Twitter has finally shut off its free API and, predictably, it’s breaking a lot of apps and websites. The company had previously said it would cut off access in early February, but later delayed the move without providing an updated timeline.

But, after announcing its new paid API tiers last week, the company seems to have started cutting off the thousands of developers relying on its free developer tools. Over the last couple days, a number of app makers and other services have reported that the Twitter API is no longer functioning. Mashable reported the shutoff seems to have started Tuesday morning, though many developers are still trying to understand what’s happening as Twitter doesn’t seem to have communicated with most developers about the changes.

The ending of Twitter’s free API comes after the company abruptly changed its rules to ban third-party Twitter clients as part of a larger shakeup of its developer strategy. But, as we’ve previously reported, third-party clients were only a small fraction of the developers, researchers, bot makers and others who relied on Twitter’s APIs.

For example, apps and websites that used Twitter’s API to enable sharing of content to and from Twitter are now seeing that functionality break. WordPress reported Tuesday that it was no longer able to access the API, rendering its websites unable to automatically share posts to Twitter. (The issue has since been fixed, according to the company.)

Likewise, Echobox, a service that allows publishers to share content on Twitter, said on Wednesday it was also disconnected from the Twitter API “without warning.” The company said it found a workaround, but hadn’t heard from Twitter. News reading app Flipboard, which recently began shifting its focus to Mastodon, also warned that anyone who used Flipboard to view Twitter feeds would soon see the feature disabled.

Many of Twitter’s bot developers are also impacted. The maker of “Cheap Bots Done Quick,” which allows people to create bots for Twitter, reported receiving a notice that they were cut off from the API. Twitter has said that its new “basic” tier is meant to provide a pathway to allow bots to continue, but many developers have said the monthly limit of 1,500 tweets is too constrained.

Newsletter platform Substack is also having issues using embedded tweets, though it’s unclear if this is related to the API shutdown or the company recently announcing a potential Twitter competitor. (Embeds seem to be functioning normally on other websites, including this one.)

All of these issues are further complicated by the fact that Twitter seems to have communicated very little with any of its developers about these changes or what they mean. Most of the employees who worked in developer relations were cut during the company’s mass layoffs. And the company’s developer forums are filled with posts from confused developers looking for answers. The company no longer has a communications team, and its press email auto-responds with a poop emoji.

As Mashablepoints out, the shutoff has even affected developers who are willing to pay for Twitter’s API, even though pricing for higher-level enterprise tiers is still unclear. “When Twitter announced these new tiers last week, we immediately sought to sign up for the Enterprise tier,” Echobox wrote in a blog post on Wednesday. “ We still have had no response from Twitter’s enterprise sales team and our access to the API was cut off without notice yesterday.”

News app Tweet Shelf said its API access had also been suspended despite applying for Enterprise API access. So did TweetDeleter, a service for automatically deleting tweets, and Tweet Archivist an analytics tool. 

But it’s still unclear how many developers will be able to continue using Twitter’s API in some form. The free and $100/month “basic” tier are extremely limited compared to what was previously offered for free. And, while Twitter hasn’t revealed exactly how much the “enterprise” level will cost, many are expecting it to be prohibitively expensive – rumors have suggested it could cost $40,000 a month or more.

Some developers aren’t even waiting to find out the pricing details. The developer of Social Bearing, an analytics service used by researchers, said there was no way the service could continue to run. “I wish those of you left at Twitter and fellow devs the best of luck,” they tweeted.

When Elon Musk first proposed taking over Twitter, one the first changes he claimed he'd make would be “open-sourcing” Twitter’s algorithm. Last week, Twitter finally followed through on that promise, publishing the underlying code for the site’s "For You" recommendations on GitHub.

Quickly, Twitter sleuths began sifting through the code to see what they could dig up. It didn’t take long for one eyebrow-raising finding: that Musk’s tweets have their own category (along with Democrats, Republicans and “power users”). Twitter engineers hastily explained that this was for “stat tracking purposes,” which has since been confirmed by other analyses. And though Twitter removed that section of code from GitHub within hours of its publishing, it’s still fueled speculation that Twitter’s engineers pay special attention to their boss’ engagement and have taken steps to artificially boost his tweets.

