Heads-on with the Oakley Meta HSTN Limited Edition glasses - DTNSB 5067

Google is bringing Veo video generation to Google Photos, and the Nintendo Switch 2 is the fastest selling game console of all time.

Starring Jason Howell and Huyen Tue Dao

JASON: This is the Daily Tech News for Thursday, July 24, 2025. We tell you what you need to know, follow up on the context of those stories and help each other understand.

HUYEN: Today Jason tells us about his new Meta smartglasses that just came out!

I’m Jason Howell,

I’m Huyen Tue Dao

JASON: Let’s start with what you need to know with the big story.

BIG STORY

Oakley HSTN Limited Edition Impressions

JASON: Meta's latest wearable to hit people's faces is a collaboration with Oakley that is priced at $500, at least for now. The Oakley Meta HSTN Limited Edition glasses are an alternative option for people who might have considered the Meta Raybans that came before them. I've been incredibly curious to check out Meta's wearable first hand, so I went ahead and pulled the trigger on the Oakleys which were delivered to my house yesterday.

Currently, only the more expensive limited edition model is shipping, while a less expensive $400 model will be made available sometime soon. These lenses are impossible to miss, with a bright and sporty frame along with impressive gold hued Prizm 24 polarized lenses. If all you want is a pair of sunglasses, though, these aren't for you.

These Meta HSTNs have two open-ear Bluetooth speakers embedded in the frame, a 5 microphone array for voice commands and phone calls, and a 12MP ultrawide camera with 100 degree field of view for UHD photos and videos. The camera is locked into a vertical orientation, though not nearly as stretched as you might find on a smartphone.

They advertise around 8 hours of battery life on a full charge and include a high quality charging case that offers around 48 total hours with a fully charged case.

Yes, there's Meta AI on board which means you can use the glasses to interact with the world for things like identifying what the camera is looking at, sharing information on a topic, and translating conversations in real time.

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JASON: There’s more we need to know today, let’s get to the briefs.

BRIEFS

Google’s CEO says ‘AI is positively impacting every part of the business’
Google Photos adding free photo-to-video, Remix, and Create tab
Google acknowledges Assistant issues with Home, teases ‘major improvements’ coming

HUYEN: How about a quick Google roundup, starting with a quick earnings update: Google reported a 14 percent increase over last year with $96.4 billion in revenue. Google is touting its Overviews, AI Mode, and Gemini as seeing huge adoption worldwide and plans to boost its investments into data centers to keep up with demand.

Google also admits that its smart home Assistant service has become unreliable, particularly as Gemini begins to move in where Assistant once lived. They acknowledge that they are listening to user feedback about inconsistencies with Google Home devices and will deliver major updates later this fall that should address those concerns.

Finally, Google Photos will see a new round of updates that includes bringing Veo 2 to the service. This will let users take any still image in the library and turn it into a six second animated clip. Users can select between "subtle movements" or "I'm feeling lucky" and processing could take around one minute to complete. There will be a limit to the amount of animations allowed for users. Rollout begins today.

The Nintendo Switch 2 Is the Fastest-Selling Gaming Hardware in U.S. History
JASON: It turns out, the Nintendo Switch 2 is kind of a big deal as a new report for Circana shares said that it sold 1.6 million units in the US during its first month of sales. That's enough to anoint it the fastest selling game console of all time. The PlayStation 4 had set the record prior to this with 1.1 million units sold in its first month. Unsurprisingly, Mario Kart World was the best-selling game of the month as well.

Amazon is launching a cheaper color Kindle
HUYEN: Amazon has a few new Kindle Colorsoft options to offer after launching the lineup last year. The first is a cheaper 16GB model for $249.99. For $30 more, the Signature Edition bumps the storage up to 32GB along with wireless charging and an auto-adjusting front light. Amazon is also offering a $269.99 Kids bundle that is the company's first color Kindle for kids with a 2 year protection guarantee and 12 months of Kids+ content.

Faster Qi2 charging is coming to iPhones and ‘major’ Android phones
JASON: The Wireless Power Consortium announced a faster Qi2 25W wireless charging protocol that is set to hit iPhones initially as one might expect. In good news for Android users, that support is finally coming to "major Android smartphones" for the first time. This raises the previous charging limit of 15W considerably. Specific models were not listed in the announcement.

Starlink-powered ‘T-Satellite’ service is now live on T-Mobile
HUYEN: T-Mobile has launched nationwide satellite texting and location sharing, all powered by Starlink, for its customers as well as those not on the network. The basic $10 per month service works on more than 60 phone models once they leave standard cell phone range. Sometime in the future, support for voice, app data, and image sharing is expected to rollout along with plans to cover global roaming.

Snapchat will notify your friends when you’ve made it home safe
JASON: Snapchat has introduced a new location sharing feature called Home Safe that will automatically notify friends when a user arrives home. The feature shuts off once the destination is reached and the message is sent. Users will need to set up their home location in the Snap Map in order to take advantage of the new feature.

Brave blocks Windows Recall from screenshotting your browsing activity
HUYEN: Brave browser now blocks Microsoft Windows Recall from taking screenshots of browser windows by default. The company announced in a blog post that the move is meant to keep user browsing activity from "accidentally ending up in a persistent database." The change is available in nightly builds and is on deck to roll out to stable releases in the upcoming weeks.

PROMO

JASON: If you have feedback about anything that gets brought up on the show… Get in touch with us on the socials. @DTNSshow on X, Instagram, Threads!, Blue Sky and Mastodon (mstdn.social). For Tik Tok and YouTube you can find us at Daily Tech News Show.

HELPING EACH OTHER UNDERSTAND

JASON: We end every episode of DTNS with some shared wisdom. Today Andrew from Colorado is helping us understand.

HUYEN: Regarding the story Tuesday about Replit’s model deleting a code database, Andrew writes:

I ran across the vibe coding mishap story on LinkedIn, and my immediate thought was "that agent's privileges were way too elevated!"

When I was head of cloud platform on a large federal project, I was never given full admin privileges to our cloud accounts, despite being one of the primary fixers when things when wrong. Changes to the system were validated programmatically and reviewed by another person. Those validated changes were then made by a tool with the right privileges.

Once a system goes into production, some concept of least privilege should be enforced, and will help prevent these issues. And even if you're vibe coding, you can get your AI helper to build that security infrastructure for you.

JASON: What are you thinking about? Got some insight into a story? Share it with us feedback@dailytechnewsshow.com

JASON: Thanks to Andrew for contributing to today’s show. And thank YOU for being along for Daily Tech News Show. You can keep us in business by becoming a patron, at Patreon.com/dtns