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.

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

NEOPAY Wants To Follow Merchants Across Channels And Borders

A controlling 65% stake in noon payments would give NEOPAY access to marketplace sellers, online merchants and the payment flows they generate.

Published

1 day ago

October 5, 2026

Nour Nasir

neopay wants to follow merchants across channels and borders

It’s been a long time since checkouts were single defined places. A merchant might take payments at a physical register, on its own website and through an online marketplace, sometimes in more than one country. NEOPAY wants to follow those transactions wherever they happen.

The UAE payments company has entered into an agreement to acquire a 65% controlling stake in noon payments. NEOPAY already runs the acquiring infrastructure that lets merchants accept card payments, along with omnichannel acceptance and a merchant services platform. This new deal would add noon payments’ embedded payments platform, e-commerce gateway and merchant network across the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Egypt. That would considerably expand both NEOPAY’s digital commerce capabilities and its regional reach.

For merchants, the attraction is a single provider for online and in-store payments, plus faster settlements, data and analytics, and value-added financial services.

“Payments should be simple, reliable, and built for the markets they serve,” said Faraz Khalid, CEO of noon. His counterpart at NEOPAY, Vibhor Mundhada, added: “We have built a strong payments business in the UAE, and our ambition is now to take that capability across the region”. The acquisition, Mundhada added, would “expand our footprint into Saudi Arabia and Egypt” while reinforcing NEOPAY’s position at home.

Also Read: In Kuwait, Your Surgeon Might Be Operating From Another Country

NEOPAY is also keen to point out potential payment volume increases. The company says noon payments’ integrations with marketplace sellers and online merchants create high transaction density in some of the region’s fastest-growing digital commerce segments. It also believes control of the business would give it access to those merchant relationships and payment flows, and speed up the rollout of alternative payment methods and installment options.

The combined roadmap targets faster merchant onboarding, better payment performance, tighter fraud controls and embedded financial services. The deal could also strengthen cross-border payments and settlement along key regional commerce corridors.