But there have been few other major revelations about the contents of the code or how Twitter’s algorithm works since. And anyone hoping this public code would produce new insights into the inner workings of Twitter will likely be disappointed. That’s because the code Twitter released omitted important details about how “the algorithm” actually works, according to engineers who have studied it.

The code Twitter shared was a “highly redacted” version of Twitter’s algorithm, according to Sol Messing, associate professor at NYU’s Center for Social Media and Politics and former Twitter employee. For one, it didn't include every system that plays a role in Twitter’s recommendations.

Twitter said it was withholding code dealing with ads, as well as trust and safety systems in an effort to prevent bad actors from gaming it. The company also opted to withhold the underlying models used to train its algorithm, explaining in a blog post last week that this was to “to ensure that user safety and privacy would be protected.” That decision is even more consequential, according to Messing. “The model that drives the most important part of the algorithm has not been open-sourced,” he tells me. “So the most important part of the algorithm is still inscrutable.”

Musk’s original motivation to make the algorithm open source seemed to stem from his belief that Twitter had used the algorithm to suppress free speech. “One of the things that I believe Twitter should do is open source the algorithm and make any changes to people's tweets — if they're emphasized or de-emphasized —that action should be made apparent,” Musk said last April in an appearance at TED shortly after he confirmed his takeover bid. “So anyone can see that action has been taken, so there's no sort of behind-the-scenes manipulation, either algorithmically or manually.”

But none of the code Twitter released tells us much about potential bias or the kind of “behind-the-scenes manipulation” Musk said he wanted to reveal. “It has the flavor of transparency,” Messing says. “But it doesn’t really give insight into what the algorithm is doing. It doesn't really give insight into why someone's tweets may be down-ranked and why others might be up-ranked.”

Messing also points out that Twitter’s recent API changes have essentially cut off the vast majority of researchers from accessing a meaningful amount of Twitter data. Without proper API access, researchers are unable to conduct their own audits, which would be able to provide new details about how the algorithm works. “So at the same time Twitter is releasing this code, it’s made it incredibly difficult for research to audit this code,” he wrote in his own analysis.

Alex Hanna, director of research at the Distributed AI Research Institute (DAIR) also raised the importance of audits when we talked last year, shortly after Musk first discussed plans to “open source” Twitter’s algorithm. Like Messing, she was skeptical that simply releasing code on GitHub would meaningfully increase transparency into how Twitter works.

"If you're actually interested in public oversight on something like a Twitter algorithm, then you would actually need multiple methods for oversight to happen” Hanna said.

There is one aspect of Twitter’s algorithm that the GitHub code does shed some new light on, though. Messing points to a file unearthed by data scientist Jeff Allen, which reveals a kind of “formula” for how different types of engagement are given priority by the algorithm. “If we take that at face value, a fav (twitter like) is worth half a retweet,” Messing writes. “A reply is worth 27 retweets, and a reply with a response from a tweet’s author is worth a whopping 75 retweets.”

While that’s somewhat revealing, it’s, once again, an incomplete picture of what’s actually happening. “It doesn't mean that much without the actual data,” Messing says. “And Musk just made data so insanely expensive for academics to get. If they want to actually study this now, you basically have to get a giant, massive grants — half a million dollars a year — to get a meaningful amount of data to study what's happening.”

Utah recently passed two laws that would drastically change how teens in the state are able to use social media. The new laws will impose strict rules for how companies handle teenagers’ accounts, including provisions requiring parental consent, and mandates for in-app parental controls and curfew features.

But among the most controversial aspects of the law is age verification. It requires companies like Snap, Meta and TikTok to confirm the ages of their youngest users in order to enforce the other age-based restrictions. Under the rules, which are set to take effect next March, large platforms will no longer be able to simply allow teens to enter their own birthday at sign-up. Instead, they would need to go through some other process, like providing a copy of an I.D, before they could access their accounts.

