Get ready for Meta Connect

Meta’s annual VR / AR shindig kicks off a few hours after this newsletter hits your inboxes. As usual, it’ll lay down the direction of travel for the next year of strapping stuff to your face. So, before the awkward stage banter begins, it’s worth reading up on what’s to come. We’ve prepared .

That includes , a pair of Buddy Holly glasses offering augmented reality in a more user friendly package. CEO Mark Zuckerberg has already hinted about its potential, but he added we’ll only see the prototype today. We can also expect a cheaper version of the Quest 3 and some more AI doodads to come to the Ray-Ban smart glasses.

. Everything kicks off at 1PM ET / 10AM PT, but the color commentary will start long before then.

— Dan Cooper

All the (mostly games) news you might have missed

She was a key witness in Sam Bankman-Fried’s criminal trial.

Caroline Ellison, . Ellison pled guilty at the end of 2022 for her role in the FTX fraud and was a key witness in Bankman-Fried’s criminal trial. Ellison will spend a further three years on supervised release once she has left prison. In a statement, the disgraced crypto executive expressed remorse for her conduct.

Except in Japan, for obvious reasons.

Depending on your loyalties, Palworld is either an exciting spin on the adventure genre or a shameless rip-off of Pokémon, but with guns. . The title was just surprise-launched for the PS5 in 68 countries, with Japan an obvious exception.

I want this thing so darn much.

I’ve been a fan of cute pianos that teach you how to play for a long while and have reviewed a few for Engadget. Now, . It’ll integrate with Duolingo’s app, which has music courses to teach folks how to grasp the basics of playing. And, did I mention that I really want to play with one of these?

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Raise your hand if you didn’t know this was a thing.

TikTok has announced The platform announced it’ll cease operations on November 28 and delete all user data and login information soon after. It has advised subscribers to reach out to their payment platforms of choice to get refunds before that date. Don’t worry though, I’m a technology journalist and even I didn’t know TikTok had its own standalone streaming service.