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The world is in chaos, and many of us wish this wasn’t reality but a video game. Coperni, the French fashion label, captured this sentiment in its recent Paris Fashion Week show. The brand’s designersSébastien Meyer and Arnaud Vaillantwanted to re-create old-school gamer culture, with the theme of LAN Party, which was an event in the ’90s where people would gather together to compete in video games. Coperni brought together 200 people to play games like Fortnite and Rocket League for 24 hours. The show captured the aesthetic of the ’90s, along with that era’s fascination with futuristic digital realities, like those depicted in films like Hackers and The Matrix. Well, the future is here. At Paris Fashion Week, Coperni showed off a new collab with Meta and Ray-Ban in the form of translucent black wayfarer sunglasses that can double as a computer. The $549 sunglasses have a built-in camera and open-ear audio, so they can see and hear everything you do. As you use your voice to interact with the AI, it will provide customized insights and recommendations. You can also use the glasses to do things like live translation and play content on Spotify. [Image: Coperni] Meta launched its very first fashion collaboration by bringing Coperni and Ray-Ban branded glasses to the Coperni show. Some models wore the frames and recorded the entire show from their perspective, demonstrating their hands-free recording capabilities. They fit seamlessly into the Y2K looks, featuring lots of sleek black outfits and denim matched with grungy plaid. [Photo: Luca Tombolini/courtesy Coperni] Coperni is known for its exploration of technology. One of its most talked-about moments came in 2022, when Bella Hadid stood on the runway in her underwear before three people came out to spray-paint her outfit on in front of the audience. Its best known accessory is the swipe bag, which has a distinct oval shape. It recently released a version of the bag that featured NASA’s nano-material called Aerogel which is made of 99% air and 1% glass, making it the lightest bag ever made. Coperni created 3,600 pairs of these Ray-Ban Meta x Coperni glasses, which launched at 4 a.m. ESTbut they’re already selling fast on the Coperni, Meta, and Ray-Ban websites.
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American seniors who have received Social Security overpayments may be in for a nasty surprise after the Trump administration announced the reversal of a Biden-era policy. Specifically, the Social Security Administration (SSA) will revert back to withholding up to 100% of an individuals benefit check in an attempt to claw back overpayments. The changes under Biden had capped that withholding at 10%, so for seniors who may have received overpayments and grown accustomed to only having their monthly benefits reduced by a relatively slight amount, the adjustment could blow a hole in their monthly budgets. Announcing the reverted policy on Friday, the SSA said it will achieve $7 billion in savings over the next 10 years. The change affects overpayments made from March 27 onward, meaning overpayments made before that won’t be impacted. We have the significant responsibility to be good stewards of the trust funds for the American people, said Lee Dudek, SSA’s acting commissioner, in a statement. It is our duty to revise the overpayment repayment policy back to full withholding, as it was during the Obama administration and first Trump administration, to properly safeguard taxpayer funds. Why do SS overpayments happen? Social Security overpayments happen for a number of reasons, including beneficiaries misreporting their income or forgetting to update a change in their living situation or marital status. However, the SSA sometimes simply makes mistakes, as CBS reported last year, meaning an overpayment may be through no fault of the person receiving the benefits. With the Social Security Administration reverting to the original overpayment policy, its possible that some Social Security recipients could see their benefits reduced to nothingthat is, until theyve effectively paid back any overpayments theyd received in full. That could put many seniors in a challenging position in the months ahead. The SSA says it will notify people later this month about the new withholding rate. The withholding rate change applies to new overpayments related to Social Security benefits,” reads the statement from the SSA. “The withholding rate for current beneficiaries with an overpayment before March 27 will not change and no action is required. The withholding rate for Supplemental Security Income [SSI] overpayments remains 10 percent.” Further, it warns that any overpayments made after March 27 will be put into the full recovery rate immediately. As for those who cant afford to see their entire benefit zapped due to an overpayment by the SSA, the agency says to contact the SSA to see what can be done.