While Utah is the first state to enact such a law, it’s unlikely to be the last. Arkansas, Ohio, Connecticut and Minnesota are all considering social media laws with either explicit age verification requirements or other age-based restrictions. At the federal level, Senator Josh Hawley has proposed a bill that would prohibit teenagers under 16 from using social media entirely, and require social media companies to independently verify the ages of their users. Even the US Surgeon General has suggested that 13 may be “too young” for teens to use social media.

The proposed laws are part of broader reckoning around how social media is impacting its youngest users. For years, lawmakers, armed with teenage finstas and incriminating research, have made youth safety a central part of their effort to regulate Big Tech. Along the way, they’ve also proposed laws that would rein in algorithms, make it more difficult to post and limit apps’ more “addictive” features.

But the latest crop of laws have instead zeroed in on parental consent and age-based restrictions, rather than addressing structural issues like data privacy. Irene Ly, policy counsel for Common Sense Media, a nonprofit that advocates for child safety online, says the shift is happening in part because lawmakers have been unable to pass comprehensive privacy bills.

“Privacy legislation seems to have a lot more sticking points,” she tells Engadget. “It's hard to find a compromise on all the facets of regulating tech.” But lawmakers have been able to find more broad support — at least at the state level — for age-based restrictions and parental consent requirements, particularly in states that have passed other laws emphasizing “giving rights to the parents.”

But experts warn that focusing on age-based restrictions won’t address the core safety issues lawmakers say they want to solve. And age verification measures, like those in Utah, pose a significant threat to the privacy of all social media users, not just teens.

Privacy advocates, like the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), say that there’s no way to enforce age verification requirements without requiring that all users submit to the checks. “It's not just the privacy of young people that's at stake, it's everyone,” Jason Kelley, associate director of digital strategy for the EFF, tells Engadget, noting that a previous attempt to require age verification was struck down by the Supreme Court more than a decade ago. ”Confirming that everyone is the age they say they are is not possible without confirming every single person's age.”

For example, Utah’s law states “the social media company shall deny access to the account” for any “Utah account holder fails to meet the verification requirements.” That means even adult social media users could face being locked out of their accounts if they fail to provide a copy of an ID or submit to another kind of age check.

Figuring out how to apply these laws only in specific states would also be problematic, according to industry groups. “Although the proposed legislation purports to apply only to Utah residents, platforms cannot know which users are Utah residents without first verifying their identity,” Ari Cohn, free speech counsel for TechFreedom, a think tank that’s received funding from Meta and Google, said in a statement. “This legislation would be a nationwide mandate that Utah is not permitted to impose.”

Even figuring out how to verify users’ ages could prove tricky. Many minors don’t have a driver’s license or government-issued ID. Instagram has tested an AI face-scanning tool that claims to be able to accurately estimate users’ ages based on their facial features (experts have raised doubts about the accuracy and ethical implications of using these tools at scale). But Kelley, of the EFF, says that any form of age verification exposes users to additional data privacy risks.

“It's so easy to find examples of these companies taking advantage of data that they explained was going to be collected for one purpose and using it for another,” Kelley says. For example, it wasn't that long ago that Meta and Twitter both admitted to using phone numbers originally collected for two-factor authentication for targeted advertising. Kelley says there could be an even greater risk of something similar happening with any age verification system. “We have no way of knowing whether they're doing that with identity verification information. Whether that's a selfie, a shared driver's license, a call through an API to a credit company — we just don't know.”

Common Sense Media has raised similar concerns. Ly says that laws addressing more fundamental aspects of social media platforms would be more effective than attempting to lock out teens of a certain age.

“If you can implement some key changes to these companies, like limiting how much data they're collecting and what they're using it for, and then making changes to how their platform is designed, that will create a healthier experience,” she said. “It wouldn't necessitate prohibiting teens from being on the platform altogether.”

Nearly a year after he first floated the idea of making Twitter’s recommendation algorithm public, the company has posted the source code for its recommendation algorithm on GitHub. In a Twitter Space discussing the move, Elon Musk said he hoped users would be able to find potential “issues” in the code and help make it better.

