David Dee Delgado/Reuters

• Sam Bankman-Fried denied any role in the recently reported transfers of funds involving Alameda.

• His lawyer argued that his client had nothing to do with it, but prosecutors said they were skeptical.
• A federal judge sided with prosecutors and blocked him from accessing Alameda and FTX assets.

Sam Bankman-Fried has been blocked from accessing and making transfers involving Alameda and FTX assets, after a recent report in Cointelegraph that indicated that some Alameda crypto assets had been moved around in December.

US district judge Lewis Kaplan, who presided over Bankman-Fried’s arraignment on Tuesday in which the FTX and Alameda founder pleaded not guilty, granted prosecutors’ request to restrain him from such transactions. 

Bankman-Fried, who has been released and staying with his parents in California under the terms of a $250 million bail agreement, had tweeted on Friday that he wasn’t involved in any of the transactions referenced in the Cointelegraph report.

“I’m not and couldn’t be moving any of those funds; I don’t have access to them anymore,” he wrote. 

—SBF (@SBF_FTX) December 30, 2022

At the hearing Tuesday, assistant US attorney Danielle Sassoon said that while she could not be sure who accessed the Alameda accounts, the transfers had now moved those funds outside the government’s reach for the purpose of asset forfeiture.

Sassoon said that prosecutors had little reason to believe Bankman-Fried’s tweet, and that he lied in previous tweets where he denied using FTX customer funds and had tried to move cryptocurrency assets to foreign regulators in order to avoid the consequences of FTX’s bankruptcy.

“We don’t put much stock in that,” she said.

Bankman-Fried’s attorney Mark Cohen vehemently opposed the condition. He said Tuesday that the transfers were done at the order of a court in the Bahamas, where FTX is undergoing bankruptcy proceedings parallel to ongoing proceedings in Delaware, and that Bankman-Fried wasn’t involved.

Kaplan’s ruling blocks Bankman-Fried from those transactions, though it allows him to come to an agreement with prosecutors about a possible different arrangement.

“It seems to me that the condition is reasonable,” Kaplan said.

On Tuesday, Kaplan set October 2 as a date for a trial, though Bankman-Fried could work with prosecutors to negotiate a plea deal before then. He is facing eight counts including wire fraud and conspiracy charges. 

• To reset your Gmail password, select the Forgot password option on the login screen.
• A link to reset your password will be sent to your recovery phone number or email.
• Once you reset your Gmail password, you’ll need to create a new one.

So you just found that your Gmail password isn’t working. In the moment of panic that follows, you’re probably wondering if you were hacked, or if you simply don’t remember what the password was.

The good news is, you probably weren’t hacked — Google sends out notifications and warnings whenever someone signs in on a new device or changes your password, so unless you’ve been logged out for a while, that’s unlikely.

Still, it’s a pain not to be able to access your email, and you probably want to remedy this situation as quickly as possible. Luckily, it’s very easy to reset your Gmail password from your computer or your phone, so long as you set up a method of recovery at the beginning — a backup email or phone number, you are prepared.

Here’s how to reset your Gmail password, from both your phone and your computer.

How to reset your Gmail password and create a new one

Gmail may opt to give you a different primary authentication method by default depending on what you have set up. Follow the prompts to regain access to your account.

1. Go to the Gmail login screen on your device and type in the name of the account you need to recover. Click Next.

2. When it asks you to enter your password, instead click Forgot password?

Click Forgot password.

Kyle Wilson/Insider

3. Gmail will then attempt to walk you through the various authentication methods that you have on your account; for example, this might be an authenticator key or the option to send your phone a notification. In the latter case, pressing Yes on the notification will let you reset your password.

Click yes to send a notification.

Kyle Wilson/Insider

4. If you don’t want to do a given method or are otherwise unable, click on Try another way, which is located in the bottom left of the window.

You can click Try another way.

Kyle Wilson/Insider

Quick tip: If you’ve exhausted other methods and have previously set up a recovery phone number with this account, or another account attached to this one, Gmail will give you the option to send a text or call to that number containing a code you can use to confirm your identity.

5. Assuming that you have successfully verified your identity, Gmail will now ask you to set a new password. Try to choose something you won’t easily forget, or write it down somewhere safe.

Set a new password.

Melanie Weir/Insider

If nothing else works, you may be asked to provide an email address that you can currently access. Google will take time to assess your problem individually and determine if they can help you recover your account. However, there’s no guarantee that you’ll be able to recover your account this way.

