Google is reportedly making a new AR headset -- and this tech junkie is having flashbacks.

This was me in 2013 , an idiot greeting the world while wearing a monocular AR device that made me look like a 21st Century Mad-Eye Moody .

I could blame Google. It was their Google Glass AR headset , after all ... but the fault really lies with me for not recognizing that I looked like a Glasshole .

In truth, Google Glass was incredible wearable technology, way ahead of its time. I mean way ahead. So far ahead that no one understood that you can't just have innovation for the sake of innovation. There's an aesthetic aspect. Anything you put on your body must be attractive or at least look like it belongs there. Google Glass failed that litmus test.

The technology was proto-augmented reality. The roughly 25-inch overlay screen virtually floating in front of your face didn't so much interact or augment your environment as it did inform you without totally distracting you from real life. The idea of imagery interacting with real-world objects was at least a few years out.

Even so, there were apps, and you could control the system with gestures on the device (and head movements, which made you look even stranger). Much of what Google Glass did and the promise it held inspired future AR and VR interfaces. And with the interest in AR today, the future isn't that far off.

Back to AR

And now the world is arguably obsessed with both virtual platforms (see Metaverse ).

With its Oculus headgear , Facebook has the pole position in the VR space and is now actively courting potential AR wearable fans with Facebook Ray-Ban Stories smart glasses . For now, there's no screen - they're video and photo capture devices, but you know where this is going. Facebook is smart to start with attractive frames and build from there.

Apple is hot on AR too - Tim Cook says so - and is allegedly working on its own AR headgear that may or may not leave most of the processing power in the iPhone you'll probably have in your pocket.

With all this renewed interest, how could Google not take another run at the wearable AR headgear space?

According to a report in The Verge , the search giant has set up a team and christened it Project Iris. The latest story builds on earlier reports about Google's intentions.

Unlike Google Glass, this headgear will feature cameras to pull in the world and use AR imagery both locally and from the Google cloud to make an augmented reality whole.

I think it's fair to assume that it will differ from Glass in other critical ways. Instead of one projected display over a single eye, it'll probably be a dual-screen stereo view. It should also look like a traditional pair of glasses - or at least as much as they can while carrying tiny displays, chips (probably one of Google's Tensor mobile CPUs ), speakers, and microphones so you can talk to Google.

In fact, that last bit may be the way in which Project Iris's AR goggles most resemble Google Glass. Even though the original headset supported some gestures, most of us primarily controlled it via voice.

Yes, this was the other way in which I doubled my shame and the embarrassment of friends and family by constantly speaking to Google Glass, even as some people didn't realize what I was wearing.

Better technology

Google's next AR headgear will benefit from vastly improved far-field microphones - the kind they use in Google Home devices - which means we won't have to shout or even speak in a normal voice. A whisper should do.

Even the gesture technology should improve thanks to Google's radar integration experience with their Pixel phones.

The report notes that Google is still hiring and developing and that the first product could be years away.

Still the specter of Google Glass - a now not-quite-dead enterprise product - will never be far from these efforts. Whatever Google finally produces must be as least as beautiful as anything from Ray-Ban or Apple (which will be first). It should be effortless to use, powerful but private (a tough one for Google), and not spark even the mildest form of embarrassment.

It will not be the next Google Glass. Project Iris, or whatever Google is actually calling it, must be something more.

That said, I'll slap whatever they do produce on my face and call it a day. I have no shame.

ExpressVPN's new security feature signals where VPNs are heading in 2022

ExpressVPN has unveiled two new features to its market-leading VPN service that are seeking to speed up connection times and - more notably - move its product further towards a one-stop solution for your online security needs.

Parallel Connections is a smart technology which works under the hood to cut connection times, especially on restricted networks like schools, hotels and airports.

While the second feature, Threat Manager, is a DNS-based web filter which blocks access to trackers and malicious websites.

Speed and security

In its Parallel Connections feature - currently available on Express's iPhone VPN only and coming to other platforms soon - ExpressVPN says that it has launched a feature that "works behind the scenes to ensure faster and more reliable VPN connections".

Previously, its apps tackled these difficult situations by choosing the best method of connection, waiting for the results, moving to the next, waiting again, and so on. With many combinations to try, users might wait 15 or more seconds to connect in the most extreme situations.

Parallel Connections enables ExpressVPN apps to try all connection methods simultaneously. The company says that the longest delays should now be almost entirely eliminated, with 25% more users connecting in under one second.

While Threat Manager is now available for free with ExpressVPN's Mac and iOS apps, with support for other platforms on the way. To create its blocklist, the company says it has combined some of the best publicly available sources, including URLhaus, ensuring a good level of protection from the latest web dangers.

VPN extending to further security horizons

Threat Manager isn't a new idea - NordVPN , Surfshark , Private Internet Access and others offer similar ad or malware blockers - but it represents an important new direction for ExpressVPN. The service isn't just shielding your traffic, any more: it's extending its reach into the security world to protecting you from malware and scammers.

This doesn't necessarily mean ExpressVPN is suddenly going to release its own CyberGhost One-like security suite, complete with antivirus , software updater and more.

It is yet another sign that there's a clear convergence in this area, though, with security companies adding VPNs, and VPNs beginning to add their own security features. Threat Manager may be one of ExpressVPN's first steps into this area, but it's unlikely to be the last.

The best cheap laptops will get even better if new Alder Lake benchmarks are real

Intel's Alder Lake lineup continues to impress, and the latest benchmark to pop up online should make Chromebook and Windows 11 S-mode laptop fans very excited.

A new benchmark for the Intel Celeron G6900, a dual-core Alder Lake chip that is on the very entry-level end of the processor generation, recently turned up in the GeekBench database .

The results state that the entry-level chip scored a 1,403 in single-core performance and 2,577 in Geekbench 5's multi-core tests. While the multi-core score isn't about to break any records, the single core performance is especially impressive.

According to Wccftech , this puts the G6900 ahead of the Intel Core i9-10900K in terms of single-core performance, and we can confirm that this beats out the single-core performance of the Intel Core i9-10980HK, which we've seen in a lot of high end gaming laptops and mobile creative workstations as recently as the middle of last year.

It even tops the Ryzen 7 5800H and comes within striking distance of the Ryzen 9 5900HS in Geekbench 5's single-core tests.

As a dual-core processor, the G6900 gets absolutely blown away in multi-core performance across the board, obviously. But single-core performance like this would mean that individual apps on their own should run very well on this processor.

Of course, the Intel Celeron G6900 isn't available yet, and there is a lot that could change, so a benchmark like this needs to be treated with some skepticism. We hope it's legit though, since we'd love to see some power in the budget space.

Analysis: budget laptops are going to see the biggest benefit

While the multi-core score of the Intel Celeron G6900 isn't all that hot, the single core performance should make individual apps like Chrome run especially well.

This will definitely help with day-to-day, general computing performance that is the bread and butter of cheaper Chromebooks and Windows 11 S-mode laptops.

And since this is an entry-level chip, we can definitely expect to see it popping up in some of the best cheap laptops this year, which is something we love to see.

Budget products usually have to make some big sacrifices to get the price down, and while a Celeron chip will never be able to hold a candle to a Core i9 of the same generation, seeing a huge step up in performance on the budget-end of the computing market is something to celebrate.