“Our initial release of the so-called algorithm is going to be quite embarrassing and people are gonna find a lot of mistakes but we're going to fix them very quickly,” Musk said.

Notably, the code released Friday only deals with how tweets are shown in Twitter's "For You" feed. The company didn't release the underlying code for its search algorithm or how content is displayed on other parts of Twitter, though Musk said the company would "for sure" open-source the search algorithm as well.

In a blog post outlining how Twitter’s recommendations work, the company explained the various steps of the algorithm, including ranking and filtering. But Twitter users have already been finding interesting details in the code itself. For example, Jane Manchun Wong noted that “Twitter’s algorithm specifically labels whether the Tweet author is Elon Musk.” That may offer yet another explanation for why Musk’s tweets appear so often. Wong also noted that the algorithm has labels indicating whether the tweet author is a “power user” as well as whether they are a Republican or Democrat.

When asked about that aspect of the algorithm in the Twitter Space, Musk said “I agree that shouldn’t be there … it definitely shouldn't be dividing people into Republicans and Democrats, that makes no sense.” A Twitter engineer followed up saying “it’s actually not too important.”

Developing...

Jack Dorsey’s Twitter alternative Bluesky is still invite-only, but its leaders are sharing more about their vision for the open-source platform. In a new blog post, CEO Jay Graber said that Bluesky intends to create a “marketplace of algorithms” that will allow users to control how content is filtered and sorted.

“For developers, an open marketplace of algorithms will provide the freedom to experiment with and publish algorithms that anyone can use,” Graber wrote. “For users, the ability to customize their feed will give them back control of their most valuable resource: their attention.”

Bluesky was originally conceived as a Twitter-backed side project to create a new, decentralized standard for social media platforms. But it officially broke off from Twitter in 2021, and has since joined the ranks of upstart Twitter clones that have sprung up following Elon Musk’s takeover of the company,

Like much of Bluesky, the idea of an algorithmic marketplace seems to be in a relatively early stage. Graber said Bluesky is currently working on feed APIs for developers, as well as a ‘feed selection system” that will eventually allow users to browse third-party feeds they can integrate into their timelines.

Of note, Dorsey has been a longtime proponent of “algorithmic choice” and even raised the idea of an algorithm marketplace while he was still running Twitter. In his post, Graber said that allowing users to choose their own algorithm, including a chronological feed, could address “backlash against the perceived algorithmic manipulation of people’s timelines.”

With Elon Musk set to pull verification from thousands of users who were verified under the company’s previous leadership, one Twitter alternative is hoping to lure some of those “legacy” checkmarks to its platform. T2, an invite-only service led by two former Twitter employees, says it will allow users to carry over their “legacy” Twitter verification to its site

T2 is part of a growing crop of Twitter alternatives that have sprung up in the wake of Musk’s takeover. The platform is smaller than some more established rivals, like Mastodon, but is intent on recreating the “public square” associated with the pre-Musk Twitter. In fact, founder Gabor Cselle has been pretty clear that he intends to create “a pretty straightforward copy of Twitter with some simplifications” rather than an entirely new experience.

So maybe it’s not surprising that the site now known as T2 — the company is eventually planning on taking a new name — is launching a “Get the Checkmark” feature that will rely on Twitter’s legacy verification program. With it, users can fill out a brief form to go through a fast-tracked verification process for T2. The feature will also work for those on T2’s waitlist.

T2

For now, users only have a couple days to take advantage of the program, since legacy verifications are set to disappear from Twitter on April 1st. But the company has a plan to offer verification via other means once Twitter’s legacy checks go away. (T2’s form-based verification won’t work for those who paid for the new, Twitter Blue-enabled check.)

Along with the new verification features, T2 is also announcing a couple other milestones. The company has hired a former Discord exec as its new CTO, and is launching a much-needed redesign that will look familiar to Twitter users.