The nightmare scenario, for the NFL, had arrived. And the pit in America’s stomach, on the New Year holiday while the country was enjoying a half-century-old mass ritual known as Monday Night Football, felt as awful as you’d ever imagine. Worse, even.

Millions of people—including so many families, the kids taking in one last sports distraction before returning to school from winter break—were left watching Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin fighting for his life near the 50-yard line. As the ambulance carted Hamlin away in Cincinnati, we all braced for the absolute worst tragedy. Broadcasters were at times speechless, left near tears. Could this really be happening?

[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]

All that really matters, in this moment, is Hamlin’s health. He remains in critical condition at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center after suffering cardiac arrest following a hit. “We want to express our sincere gratitude for the love and support shown to Damar during this challenging time,” Hamlin’s family said in a statement released on Tuesday. “We are deeply moved by the prayers, kind words, and donations from fans around the country.” The GoFundMe that Hamlin had started back in 2020, to buy toys from children in his hometown near Pittsburgh, exceeded $4 million in donations by midday Tuesday; it had raised about $3,000 going into Monday night.

Read More: What We Know So Far About Damar Hamlin’s Cardiac Arrest

America, however, is a football-crazed nation. So Hamlin’s collapse will have to force a reckoning. As we pull so hard for Hamlin’s survival, it’s also appropriate to ask ourselves: can we in good conscience keep embracing this game?

People have been wrestling with this question for more than a decade, as science has shed light on football’s health consequences. Chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) was once an obscure entry in medical textbooks. Now, it’s the neurological disease associated with repeated blows to the head, known for afflicting more than 300 former NFL players, and perhaps hundreds more (the condition can only be definitively diagnosed post-mortem). After years of resisting the notion that head trauma caused CTE, the NFL finally acknowledged the link between CTE and football in 2016.

Hamlin did not suffer a head injury—many medical experts suspect his heart stopped due to commotio cordis, an extremely rare but sometimes fatal disruption to heart rhythm resulting from to a blow to the chest. Still, his injury showed that despite the NFL’s measures to make the game “safer”—such as harsher penalties for head-to-head contact, and cutting down on contact in practices—football remains an inherently violent sport that puts players at great risk.

Up to this point, football’s brutality hasn’t dampened its standing as the nation’s most popular sport. The data couldn’t be clearer. The Denver Broncos, for example, sold for $4.65 million in 2022, the richest franchise transaction in U.S. sports history. Amazon is paying the NFL around $1 billion a year to show Thursday night football games. And according to Variety, 31 of the 35 most-watched prime-time telecasts of 2022 were NFL games, with Super Bowl LVI leading the way with some 99.7 million viewers. (Only the college football national championship game; a night of Beijing Olympics coverage on NBC immediately following the network’s Super Bowl coverage; the Oscars; and an episode of Yellowstone also ranked.)

Something about this incident, however, feels different. Pundits struggled to recall ever seeing CPR administered to an NFL player during a game. (Back in 1971, Chuck Hughes of the Detroit Lions suffered a heart attack on the field. He later died at the hospital. That game went on.) Injuries to the head and extremities are terrible, and have resulted in paralysis for football players. But even in the worst cases, players can usually at least give fans an assuring thumbs up as they leave the field. Hamlin could offer no such signal. On Monday Night Football, millions felt his life hanging in the balance. It was frightening and unprecedented.

“You see players on the field and they get hurt, but you don’t see players on the field going into cardiac arrest,” says NFL Hall of Famer Harry Carson, a former linebacker for the New York Giants. “It was basically an eye opener for so many parents who have children who love football. Parents might be a little bit more hesitant wanting their child to play if that’s going to happen. It’s unreal.” Carson, who sustained numerous concussions in his career, says he’s remained a “tyrant” in his family, insisting ever since his grandson was 2 years old that he never play football. Carson’s grandson is now 13. He hasn’t played, despite his family pedigree. And after seeing what happened to Hamlin, Carson sent his daughter a text message: this, he told her, is why he shouldn’t play.

Dylan Buell—Getty ImagesA vigil is displayed at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center for football player Damar Hamlin of the Buffalo Bills.

