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

3 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.

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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

For etisalat, More Bandwidth Is A Matter Of Digital Sovereignty

The etisalat group plans to expand its international capacity from 20 Tbps to more than 500 Tbps by 2030, with new routes designed for speed and resilience.

Published

2 days ago

October 6, 2026

Nour Nasir

for etisalat, more bandwidth is a matter of digital sovereignty

Emirates News Agency

By 2030, etisalat group plans to lift its international connectivity capacity to more than 500 terabits per second (Tbps), more than 25 times the 20 Tbps it has today. The group presented the expansion as preparation for rising AI demand and an important move for the UAE’s digital sovereignty.

His Highness Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Vice President, Deputy Prime Minister and Chairman of the Presidential Court, witnessed the launch of the project, which covers the UAE and international markets. Sheikh Mansour is also Chairman of the Emirates Investment Authority, etisalat group’s main shareholder.

He emphasized the role of coordinated national efforts in advancing the UAE’s AI and digital economy ambitions. “AI is a central pillar in our development journey moving forward,” he said, adding that developing the country’s digital capabilities would empower every institution, public and private, to build and innovate with AI “at the scale the coming decade will demand”.

“This project reflects our conviction that the UAE should not simply adopt AI, but govern it and build with it,” said H.E Jassem Mohamed Bu Ataba Alzaabi, Chairman of etisalat group. “That requires digital infrastructure at a scale that would prepare us for the future”. He cast greater international connectivity as a strategic answer to the challenges of processing and moving data globally.

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Beyond raw bandwidth, the expansion will introduce new connectivity routes intended to improve reliability and efficiency, and Alzaabi tied them directly to the sovereignty goal. “Delivered through diversified routes and low-latency design, the project is set to keep the country’s connection to the global digital economy fast, direct and resilient, while ensuring the UAE’s digital sovereignty,” he said.

He also linked the plan to the group’s 50-year commitment to building infrastructure for the nation. The announcement didn’t mention what the expansion will cost. Nor did it name the new routes or say who will build them, the details that would show what digital sovereignty means in practice.