As with all of the new Twitter rivals, T2 has a long way to go before it reaches anywhere close to the size of the platform it’s trying to emulate. But, as Mastodon founder CEO Eugen Rochko has pointed out, Twitter’s more influential users — like those with legacy verification — are incredibly valuable to any upstart platform. If T2 can snag more of those users, it could make it easier to recreate the public square they’re looking for.

Twitter has finally confirmed some of the details and pricing for the new version of its API. The company had previously delayed the changes after confirming that it was banning third-party clients as part of a larger shakeup of its developer features.

As expected, the company is maintaining a free tier with limited functionality, though it offers far less than its predecessor. Under the new free tier, which is aimed at bots and other “testing” purposes, accounts can post up to 1,500 tweets a month, but won’t be able to access any other featuires. That may offer a lifeline to some of Twitter’s famed bot accounts, but at about 50 tweets a day, may prove to be too limited for those that post more frequently.

At $100 a month, the new “basic” tier offers a bit more: developers can post up to 3,000 tweets a month at the user level and up to 50,000 a month at the app level. It also offers a read limit of 10,000 tweets a month, which, again, is far less than what was previously offered.

Twitter

Meanwhile, an enterprise tier is meant for businesses that need a higher level of access, though details for that tier are still murky. According to Twitter’s developer website, the enterprise tier will include “commercial-level access that meets your and your customer's specific needs” and other features. Businesses can apply for enterprise access, but the only pricing information Twitter has disclosed is that there will be "monthly subscription tiers." 

It’s also unclear what will happen to researchers and academics who currently rely on Twitter’s API for their work. In a series of tweets, the company said it was “looking at new ways to continue serving this community” but didn’t elaborate. Wired previously reported the company had told some organizations API access could run as much as $42,000 a month, but that plan doesn't seem to have materialized, at least not yet.

The new details also mean that a lot of services using Twitter’s older APIs could soon stop working altogether. The company confirmed that its existing APIs, used by a vast number of developers, researchers and other services, would be deprecated within the next 30 days. “We recommend that you migrate to the new tiers as soon as possible for a smooth transition,” the company said. Though it’s unclear just how many developers will be willing to pay for stripped down versions of the APIs.

We now know why Twitter’s algorithm seems to recommend some users’ tweets so often. Newsletter Platformer reports that the company has a secret VIP list of a few dozen accounts “it monitors and offers increased visibility” in its recommendation algorithm. The accounts include Elon Musk, as well as a handful of other prominent Twitter users.

The revelation comes as Musk has repeatedlypromised to make Twitter’s recommendation algorithms open source. He also recently stated that soon only paid subscribers to Twitter Blue would be eligible to have their tweets displayed in the algorithmic “For You” feed. It’s not clear if that change would also affect the VIP list of users who regularly get a boost in the feed. Some of the accounts on the list, like President Joe Biden and YouTuber Mr Beast, are currently verified but don’t pay for Twitter Blue. Twitter no longer has a communications team to respond to questions.

According to Platformer, the VIP list was “originally created to monitor the engagement received by Twitter power users” as the company has tried to allay suspicions that its “shadowbans” certain users to reduce their visibility on the platform. “Our ‘algorithm’ is overly complex & not fully understood internally,” Musk recently tweeted.

But the list, which reportedly is only 35 accounts in addition to Musk, is also telling about who Musk believes should benefit from Twitter’s algorithm. Platformer didn’t publish the entire list, which includes LeBron James, New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, venture capitalist Marc Andreesen, Tesla fan account @teslaownerssv and conservative personality Ben Shapiro. It also includes @catturd2, an account recently described by Rolling Stone as the “Sh-tposting King of MAGA Twitter.”

It’s also not the first time that a report has surfaced about how Musk has tweaked Twitter’s algorithm to boost his own tweets. Last month, Musk said the company was fixing an issue that caused users’ For You feeds to be overwhelmed with dozens of Musk tweets. Platformer later reported that Twitter employees had changed its algorithm to favor Musk after the CEO was mad that his Super Bowl tweet didn’t receive as much engagement as Biden’s. Musk reportedly fired an engineer who suggested the lack of engagement was due to declining interest in his tweets.

