10 Things in Tech: Hello, Apple Vision Pro

Hello, readers. Lara O'Reilly, a senior correspondent on the advertising team in London, here.

The Nerd Helmet, as coined by The Wall Street Journal's Joanna Stern, has arrived! Apple on Monday unveiled its first hardware release in almost a decade: The $3,499 Vision Pro mixed-reality headset.

The launch sees Apple go head-to-head — or should I say headset-to-headset — with Meta. But while Meta has aimed to make VR/AR affordable for the masses, with limited success, Apple is squarely aiming the Vision Pro at early adopters and developers.

Let's get you up to speed with all you need to know from Apple's Worldwide Developer Conference and the rest of today's tech news.

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1. Say hello to the Vision Pro. The headset, which is set to go on sale early next year, represents Apple's future vision of personal computing. It's packed with cool features — though Apple CEO Tim Cook and other executives seemingly didn't want to dent the Vision Pro's street cred by donning the device themselves.

• The headset uses 12 cameras, five sensors, and six microphones to track a user's hand movements. It also uses high-speed cameras and a ring of LEDs that project light patterns onto a user's eyes to understand where they're looking at all times.
• The device lets you see your surroundings with breakthrough "EyeSight" tech. EyeSight alerts the user to the presence of other people — and when someone approaches a Vision Pro wearer, the headset brings them into the user's field of vision, while at the same time displaying a digital likeness of the user's eyes.
• Disney CEO Bob Iger hopped onto the WWDC stage to showcase how the company will bring entertainment content to the device. The Vision Pro will let you watch movies and TV on a massive virtual screen in environments like space, or drop you right into the action like in an underwater tour, and could change the way we watch sports by letting users control the camera.

Catch up with everything we know about Apple's latest hardware announcements here.

In other news:

2. An inmate handbook details life inside the minimum-security prison where former Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes is serving her 11-year sentence. It involves 6 a.m. wake-up calls and phone access is limited to about 10 minutes per day. Check out the full Bureau of Prisons inmate admission and orientation handbook.

3. Linda Yaccarino began her first day as Twitter CEO this week. Ahead of her arrival, Elon Musk had instructed engineers to revamp Twitter's defunct livestreaming platform Periscope as he zeroes in on building live video, sources say. Read more.

4. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is privately attempting to reassure developers using the company's tech that it won't compete with them beyond ChatGPT. A blogpost was published about a closed-door meeting Altman held with developers and founders. The post was taken down but an archived version revealed Altman told them OpenAI won't release more products beyond ChatGPT, and that he's concerned about a chip shortage.

5. Venture capital firm Sequoia is pulling out all the stops to dominate in AI. Insiders say Sequoia rolled out public AI office hours and it has hosted glitzy summits to woo founders as it makes AI a top priority. Find out how Sequoia is looking to cement its position in the white-hot AI space.

6. The US Securities and Exchange Commission is suing Binance and its CEO, Changpeng Zhao. The lawsuit accuses the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange of breaking US securities rules and operating an illegal exchange. Binance said it intends to defend its platform "vigorously." Read more.

7. Brokerage firm Bernstein just released one of its famous "blackbook" research reports. This one outlines how to invest in AI and how the market is likely to develop. Here are some highlights from the 300+ page report.

8. Hollywood's next big fight is over how actors will get paid for work performed by their AI "digital doubles." AI has been a sticking point in the current round of contract negotiations between the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers — which represents Hollywood entertainment companies — and the directors' and writers' guilds. With the rise of convincing AI-generated deepfakes, the situation for actors is even more fraught.

Odds and ends:

9. Want to nab a tech job on Wall Street? Recruiters, tech executives, and Wall Street insiders dished on the most important coding languages to learn. Here are 8 programming languages that could give you a leg up.

10. Apple is making improvements to AutoCorrect. "In those moments where you just wanna type a ducking word, well, the keyboard will learn it too," said Apple software boss Craig Federghi at Apple's WWDC event on Monday. About ducking time.

Curated by Lara O'Reilly in London. (Feedback or tips? Email [email protected] or tweet @larakiara.) Edited by Jack Sommers in London.