The NFL’s historically problematic handling of player safety was on display Monday night as well. The league faced a torrent of social media criticism after appearing to delay the postponement of the game. ESPN announcer Joe Buck said that teams were given a “five minute window” to warmup and resume the contest after the ambulance carried Hamlin off the field and his Bills teammates knelt in prayer. Some players were sobbing. The two head coaches, Sean McDermott of the Bills and Zac Taylor of the Cincinnati Bengals, spoke to a referee. The players retreated to their locker rooms, and eventually the game was officially postponed more than an hour after Hamlin collapsed.

“It never crossed our mind to talk about warming up to resume play,” the NFL’s executive vice president of football operations, Troy Vincent, said in a conference call with reporters early Tuesday morning. “That’s ridiculous. That’s insensitive. That’s not a place we should ever be in.”

The point, however, was that the NFL could have stopped all the shouting by calling the game immediately. Everyone watching, much less playing, knew that continuing with Hamlin’s condition unknown— and players openly grieving their teammate—would prove impossible. Why deliberate at all?

Did you know some shark species cannot stop moving, or they’ll drown? It’s true. Many of them can rest but must stay on the move to stay alive Always they move as always time ticks by, and recently elected Congressman George Santos continues to lie. Some things never end. Congressman Santos’ lies are one of them.

I have lost count of how many lies Santos has told. On and on they go, unable to stop, piling into the air and tainting the GOP with their toxicity. An ex-boyfriend has come out and accused Santos of stealing his phone. He also says Santos never paid bills and rarely worked. Is this a surprise?

His name is Pedro Vilarva. He claims to have dated Santos in the year 2014. They eventually moved in together. Only problems abounded. Vilarva claims Santos rarely contributed to the house expenses. Vilarva also says, “He never actually went to work.”

As you know, Citigroup and Goldman Sachs claim not to have records of Santos ever working there despite Santos claiming that he did. Vilarva also says at some point; he noticed his cell phone had vanished. Wherever could it be?

He said he believed that George Santos had it. And that he pawned it. Vilarva told the New York times he felt “gullible” for believing all of the lies Santos told. Eventually, he had enough, packed up his stuff, and got out.

So what are we to make of this? I suppose there will be more Santos lies. As I said, some things never stop. The clock never stops ticking. Sharks move about endlessly to keep themselves alive. And George Santos continues to lie, con, deceive and mistreat the American people and everyone around him.

The post Hold the phone… appeared first on Palmer Report.

U.S. President Joe Biden on Tuesday renominated a number of stalled picks for a slate of federal posts including nominees to head the Internal Revenue Service, Federal Aviation Administration, ambassador to India and a Federal Communications Commission (FCC) member, the White House said.

The selections did not get approved by the U.S. Senate which was split 50-50 between Republicans and Democrats, with Vice President Kamala Harris breaking ties. The new Senate convened on Tuesday.

Democrats since January 2021 have been unable to command a majority of the five-member FCC, the telecommunications regulator, preventing them from moving forward on some key priorities including reinstating landmark net neutrality rules revoked under former President Donald Trump.

Biden nominated Democrat Gigi Sohn, a former senior aide to Tom Wheeler when he was chair of the FCC under President Barack Obama, to fill the key fifth seat in October 2021.

The FAA has been without a permanent administrator since March 31. The Senate Commerce Committee has yet to hold a hearing on Biden’s pick to head the FAA, Denver International Airport Chief Executive Phil Washington. Washington had faced criticism from Republicans after he was named in a search warrant tying him to corruption allegations at the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

Washington, a former CEO of the Los Angeles public transport system, has denied wrongdoing.

The FAA’s top aviation safety official, Billy Nolen, has been running the agency on an interim basis.

Biden is also renominating Eric Garcetti to serve as ambassador to India.

Garcetti, who was Los Angeles mayor from 2013 until a term limit pushed him from office last year, is close to Biden and co-chaired his 2020 presidential campaign.

But his nomination was stalled in the Senate as even some Democrats expressed concern about allegations that he ignored complaints about sexual harassment and abusive language by some of his political allies. Garcetti has denied wrongdoing.

Biden also renominated Dilawar Syed to be deputy administrator of the Small Business Administration after Republicans last year held up a vote due to the nominee’s association with an advocacy group that has been critical of Israel.

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South Korea and the United States are discussing launching a tabletop exercise and engaging in joint planning to counter North Korea’s increasing nuclear threats, officials from both sides said on Tuesday.

