News

Tamper With The Recording LED & Meta’s Glasses Kill Camera

Modders have turned removing the recording light into a paid service. Meta is now banning them and threatening lawsuits — even off its own platforms.

Published

4 months ago

July 9, 2026

Nour Nasir

tamper with the recording led and meta's glasses kill camera

Every pair of Meta’s smart glasses carries a white light called the capture LED. It blinks briefly when the wearer takes a photo and keeps blinking for as long as they record, and it has no off switch — the point is that everyone nearby knows a camera is running. The trouble is that modders worked out how to defeat it, and some turned removing the LED into a paid service.

Meta is now pushing back on both fronts. In a recently published FAQ addressing the backlash against its devices, the company said its glasses automatically disable the camera when they detect the capture LED has been covered — a safeguard in place since the second generation of the hardware. The camera stays locked until the system detects the LED is unobstructed again.

Taping over the LED, though, was only the beginning. Meta admitted it has seen people “go beyond using tape to sophisticated efforts to modify or destroy the capture LED”. Its answer is a software update that disables the camera entirely if the system detects the LED has been physically tampered with or destroyed. Meta confirmed to Engadget that the update is mandatory and is currently rolling out.

Also Read: OpenAI Cleared To Launch GPT-5.6 Publicly After Government Review

The company is also going after the businesses. Meta said it has been removing ads, posts, and Marketplace listings promoting LED-tampering services, and vowed to ban the accounts behind them — and to take legal action against those advertising such services, even when the ads appear off Meta’s own platforms.

The moves follow a rough stretch for the product line. The launch of Meta’s latest AI glasses intensified public anger over the devices, with critics raising concerns about privacy in general and about the glasses being used for all manner of unsavory purposes. The worries have been sharpened by the knowledge that the recording indicator could be switched off.

News

Abu Dhabi’s Robot Kitchen Is Serving Up Biryani, Not Burgers

Circus SE wants to put a tiny automated factory inside the buildings where Gulf residents live and work, bypassing part of last-mile delivery.

Published

6 days ago

October 20, 2026

Nour Nasir

abu dhabi's robot kitchen is serving up biryani not burgers

Circus SE

The most telling thing about a new autonomous kitchen now running in Abu Dhabi’s Marina Square is what it won’t cook:

“We don’t do fast food,” says Nikolas Bullwinkel, Founder and CEO of Circus SE. “We’ve actively decided not to build a machine that can only do burgers”.

Instead, the CA-1 system is built around pot-based cooking: curries, pastas, soups and rice dishes. After experimenting with highly personalized recipes, Circus deliberately leaned back toward recognizable food. “We’re going with a chicken biryani because you know it,” Bullwinkel says of the AED 40 dish.

circus se ca-1 robot system

The Germany-based robotics and food technology company operates across eight countries, and Abu Dhabi is its first deployment outside Europe. More locations are expected there and in Dubai.

In Germany, its units can be placed in supermarkets, gas stations, airports and hospitals. In the Gulf, Bullwinkel wants them inside residential and office buildings, replacing some of the complexity of last-mile delivery. “We’re basically bringing a very tiny factory a few square meters into your building,” he says. Catering company Royal Prestige supplies the ingredients and knowledge of local tastes.

The CA-1 manages up to 36 refrigerated ingredient silos alongside automated induction cooking, robotic plating and a self-cleaning dishwasher. Two robotic arms move ingredients through the system with minimal human intervention. It can produce up to 120 hot meals an hour, and a meal such as rice and curry can take around three to four minutes.

Also Read: Ooredoo Qatar’s 5G+ Network Is Built For Machines As Much As People

Five cameras and multiple sensors monitor heat, temperature and consistency, an attempt to approximate what a chef perceives. “You can hear something gets burned, you can smell it, you can see it at some point,” Bullwinkel says. CircusOS, the company’s operating system, adjusts recipes in real time.

You might think of the platform as a threat to kitchen staff, but Bullwinkel frames Circus as a way for chefs to develop recipes and distribute them at scale. With that being said, rising labor costs and shortages are also part of his case for automation.