Meta on Thursday revealed the latest version of its experimental smart glasses intended to help bolster research into artificial intelligence, robotics and machine perception.

The Aria Gen 2 glasses, as they’re called, are designed for researchers to use as tools to assist with their studies into robotic systems, advanced sensors and other technologies, Meta said in a blog post. For instance, the startup Envision is using the new glasses to help it create services for the visually and hearing impaired, according to the blog.

The new glasses are an improvement from the Aria Gen 1 glasses, which Meta announced in 2020. The Aria Gen 2 represent the latest step by Meta in its efforts to build out smart glasses into the next major computing platform after the smartphone. The company also sells the $300 Ray-Ban Meta glasses, which have an AI voice assistant and can be used to take photos and videos, and in September, the company unveiled its cutting-edge Orion glasses prototype that feature full augmented-reality capabilities. 

Among the Aria Gen 2 glasses’ improvements over its predecessor are upgraded sensors including one that measures heart rates, the ability to perform more complicated calculations on the device itself with Meta’s custom computer chips and “all-day usability,” the blog said. 

“Making them available to academic and commercial research labs through Project Aria will further advance open research and public understanding of a key set of technologies that we believe will help shape the future of computing and AI,” the company wrote. 

Meta did not reveal when the device will be more widely available to researchers, but said that there is an option for them to sign-up for updates.

WATCH: What’s driving Meta’s stock run

Singer Katy Perry and CBS’ Gayle King will join Jeff Bezos‘ fiancee Lauren Sanchez on his rocket company Blue Origin’s next crewed mission.

The company on Thursday announced the next six-person crew of its New Shepard rocket, which also includes aerospace engineer Aisha Bowe, film producer Kerianne Flynn and Amanda Nguyen, a bioastronautics research scientist and civil rights activist. The launch is planned for this spring.

The mission will be the 11th human flight for Blue Origin’s New Shepard program. A trip on the New Shepard rocket lasts about 10 minutes. The reusable rocket carries people on a ride past the edge of space, with the spacecraft and crew floating in microgravity for a couple of minutes before returning to Earth.

Blue Origin previously sent up Bezos, its billionaire founder who also founded Amazon and owns the Washington Post, and Canadian actor William Shatner on other crewed missions. To date, New Shepard has flown 52 people into space, according to the company.

Standard Chartered’s bullish crypto analyst still sees bitcoin’s price hitting $500,000 during Donald Trump’s presidency — even after a selloff that sank the world’s largest digital currency to a three-month low.

Geoffrey Kendrick, who heads up digital assets research at Standard Chartered, told CNBC he believes bitcoin will hit the $200,000 mark this year before climbing even further in the coming years.

“Within the crypto ecosystem, what we need are traditional financial players, like Standard Chartered, like BlackRock and others that have the ETFs now to really step in,” Kendrick said in an interview with CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe” Thursday.

“As the industry becomes more institutionalized, it should be safer,” Kendrick said, adding that this should result in fewer negative headlines — such as the recent $1.5 billion hack on cryptocurrency exchange Bybit last week.

This increase in crypto adoption by institutions, coupled with some “regulatory clarity” in the U.S., should lead to less volatility over time, he added.

“That should add to that medium term, top-side potential, which for me is bitcoin up to $200,000 this year, and $500,000 before Trump leaves office,” Kendrick told CNBC.

Kendrick said the catalyst necessary for large financial institutions to gain confidence to invest in bitcoin and other crypto assets is a stabilization in prices and increased regulatory clarity.

Bitcoin earlier this week sank to a three-month low below $90,000 amid declines in global equity markets. As of Thursday, the token was trading at $86,418. That means it’s down about 20% from an all-time high of $108,786, which the coin peaked at in January, according to CoinGecko data.

Standard Chartered’s Kendrick said digital currencies have dropped more broadly due to uncertainty around tariffs and resolutions to major wars such as Russia-Ukraine and Israel-Gaza.

“Risk assets don’t like uncertainty, and so that’s what we’ve seen. We’ve seen tech stocks in the U.S. coming lower,” Kendrick said, adding that the breach of Bybit has also contributed to negative sentiment surrounding crypto more broadly.

He expects the outlook for crypto will improve later in the year as traders await key regulatory developments in the industry, such as new rules around stablecoins and anti-money laundering.

“That should further legitimize, so you’ll see more U.S. banks involved. You’ll see larger institutions in the U.S. continue to push through,” Kendrick said.

Kendrick was one of the numerous market analysts who predicted a doubling in bitcoin’s price this year to $200,000. Bitcoin broke the highly anticipated $100,000 mark in December following Trump’s election to the U.S. presidency.

Crypto bulls view Trump positively given his support for digital currencies. In January, Trump signed an executive order promoting the advancement of cryptocurrencies in the U.S. and developing a national digital asset stockpile.

Crypto investors, companies and executives accounted for almost half of corporate donations in the 2024 election cycle, with some contributing tens of millions of dollars to Trump’s campaign.