The plan came amid South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol’s push to strengthen American extended deterrence – the U.S. military capability, especially its nuclear forces, to deter attacks on its allies – since taking office in May, in the face of evolving North Korean threats.

In a newspaper interview released on Monday, Yoon said the allies are discussing joint nuclear planning and exercises and that would help clear doubts about the extended deterrence, with its existing concept “falling short of convincing” South Koreans.

“In order to respond to the North Korean nuclear weapons, the two countries are discussing ways to share information on the operation of U.S.-owned nuclear assets, and joint planning and execution of them accordingly,” Yoon’s press secretary, Kim Eun-hye, said in a statement.

The two leaders “tasked their teams to plan for an effective, a coordinated response to a range of scenarios, including nuclear use by North Korea, and so that is what the teams are working on,” White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre said.

A senior U.S. administration official elaborated, adding that both sides are looking at enhanced information-sharing, joint contingency planning and an eventual tabletop exercise following a request from their presidents after a meeting in Cambodia in November to explore ways to address North Korea’s threats.

But the official noted regular nuclear exercises would be “extremely difficult” because South Korea is not a nuclear power, echoing the comment from U.S. President Joe Biden late on Monday that the allies were not discussing such activities. U.S. policy does not allow for the joint control of nuclear assets anywhere in the world.

“This is going to be done through a variety of ways, including as President Yoon said, through enhanced information-sharing, joint planning and expanding the range of contingencies that we plan for, as well as training, and with the idea eventually leading up to a tabletop exercise,” the U.S. official told Reuters.

The timing of the planned exercises has not been finalised, but they would take place “in the not-too-distant future” and cover scenarios including but not limited to nuclear situations, the official said.

“The idea is to also try and make sure that we’re able to fully think through the range of possibilities based on the DPRK capabilities which they’ve demonstrated, as well as their statements,” that official added, using North Korea’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

When asked about the tabletop exercises, a spokesperson for South Korea’s defence ministry said talks were under way but declined to provide details.

The two countries have revived consultations on extended deterrence this year after a years-long hiatus while North Korea increased its nuclear and missile capability.

Pyongyang defined South Korea as an “undoubted enemy” and vowed to beef up its nuclear arsenal this year, after firing a record number of missiles in 2022 and fuelling tension by sending drones into the South in December.

“The U.S. countermeasures have not kept up with the North’s advancing nuclear programmes, and the extended deterrence strategy is almost no different from when their nuclear capability was insignificant and weaker,” said Go Myong-hyun, a research fellow at the Asan Institute for Policy Studies in Seoul.

But Kim Dong-yup, a professor at Kyungnam University, said the comment from Biden, who has sole authority to authorise the use of U.S. nuclear weapons, suggests an American reluctance to share nuclear operations, given their sensitivity and security concerns.

“Given growing voices for tactical nuclear weapons, Washington could try to give reassurances and send more nuclear assets when we want, but they’re unlikely to fully materialise President Yoon’s push for greater extended deterrence,” Kim said.

A New York man was sentenced on Tuesday to two years in prison for conspiring to steal General Electric Co’s (GE.N) trade secrets to benefit China, the U.S. Justice Department said.

Xiaoqing Zheng, 59, of Niskayuna, New York, was convicted of conspiracy to commit economic espionage following a four-week jury trial that ended in March last year, according to the Justice Department. U.S. District Judge Mae D’Agostino also sentenced Zheng to pay a $7,500 fine and serve one year of post-imprisonment supervised release.

U.S. officials have said the Chinese government poses the biggest long-term threat to U.S. economic and national security, and is carrying out unprecedented efforts to steal critical technology from U.S. businesses and researchers. China denies the allegations.

Zheng was employed at GE Power in Schenectady, New York, as an engineer specializing in turbine sealing technology. He worked at GE from 2008 until the summer of 2018, the Justice Department said.

The trial evidence showed Zheng and others in China conspired to steal GE’s trade secrets surrounding its ground-based and aviation-based turbine technologies to benefit China, including China-based companies and universities that research and manufacture parts for turbines, the Justice Department added.

“This is a case of textbook economic espionage. Zheng exploited his position of trust, betrayed his employer and conspired with the government of China to steal innovative American technology,” said Assistant Attorney General Matthew Olsen of the Justice Department’s national security division.

The United States had accused the former GE engineer and another Chinese businessman named Zhaoxi Zhang in 2019 of stealing secrets and spying on GE to aid China. Zheng had pleaded not guilty at the time.