I’ve been excited about the prospect of augmented reality on ski goggles since Oakley first tried it more than a decade ago with its short-lived Airwave headset. Unfortunately, its foray into AR left a lot to be desired: the Airwave was comically large and required a wrist-worn controller. Plus, at around $600, they were prohibitively expensive for what felt like an experimental product.

But display tech has evolved a lot since then. And I’ve been patiently waiting for another company to come along with a better version that actually works. So I was excited to discover Rekkie, an independent manufacturer that launched its first pair of goggles with a built-in heads-up display last year.

At $349, Rekkie’s offering is still pricey, but much closer to what you’d pay for high-end, non-smart ski goggles. More importantly, after several days snowboarding with Rekkie’s goggles, I’ve found that AR has advanced enough that headsets like this finally feel useful.

The goggles

At first glance, Rekkies almost look like a pair of standard ski goggles. The most noticeable difference, though, is a box on the right side of the strap that holds the power supply, as well as the Bluetooth and long distance radios. On the outside of the pack is a button for navigating the goggles’ interface.

At about 4 inches long and an inch thick, the pack is extremely bulky, and it’s one of the few drawbacks of using the goggles. Weighing 253 grams, the Rekkies are more than twice as heavy as my usual pair, but didn't feel like much when I wore a helmet. And, if your helmet is black, it may even (sort of) blend in. But if your headgear is white or light colored it will stick out. Practically, this doesn’t matter much, but it does look a bit silly. It also means you can’t wear the goggles under your helmet, if that’s your preference. Neither of these was a dealbreaker for me, though, and I found I could easily hide the battery pack with an over-helmet mask.

Karissa Bell / Engadget

But the aesthetic drawbacks are vastly outweighed by what the Rekkie goggles can do. Their signature feature is a dashboard that shows your current elevation, speed and a compass. If you’re skiing with friends who also have a pair, you can see how far away they are and use the accompanying app to view their location on the mountain. The goggles can also control music and show your notifications and daily stats.

The actual display is a small, roughly 1-inch panel that sits in the middle of the frames near the bridge of your nose. This setup means you can swap out the lenses for varying light conditions (a silver set is included, and the company sells additional colors). But Rekkie’s lenses are slightly different from those made by other goggle companies. The upper third of each lens has a reflective coating on the inside in order to make the display more visible.

This means that if you look up, towards the display, the lenses are darker than when you’re looking straight ahead. The difference didn’t bother me, but some people might find it distracting. Rekkie said it is considering tweaks that would make the effect more subtle.

Karissa Bell / Engadget

More importantly, I found that the screen was easy to see in almost all lighting conditions. The dashboard and menus were clearly visible in bright sunlight and on cloudier days. The display is also positioned in such a way that it’s not directly in your line of sight when you’re cruising down the mountain so the overlays aren't distracting.

All that may sound complicated, but the interface is extremely easy to navigate. Tap and hold the side button on the battery pack to bring up the main menu, then glance up, down, left or right to select a function. Up is your stats, where you can view how many runs you’ve done and how much elevation you’ve covered. Left is “texts,” which is a bit of a misnomer because it shows recent notifications from all apps (on iOS, you need to have notification previews enabled); right is “music” for controlling media playback, and down is the live dashboard. From the latter, you can also tap the button to hide everything but the time.

I tended to switch to this “clock-only” mode often, especially once I gained some speed. It might sound weird, but the clock was one of my favorite features. I don’t wear a watch, and repeatedly checking your phone on a cold day can quickly take a toll on its battery (and your fingers).

Likewise, being able to control my music and podcasts from the goggles was very useful. I usually wear AirPods while I board, and reaching under my helmet or stupidly shouting “Hey Siri” into my ski mask always gives me a bit of anxiety. So I was more than happy to be able to rely on my goggles for those tasks.