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When artificial intelligence-backed tractors became available to vineyards, Tom Gamble wanted to be an early adopter. He knew there would be a learning curve, but Gamble decided the technology was worth figuring out.The third-generation farmer bought one autonomous tractor. He plans on deploying its self-driving feature this spring and is currently using the tractor’s AI sensor to map his Napa Valley vineyard. As it learns each row, the tractor will know where to go once it is used autonomously. The AI within the machine will then process the data it collects and help Gamble make better-informed decisions about his crops what he calls “precision farming.”“It’s not going to completely replace the human element of putting your boot into the vineyard, and that’s one of my favorite things to do,” he said. “But it’s going to be able to allow you to work more smartly, more intelligently and in the end, make better decisions under less fatigue.”Gamble said he anticipates using the tech as much as possible because of “economic, air quality and regulatory imperatives.” Autonomous tractors, he said, could help lower his fuel use and cut back on pollution.As AI continues to grow, experts say that the wine industry is proof that businesses can integrate the technology efficiently to supplement labor without displacing a workforce. New agricultural tech like AI can help farmers to cut back on waste, and to run more efficient and sustainable vineyards by monitoring water use and helping determine when and where to use products like fertilizers or pest control. AI-backed tractors and irrigation systems, farmer say, can minimize water use by analyzing soil or vines, while also helping farmers to manage acres of vineyards by providing more accurate data on the health of a crop or what a season’s yield will be.Other facets of the wine industry have also started adopting the tech, from using generative AI to create custom wine labels to turning to ChatGPT to develop, label and price an entire bottle.“I don’t see anybody losing their job, because I think that a tractor operator’s skills are going to increase and as a result, and maybe they’re overseeing a small fleet of these machines that are out there, and they’ll be compensated as a result of their increased skill level,” he said.Farmers, Gamble said, are always evolving. There were fears when the tractor replaced horses and mules pulling plows, but that technology “proved itself” just like AI farming tech will, he said, adding that adopting any new tech always takes time.Companies like John Deere have started using the AI that wine farmers are beginning to adopt. The agricultural giant uses “Smart Apply” technology on tractors, for example, helping growers apply material for crop retention by using sensors and algorithms to sense foliage on grape canopies, said Sean Sundberg, business integration manager at John Deere.The tractors that use that tech then only spray “where there are grapes or leaves or whatnot so that it doesn’t spray material unnecessarily,” he said. Last year, the company announced a project with Sonoma County Winegrowers to use tech to help wine grape growers maximize their yield.Tyler Klick, partner at Redwood Empire Vineyard Management, said his company has started automating irrigation valves at the vineyards it helps manage. The valves send an alert in the event of a leak and will automatically shut off if they notice an “excessive” water flow rate.“That valve is actually starting to learn typical water use,” Klick said. “It’ll learn how much water is used before the production starts to fall off.”Klick said each valve costs roughly $600, plus $150 per acre each year to subscribe to the service.“Our job, viticulture, is to adjust our operations to the climatic conditions we’re dealt,” Klick said. “I can see AI helping us with finite conditions.”Angelo A. Camillo, a professor of wine business at Sonoma State University, said that despite excitement over AI in the wine industry, some smaller vineyards are more skeptical about their ability to use the technology. Small, family-owned operations, which Camillo said account for about 80% of the wine business in America, are slowly disappearing many don’t have the money to invest in AI, he said. A robotic arm that helps put together pallets of wine, for example, can cost as much as $150,000, he said.“For small wineries, there’s a question mark, which is the investment. Then there’s the education. Who’s going to work with all of these AI applications? Where is the training?” he said.There are also potential challenges with scalability, Camillo added. Drones, for example, could be useful for smaller vineyards that could use AI to target specific crops that have a bug problem, he said it would be much harder to operate 100 drones in a 1,000 acre vineyard while also employing the IT workers who understand the tech.“I don’t think a person can manage 40 drones as a swarm of drones,” he said. “So there’s a constraint for the operators to adopt certain things.”However, AI is particularly good at tracking a crop’s health including how the plant itself is doing and whether it’s growing enough leaves while also monitoring grapes to aid in yield projections, said Mason Earles, an assistant professor who leads the Plant AI and Biophysics Lab at UC Davis.Diseases or viruses can sneak up and destroy entire vineyards, Earles said, calling it an “elephant in the room” across the wine industry. The process of replanting a vineyard and getting it to produce well takes at least five years, he said. AI can help growers determine which virus is affecting their plants, he said, and whether they should rip out some crops immediately to avoid losing their entire vineyard.Earles, who is also cofounder of the AI-powered farm management platform Scout, said his company uses AI to process thousands of images in hours and extract data quickly something that would be difficult by hand in large vineyards that span hundreds of acres. Scout’s AI platform then counts and measures the number of grape clusters as early as when a plant is beginning to flower in order to forecast what a yield will be.The sooner vintners know how much yield to expect, the better they can “dial in” their wine making process, he added.“Predicting what yields you’re going to have at the end of the season, no one is that good at it right now,” he said. “But it’s really important because it determines how much labor contract you’re going to need and the supplies you’ll need for making wine.”Earles doesn’t think the budding use of AI in vineyards is “freaking farmers out.” Rather, he anticipates that AI will be used more frequently to help with difficult field labor and to discern problems in vineyards that farmers need help with.“They’ve seen people trying to sell them tech for decades. It’s hard to farm; it’s unpredictable compared to most other jobs,” he said. “The walking and counting, I think people would have said a long time ago, ‘I would happily let a machine take over.'” Sarah Parvini, AP technology writer
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