Meta is gearing up to launch new smart glasses without a camera, the DOJ says companies used Binance to funnel $1.5 billion in crypto to Iran, and Nitter and XCancel shut down after threats of legal action

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Meta is reportedly gearing up to launch new smart glasses without a camera.

The DOJ says companies used Binance to funnel $1.5 billion in crypto to Iran, and Nitter and XCancel shut down after threats of illegal action. It's Wednesday, September 16th, and here's a quick look at some of the news happening in the sphere of tech this morning from Engadget.

Meta is developing a pair of smart glasses without a camera, and is planning to start shipping the new model as soon as this October. That's according to the information. The publication says that Meta could unveil the new model dubbed Luna at its upcoming annual Connect Developer Conference scheduled for the 23rd and 24th of this month. Luna will reportedly come in two styles, one called Clubmaster and another named Burbank. While the new model will not have a camera, it will come with six built-in microphones and speakers that point towards the user's ears, which will give users a way to talk to Meta's AI chatbot. It's still a pair of smart glasses, just without the component that's making critics call Meta's current model's pervert glasses.

Luna will have a button on the side that users can press to quickly activate Meta AI, but it will have slimmer temples that will make it look like ordinary eyewear. While Meta's glasses have been selling well, the company has been getting a lot of flak over concerns that devices can be used to creep on women and to secretly record and harass people in general.

Meta's glasses do have an anti-creep feature, LED lights that continue to blink while the user is recording. But it used to be possible to tamper with those LEDs so that it didn't light up even while the camera is recording, until the company rolled out an update to address that. In August, Meta also released an update to close a loophole that allowed users to secretly film others by covering the LED light after the recording had already started. Even with those changes, Meta's glasses have gained a bad rep that may be preventing people from getting a pair. The company is reportedly hoping that Luna can urge hesitating potential customers to finally make that purchase.

The US Department of Justice is accusing several companies of using the crypto exchange Binance to send money to Iran to fund its military. That's according to a report by the Wall Street Journal. Federal prosecutors disclosed Binance's alleged role in the scheme in a forfeiture complaint that looks to seize $61 million of cryptocurrency. In total, they say that around $1.5 billion was sent to the country via a series of interrelated digital wallets. This scheme involves two Hong Kong based companies called Hexawale and Blessed Trust, which acted as intermediaries to sell black market Iranian oil to Chinese buyers. Binance itself confirmed this as the company's internal investigators found that the two entities, among others, had moved heaps of money through the exchange to a network that was funding Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Now, the complaint goes further and says that some of the money was sent through the US financial system before ending up in Iran. These transactions were allegedly designed to hide the original source of the funds. The crypto exchange removed both Hexawail and Blessed Trust from the platform, though it is worth noting that the latter was an actual Binance business partner that provided payment services.