As much as I’ve complained about the size of the battery pack, the goggles’ runtime is actually impressive. The company says the device should last about 10 hours, though it could go longer depending on how heavily you’re using it. I never managed to drain the battery during a full day of snowboarding, even in snowy 10-degree (Fahrenheit) conditions. The goggles even lasted two consecutive days without charging.

Karissa Bell / Engadget

I was initially concerned that the uncovered charging port on the underside of the battery pack would leave it exposed to the elements. I boarded in more than one storm with heavy snowfall where no part of the goggles was able to stay perfectly dry, and wondered if I might be inadvertently damaging them. But it turns out the device was more water resistant than I had anticipated.

Rekkie said the goggles aren’t technically waterproof, but were designed to withstand the kind of moisture you’d expect to encounter during a typical day of skiing. I (unintentionally) put this to the test one stormy day in Park City when I managed to fill the Rekkies with snow after I went down in a pile of powder. Snow froze to the display and they were temporarily unusable. But I dried them out at the end of the day and was able to charge them like nothing had happened.

Friend tracking

Rekkie’s googles get even more useful if you ski with a friend who also has them. Once you form a “group” within the app, you’ll be able to see how far away you are from each other. There's no limit to how many people can be in a group, but the dashboard will only show the two who are closest to you (though you can view everyone from the app). You can also compare stats with your group from the stats menu in the goggles.

The system uses your phone’s cellular signal and the goggles’ onboard radios to track each other. That means that if you have service, you can see how far away they are in both the dashboard view and the Rekkie app. If one or both people don’t have service, the device’s radios have an approximately 2,000-foot range, so you should be able to see if someone is on the same run as you, but not if they’re, say, on the other side of the resort.

In practice, I found the friend-tracking feature most useful when my husband, who also was wearing a pair, was on the same trail as me. I tend to race down runs much faster than he does, so we often lose sight of each other. Seeing the number tick down as he approached was both reassuring and good for my impatience.

I could see the feature being even more helpful if you go off-piste or into the backcountry. It’s easier to lose friends in the trees, so having an idea of how far away they are could help make sure no one is left behind.

But while the app is useful for seeing your friends’ locations, it unfortunately doesn’t do much else. For example, there’s no way to use the app to check out the stats your googles tracked while you were on the mountain. As a longtime user of ski-tracking apps like Slopes, which map out all your runs and record your statistics throughout the day, I’m bummed Rekkie doesn’t offer this.

The founders told me that there are plans to incorporate stats into the app, as well as several other capabilities. They’re also working on new safety features, like one that will automatically switch off the live dashboard once you hit speeds of 15mph or faster, as well as ways to communicate with resorts’ ski patrols if you get into trouble.

New features will be available via app and firmware updates, so if you buy a pair now, there’s a good chance you’ll see their capabilities expand over time. That’s a good thing when you’re investing $350 in eyewear you’ll only use a few months of the year.

Overall, I was impressed by just how useful the Rekkies are. While I was initially excited for a pair of goggles that could track my stats and project my real-time speed and location, I underestimated the added convenience of features like friend tracking, media controls and an always-on clock. We’re at a moment when a lot of big tech companies have made ambitious promises about the future of augmented reality. But those promises, like the all-encompassing augmented reality glasses Meta and others have hinted at, are likely still years away. Rekkie’s smart goggles may be a more niche product, but they show that we don’t need to wait years for useful, non-gimmicky applications for AR.

Utah’s governor has signed two bills that could upend how teens in the state are able to use social media apps. Under the newlaws, companies like Meta, Snap and TikTok would be required to get parents permission before teens could create accounts on their platforms. The laws also require curfew, parental controls and age verification features.

For now, it’s not clear how Utah officials intend to enforce the laws or how they will apply to teenagers’ existing social media accounts. Both laws are scheduled to take effect next March.

The effect that social media can have on teens, particularly younger ones, has been in the spotlight for some time. Earlier this year, the Surgeon General said that “13 is too early,” referring to the minimum age when most platforms allow teens to join. Lawmakers in Congress and in other states have also proposed laws that would limit teens’ ability to use social media apps.

Developing…