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This week, Oura dropped their redesigned app, including a new feature showing users an overview of stress management. The company is also working with the US FDA on a blood pressure study. I always say my spirit animal is a shaking Chihuahua. I’m not sure if I really need my jewelry to tell me I’m stressed, but I’ve always been interested in the intersection of tech, wearables, and fashion.

Back in 2020, I interviewed the creator of Data but Make It Fashion for an old Braun & Brains podcast episode and I think my interest in wearables started with my dad’s calculator watch when I was a kid. It got more intense with the introduction of Tamagotchi key chains and step trackers they handed out in middle school. I wore an Oura ring until the battery stopped holding, then realized I was checking it at near-OCD levels. Now I mostly go device-free, except for my Garmin when I run.

Last year, Jules Terpak invited me to test the Apple headset. I got incredibly motion sick and couldn’t leave her apartment for a bit after taking them off.

A few weeks ago, I tried on Meta’s Ray-Ban glasses. I could see myself wearing the Oakley version on runs just to skip using GPS on my phone or headphones, which sometimes confuses me. For now, I just watch from the sidelines as new devices drop until I find a use case that makes me go “how did I ever live without this.” Hasn’t happened yet!

Somewhere in the archives of early internet optimism, I found a pictures from startup that I actually thought was initially a movie set or something. The company was called Charmed Technology.

Spun out of the MIT Media Lab, Charmed Technology’s mission was to merge fashion and the internet by embedding tech into accessories. They were going for a “wearable Internet” vibe, where people could access the web anywhere through glasses, necklaces, or lapel pins.

Early products included the Charm Badge™, an electronic business card that transmitted data via infrared, and the CharmIT™, a fully functional wearable computer.

Partnering with massive companies like Motorola, Intel, and Lucent, as well as media and research institutions like Red Herring, CTIA, and the University of Rochester, Charmed really built itself to be a pioneer in ubiquitous computing.

Charmed was co-founded by Katrina Barillova, a former Czech intelligence agent-turned-technologist, and Alex Lightman, an MIT-trained entrepreneur in satellite communications, with contributions from Thad Starner, the wearable computing pioneer behind Google Glass.

Barillova was only about 27 when Charmed launched in the late 1990s. (I am also 27 and have not been a spy nor tech fashion icon. Guess I have some work to do.) She went from hiding transmitters in her clothes as part of the Czech intelligence service to embedding processors in jewelry and jackets. The line between spy gear and wearable tech was thinner than most people realized, except for the creators of Spy Kids. They weren’t taken very seriously.

Lightman brought the commercial vision to the team. Before Charmed, he worked in telecom and satellite communications, then went on to write Brave New Unwired World (2002), a book that predicted the rise of always-on wireless internet. When checking out his LinkedIn, I saw he produced more than 100 “Brave New Unwired World” fashion shows and a few cyberfashion events at SIGGRAPH, generating over $100M in publicity. It’s wild to think about now, but in the late ’90s he was sending models down the runway wearing connected devices before most people even had Wi-Fi. Imagine if we saw a runway model in an Apple Watch today. The horror.

Thad Starner saw the future strapped to his own body. Long before wearables were mainstream, he walked around Georgia Tech with a computer on his belt and a small display in front of his eye, which he has been doing since 1993. At MIT’s Media Lab, he helped pioneer wearable tech through projects like head-mounted displays, one-handed keyboards, and pocket-sized computers with constant internet access. His setup, called Lizzy, used a Private Eye display, a Twiddler keyboard, and a hip-mounted PC that let him take notes and browse the web in real time.

In the 2010s, Starner joined Google as a technical lead on Project Glass, shaping how people could integrate head-mounted displays into daily life. Guided by his idea of “augmented cognition,” he focused on tech that amplifies human intelligence rather than replacing it. His work built the bridge from hip-mounted PCs to the smartwatches and AR glasses we use today.

We got the future that Charmed wanted, the internet is woven into everything, but somewhere between hip-mounted PCs and Oura Rings, wearables lost their cool, WOW factor. We’re asking devices to gather data to share with us about things we don’t even really need to know. I’m still waiting for wearables to give me that “how did I ever live without this” moment. Until then, I’ll keep scrolling through the internet archive to see what companies like Charmed thought the world was going to look like in the future.

Tech News

The Separation of Church, Celebrity, and AI

• More than 700 public figures, including Prince Harry and Meghan, Steve Wozniak, and Yuval Noah Harari, signed a letter calling for a global pause on developing superintelligent AI until it is proven safe. They argue that tech companies are racing ahead without oversight, even though most Americans support slowing down. (Axios)

• Elder Gerrit W. Gong of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints urged AI developers at the Vatican to build technology with a moral compass. He announced a collaboration between BYU, Notre Dame, Baylor, and Yeshiva to create a tool that tests how well AI represents religion. (Deseret News)

Community Platforms

• Wikipedia traffic is dropping as users get answers from chatbots that quietly rely on its content. The site saves on hosting costs but loses visibility and contributors, a tradeoff between reach and recognition. (CNET)

• Reddit is suing Perplexity AI and others for scraping posts without permission, as platforms fight for ownership of the content that powers AI. Still, some collaborations work. Reddit’s Gemini-powered Answers tool summarizes threads in five new languages, showing that AI can strengthen communities when used thoughtfully. (Reuters)

Social Media on Trial

• A US judge ordered Mark Zuckerberg, Evan Spiegel, and Adam Mosseri to testify in the first major trial on child safety and social media, set for January 2026. (CNBC)

• Meta says new Instagram tools will give parents more control over AI conversations. This feels late to the game. (Mashable)

• The Wall Street Journal reported that parents are suing OpenAI after their son discussed suicide methods with ChatGPT and later died. (Wall Street Journal)

Hardware & Headsets

• Samsung revealed the Galaxy XR, its first mixed reality headset, priced at $1,799. It includes dual 4K displays, a Snapdragon XR2+ Gen 2 chip, and Gemini Live voice controls. Reviewers say it feels lighter and more comfortable than Apple’s $3,499 Vision Pro. Even though it’s like half the price of the Apple headset, I don’t think people are looking to strap a computer to their face anytime soon. (Samsung)

Big News You Probably Saw

• OpenAI launched ChatGPT Atlas, a web browser built around AI automation and agent-based browsing. Atlas can perform online tasks, remember context, and blend search with assistance. It is available now on macOS, with Windows and mobile versions coming soon. So far, people don’t like it. (ChatGPT)

• Amazon Web Services suffered a major outage Monday that took down websites, apps, and smart devices like Ring. A DNS error caused parts of the internet to go dark. Amazon restored service within hours, but full recovery took most of the day and caused billions in estimated losses. Mind you, this outage came months after AWS laid off hundreds of engineers while automating more of its systems with AI. (NBC)

  

  Source: @arvidkahl on X