Ray Ban’s Meta Glasses now let you listen to Apple Music with voice controls for maximum nerd points

The Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses are still waiting on their big AI update – which is set to bring features like ‘Look and Ask’ out of the exclusive beta and bring them to everyone – but while we wait, a useful upgrade has just rolled out to the specs.

The big feature for many will be native Apple Music controls (via 9to5Mac). Previously you could play Apple Music through the Ray-Ban Meta glasses by using the app on your phone and touch controls on the glass’ arms, but this update allows you to use the Meta AI voice controls to play songs, playlists, albums, and stations from your music library for a hands-free experience.

The update also brings new touch controls. You touch and hold the side of the glasses to have Apple Music automatically play tracks based on your listening history.

The Apple Music app icon against a red background on an iPhone.

(Image credit: Brett Jordan / Unsplash)

Beyond Apple Music integration, the new update also allows you to use the glasses as a video source for WhatsApp and Messenger calls. This improves on pre-existing interoperability that allows you to send messages, and images or videos you captured using the glasses to contacts in these apps using the Meta AI.

You can also access a new command, “Hey Meta, what song is this?” to have your glasses tell you what song is playing through your smart specs. This isn’t quite as useful as recognizing tracks that are playing in public as you walk around, but could be handy if you like collecting playlists of new and unfamiliar artists.

To update your glasses to the latest version, simply go to the Meta View App, go to Settings, open the Your Glasses menu option, then Updates. You’ll also want to have your glasses to hand and make sure they’re turned on and connected to your phone via Bluetooth. If you can’t see the update – and your phone says it isn’t already on version 4.0 – then check the Play Store or App Store to see if the Meta View app itself needs an update.

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Microsoft launches special Office 365 bundle for maximum security

Microsoft has announced it will launch a new version of its Office 365 productivity bundle, designed specifically for government and intelligence agencies.

The tailor-made collaboration suite, called Office 365 Government Secret, is currently pending accreditation and should be available by mid-2022.

Announcing the news in a blog post, Microsoft CVP Paul Lorimer noted that today’s governments face many challenges, “including increasing employee engagement and productivity with the latest tools, securing and controlling sensitive data, and managing multiple applications, devices, and workloads”.

Add in a heightened demand for security and you end up with a major market in need of “secure, productive, and efficient cloud options”.

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Supporting government agencies

Office 365 Government Secret is built to support the US Federal Civilian, Department of Defense (DoD), Intelligence Community (IC), and US government partners working within the Secret enclave, Lorimer added.

“With the launch of this new environment supporting Impact Level 6 (IL6), we’re adding to the comprehensive set of Office 365 Government cloud offerings to help meet the full spectrum of government data needs.”

This new productivity suite will run the latest enterprise-grade Office 365 Government productivity, security, compliance, and collaboration applications, it was added. 

This is not the first time Microsoft has built custom solutions exclusively for government agencies. In August last year, the company announced the general availability of Azure Government Secret and Top Secret clouds.

Launched with more than 60 initial services (with more in the pipeline), the product was built to “accelerate the delivery of national security workloads classified at the US Top Secret level”. Microsoft also has more than 73 services under Azure Government Secret.

Those that plan to deploy Office 365 Secret environment should engage with their onboarding teams, the company said, in order to be ready when the final authorization is given.

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