their way into Apple's spatial computing development toolset. The discovery is particularly notable because The Machinery's development ended so suddenly , surprising many developers at the time who had followed the project's progress. We've reached out to Apple to comment on the findings and will update this story if we hear back. Related Roundup: Apple Vision Pro Buyer's Guide: Vision Pro (Neutral) Related Forum: Apple Vision Pro This article, " Apple's Latest Vision Pro Tool Contains Traces of Defunct Game Engine 'The Machinery' " first appeared on MacRumors.com Discuss this article in our forums
Meta today unveiled its first smart glasses sold under its own brand rather than Ray-Ban or Oakley, undercutting its existing lineup on price as it works to expand its lead in the category before Apple enters the market. The new Adventurer and Fury models are priced at $299, $80 less than the second-generation Ray-Ban ‌Meta‌ Wayfarer that launched last year. A third model, the Starfire , was designed in collaboration with Kylie Jenner and costs $399. EssilorLuxottica, the parent company of Ray-Ban and Oakley, is manufacturing the glasses despite ‌Meta‌ designing them in-house and putting its own name on them, with EssilorLuxottica's logo appearing on the temple arms and packaging alongside ‌Meta‌'s. The Adventurer has a rectangular Wayfarer-like shape available in standard and large sizes, while the Fury shares that silhouette but is thicker. The Starfire takes a slimmer oval shape and includes a small gemstone on the right lens near the camera, a metal nose pad designed to resist makeup residue, and the option to set an AI-generated version of Jenner's voice for the assistant and onboarding prompts. The Starfire's case includes a handwritten note from Jenner and a built-in mirror. Across all three styles, ‌Meta‌ added a three-way adjustable nose pad, adjustable temple tips, and overextension hinges so the arms flare out slightly for wider head shapes. The companies are offering 26 color and lens combinations between the Adventurer and Fury alone, including tortoise, black, and green finishes, plus transition, polarized, and clear lens options, and the glasses support prescription lenses with a power range of -12 to +2.25. The new glasses carry over the same 12-megapixel camera, 3K video capture, five-microphone array, and eight-hour battery life as the existing Ray-Ban ‌Meta‌ Gen 2 glasses, with the included case adding about 40 hours of additional charge. ‌Meta‌ is also offering a separate ‌Meta‌ Glasses Charging Stand compatible with the new models as well as the Ray-Ban ‌Meta‌ and Oakley ‌Meta‌ HSTN lines. The glasses ship with ‌Meta‌'s Muse Spark AI model, which the company says improves response quality and adds 14 new languages to live translation support, including Mandarin, Korean, Japanese, Arabic, and Hindi, bringing the total to 20. A new "Dynamic Photo" feature captures a burst of images and selects the best shot, and pedestrian turn-by-turn navigation is coming to the camera-equipped lineup after debuting on ‌Meta‌'s display glasses. According to Bloomberg , ‌Meta‌ also hinted that it's considering a version of its glasses without a camera, focusing on an audio-only experience for phone calls, media playback and interacting with its AI tools. A camera-free option could both lower the price point and enable new styles, it said, given the need to include fewer components. The company also addressed Apple directly, calling the iPhone maker "formidable" in the space ahead of its own glasses debut. "I think you need to take anything they do seriously," ‌Meta‌'s Alex Himel said, adding, "they're good at hardware, they're good at design. There's a number of places where we won't necessarily be able to build the same quality consumer experience when paired with the phone, and so I think they're taking advantage of that." Apple is widely expected to release its first smart glasses in 2027, designed in-house rather than through a partner brand. Apple's glasses will likely rely on a camera, microphones, and Siri for AI-driven features without an integrated display, putting them in direct competition with ‌Meta‌'s camera-equipped lineup rather than higher-end display models like ‌Meta‌'s Ray-Ban Display glasses. ‌Meta‌ said it explored facial recognition tools for identifying people the wearer knows but has not put the feature into active development while it works through privacy and societal concerns. The Adventurer , Fury , and Starfire glasses are available starting today through ‌Meta‌ and EssilorLuxottica retail partners including LensCrafters. Tag: Meta This article, " Meta Launches Its Own $299 Smart Glasses Ahead of Apple's Debut " first appeared on MacRumors.com Discuss this article in our forums