A U.S. federal court in Cincinnati sentenced a Chinese national in November to 20 years in prison after he was convicted of plotting to steal trade secrets from several U.S. aviation and aerospace companies.

• Women in West Bengal, India, have been weaving jute into mats for generations.
• Many Rajbanshi women depend on the craft to make their livelihoods.
• But mass-produced mats are flooding the market and threatening to put them out of business.

Women of the Rajbanshi tribe in West Bengal, India, have been weaving jute into mats, bags, and other products for generations. Many depend on the craft to make their livelihoods. But mass-produced mats are flooding the market and threatening to put them out of business.

Ken Tape

• Beavers are invading Alaska’s Arctic tundra as it warms, transforming the landscape like wildfire.
• Satellite images show rivers turning into trains of lush ponds as beavers build their dams.
• The animals are taking advantage of climate change, but their dams could also accelerate warming.

Beavers are taking over the Alaskan tundra, completely transforming its waterways, and accelerating climate change in the Arctic.

The changes are so sudden and drastic that they’re clearly visible from space.

As the Arctic tundra warms, woody plants are growing along its rivers and streams, creating perfect habitats for beavers.

As the furry rodents move into these waterways, they make themselves at home by doing what they do best: chewing and carrying wood to build dams, and clogging rapid rivers and streams to make lush ponds.

What was once a thin line of water cutting across the tundra has become a train of bulbous beaver ponds:

An aerial image from 1980 shows a tundra stream on Alaska’s Seward Peninsula flowing in the direction of the blue arrow. A satellite image from 2019 shows how beaver dams have turned the stream into a chain of ponds. Pink arrows point to prominent dams.

Ken Tape et al./Scientific Reports/Worldview satellite/Imagery © 2022 Maxar, Inc.

“There’s not even a lot of other animals that leave a footprint you can see from space,” Ken Tape, an ecologist at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, told Insider. “There is one, and they’re called humans. The funny thing is that humans could not get a permit to do what beavers are now doing in this state.”

This swimming, furry rodent’s invasion of the North American tundra is a mixed bag. The beaver ponds create lush oases that could increase biodiversity, but they also play a role in accelerating the climate crisis.

11,000 new beaver ponds

A beaver dam forms a pool encircling a beaver lodge near the Denali Highway in the Alaska Range.

Ken Tape

Tape and his colleagues assessed aerial photos from the early 1950s and found no signs of beaver presence in Alaska’s Arctic tundra. The first signs of beavers appeared in 1980 imagery. In satellite imagery from the 2000s and 2010s, the beaver ponds doubled.

All in all, satellites reveal more than 11,000 beaver ponds have appeared across the tundra.

A lake near Kotzebue, Alaska, in (left to right) 2002, 2012, and 2019. Red arrows show where beavers built a dam, which more than doubled the size of the lake. Yellow arrows show areas of likely permafrost thaw.

Environmental Research Letters/Imagery © DigitalGlobe

“All of western Alaska is now really densely populated with beaver ponds,” Tape said.

That’s consistent with what Indigenous people in the area have observed. It’s especially obvious on the ground in towns like Kotzebue, where there were no beavers 20 years ago, and now they’re everywhere, Tape said.

Beavers emerge through holes in the ice around their lodge in Goldstream Valley, near Fairbanks, in April.

Ken Tape

The researchers published their findings in the journal Scientific Reports in May. Tape presented the research at the fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union in December, just as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration issued its annual warning of how quickly the Arctic is succumbing to climate change.

From space, Alaska’s beavers are as influential as wildfires

A beaver dam blocks a creek off the Denali Highway in central Alaska.

Ken Tape

Tape had previously used satellite imagery to look for changes in vegetation — slow and subtle shifts in the appearance of the tundra.

So he was floored when he saw beaver-engineering projects completely transforming landscapes across Alaska.

“It was like hitting the ecosystem over the head with a hammer,” he said.

The severity and speed of beavers’ footprint on the landscape, as seen from space, is more akin to wildfire, Tape said.

Beaver engineering dramatically altered a tundra stream on the Seward Peninsula in western Alaska between 2003 and 2016. The blue arrow shows flow direction, and magenta arrows denote dams.

NOAA / Imagery © 2021 Maxar

The satellite images answer two key questions for studying any animal population: Where are they? And how many of them are there?

The most exciting question lies ahead, though: How exactly are the beavers changing everything around them?

From fish and vegetation, to water flow and water quality, to all the downstream effects that might have, there’s a lot left to study.

Champions of the new Arctic

A beaver swims across a pond south of Glennallen in central Alaska.

Ken Tape

Beaver ponds are warm oases in the tundra, since the still, deep water holds more heat than the rushing rivers that previously cut through.

Tape expects these pond areas will start to resemble boreal forest more than tundra. The still water will likely attract waterfowl and new species of fish.

A pair of swans paddle in a beaver pond off the Chulitna River in central Alaska.

Ken Tape

“If you like the Arctic the way it was, the old Arctic, then beavers are bad for that. Whereas if you kind of embrace the new Arctic, well, then beavers are one of your champions,” Tape said.

One thing that’s clearly unlikeable about the new Arctic is the thawing of permafrost — layers of soil that normally stay frozen year-round. Permafrost covers about one-quarter of the northern hemisphere, including nearly 85% of Alaska.

As temperatures rise, the permafrost thaws and releases the greenhouse gases carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere.

Beaver ponds create warm spots in Alaska’s tundra.

Ken Tape

That’s the one beaver impact that Tape’s team is sure of: Beaver ponds are thawing the surrounding permafrost, exacerbating the climate crisis. Just how much, is not yet clear.

New frontiers for pioneering beavers

More and more beavers will likely spread through the tundra in the future, continuing to move north as the Arctic warms.

A Dunlin and Sandpipers search for food near Teshekpuk Lake in Alaska’ North Slope.

Bonnie Jo Mount/The Washington Post via Getty Images

The northernmost strip of Alaska, north of the Brooks mountain range, is still virtually beaver-free, Tape said. But it may not stay that way for long. Dense populations of beavers are just on the other side of the mountains.

“All they have to do is swim downstream,” Tape said. “If they find the habitat there — in other words, if it’s warm enough, if the shrubs are tall enough, if there’s enough unfrozen water in winter — then they’re going to forever change that place.”

JOSH EDELSON/AFP via Getty Images

• Apple’s anticipated mixed reality headset will have auto-adjusting lenses, The Information reported.
• It will also have a physical dial that the wearer can use to switch between VR and real life.
• The headset could potentially launch this year after Apple missed its goal to ship it out last year.

Apple’s anticipated mixed-reality headset will include auto-adjusting lenses and a physical dial that wearers can use to switch between VR and real life, The Information reported.

The company hasn’t formally announced the mixed-reality headset, but The Information previously reported that it will look similar to ski goggles and have multiple cameras for both augmented and virtual reality. The latest version of Apple’s AirPods Pro were reportedly built to sync with the headset. 

The auto-adjusting lenses are meant to align the wearer’s pupils with the headset displays so they can have the largest possible field of vision. People with glasses will reportedly be able to have custom prescription lenses that clip to the headset via magnets.

Apple, which has remained quiet about the product, did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment on the anticipated headset or its features ahead of publication.

When it launches, the headset will be the newest product group since the Apple Watch was released in 2015. Apple has been working on the headset for seven years, Bloomberg previously reported, and initially planned to release it in 2019, The Information reported in May. The product was then scheduled to ship out by the end of 2022, a goal that Apple missed.

In December, the name of the headset’s operating software was changed from “realityOS” to “xrOS,” Bloomberg reported, adding that the headset hardware may also have the same name. The change to “xr,” which stands for extended reality, signals that the headset will probably include both AR and VR capabilities.

The headset has faced setbacks for years as it’s gone though different versions. The Technology Development Group, which is responsible for working on the headset, now has thousands of employees, but previously had to compete with other Apple teams for engineers.

As of early last year, the headset was in an assembly phase at Taiwanese manufacturer Pegatron, after passing several prototype stages and the engineering validation test to see if it could be mass produced, per The Information.

In December, noted Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo tweeted that mass shipment of the Apple headsets could be delayed to the second half of 2023 “because of software-related issues.” He predicted that the company will likely ship less than 500,000 headsets this year due to the product shipment being delayed.

The headset is expected to be at least $3,000, four people close to the project told The Information — double the price of Meta’s first AR/VR headset, the Quest Pro.

As of early December, sales for VR headsets declined 2% from the previous year, CNBC reported. CCS Insight expects 2023 to be “another slow year” for AR and VR devices due to high inflation and a weak economy.