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The head of Snapchat operator Snap, Evan Spiegel, presents the new generation of Spectacles in Los Angeles on Sept. 17, 2024.

Andrej Sokolow | Picture Alliance | Getty Images

Snap on Tuesday announced its plans to release a sixth-generation of its augmented reality glasses in 2026, as competition in the smart glasses market continues to heat up. 

The maker of Snapchat said that its next-generation glasses will be called Specs, breaking with the company’s Spectacles branding that it used for previous versions of its wearable devices. The Specs will use AR technology to let people see and interact with digital imagery that’s overlaid over the physical world.

Snap did not reveal a price or exact launch date for Specs, but the new glasses will be smaller and lighter than their predecessors, the company said. Snap’s most recent Spectacles were released in September 2024 to developers only. That edition of the glasses was available under a leasing model that required users to commit to paying $99 a month for a full year. 

The consumer-focused Specs will run on the company’s Snap OS operating systems. Snap said that developers will be able to incorporate Google’s Gemini AI models into programs they develop for the smart glasses, giving coders more AI options to choose from as they write software for the device. Previously, developers could only use OpenAI’s GPT family of AI models to build AR apps for the smart glasses.

“We couldn’t be more excited about the extraordinary progress in artificial intelligence and augmented reality that is enabling new, human-centered computing experiences,” Snap CEO Evan Spiegel said in a statement. 

When Snap launched its first Spectacles glasses in 2016, the $130 wearable was limited to simple features like helping users shoot short videos that they could post to Snapchat. The company updated its glasses with augmented reality displays in 2021 that allowed users to see virtual imagery overlaid by the glasses over what users saw in the real world. 

Since then, competition in the world of head-mounted computers has grown. 

Apple began selling its $3,500 Vision Pro goggles in February 2024, while Meta now has a range of cutting-edge products including Quest VR headsets, Ray-Ban Meta smartglasses and the experimental Project Orion AR glasses, which the social media company showed off last fall.

Google, meanwhile, announced its own entry into the space in May when it revealed a $150 million partnership with Warby Parker, which said it will release its own smart glasses sometime after this year. 

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Opendoor taps new CEO and names Keith Rabois chairman, boosting stock 30%

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Opendoor taps new CEO and names Keith Rabois chairman, boosting stock 30%

Keith Rabois of Khosla Ventures attends Day 3 of TechCrunch Disrupt SF 2013 at San Francisco Design Center on September 11, 2013 in San Francisco, California.

Steve Jennings | Getty Images

Opendoor, the online real estate platform that’s seen a surge of retail investor interest in recent months, said Wednesday that it’s tapped former Shopify executive Kaz Nejatian as CEO and named co-founder Keith Rabois as chairman.

The stock popped 30% in extended trading, and is now up more than fifteenfold since hitting its record low in June.

Rabois, a partner at Khosla Ventures, helped launch Opendoor in 2014, along with a group that included Eric Wu, who served as the first CEO before stepping down in 2023. Wu is rejoining the board as part of Wednesday’s announcement.

The moves come after Carrie Wheeler last month resigned as Opendoor’s CEO following an intense pressure campaign from investors. Rabois and hedge fund manager Eric Jackson were among those who were vocal critics of Wheeler and called for her departure.

The company was at risk of being delisted from the Nasdaq in May due to its stock price being below $1. Weeks later, Opendoor attracted a surge in interest from retail investors, earning it “meme stock” status, after Jackson began touting the company.

With the after-hours pop, Opendoor now has a market cap of close to $6 billion, up from less than $400 million less than three months ago.

Nejatian spent six years at Shopify and oversaw the Canadian e-commerce company’s product division in addition to serving as its COO. Nejatian’s last day at Shopify will be Sept. 12, and the company’s executive team will “assume Kaz’s responsibilities,” Shopify said in a regulatory filing.

“Literally there was only one choice for the job: Kaz,” Rabois said in a statement. “I am thrilled that he will be serving as CEO of Opendoor.”

Opendoor went public through a special purpose acquisition company in 2020. The company’s business involves using technology to buy and sell homes, pocketing the gains.

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Nvidia, Broadcom, TSMC, other AI names rally on Oracle’s massive growth projections

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Nvidia, Broadcom, TSMC, other AI names rally on Oracle's massive growth projections

Oracle Corp Chief Executive Larry Ellison during a launch event at the company’s headquarters in Redwood Shores, California June 10, 2014.

Noah Berger | Reuters

Oracle‘s massive growth trajectory for cloud infrastructure is lifting all boats.

The cloud giant forecasted skyrocketing sales to $114 billion in the company’s fiscal 2029, signalling demand for artificial intelligence processing will remain high over the next few years, and will require Oracle to build out new data centers.

“The guide for a 14x of Oracle’s cloud infra segment in 5 years, mostly from GPU cloud demand, and the guide for capex of $35b in FY26 is bullish Nvidia, other AI hardware suppliers and the eco-system of partners building and financing Oracle’s GPU data centers,” wrote UBS analyst Karl Keirstead in a note on Wednesday.

As Oracle shares roared 40% higher on Wednesday, companies that provide the chips and systems for its buildout — or even compete with it — are seeing their stocks boom.

Nvidia, which says its computers and chips comprise about 70% of the total budget for an AI data center, climbed 4%.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., which makes chips for Nvidia and others in AI, rose over 4% during trading on Wednesday after it said sales increased by 34% in August.

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Broadcom, which makes networking gear to tie Nvidia chips together and plays a key role in custom AI chips for companies like Google, climbed 9%.

AMD is the main Nvidia competitor for graphics processors used for AI, although its chips currently only have a small fraction of the market. Its shares rose 3%.

Micron, which makes memory used in Nvidia’s most advanced chips, rose 4%.

Super Micro and Dell, which both make complete server systems around Nvidia’s chips, each rose 4%.

“The vast majority of our CapEx investments are for revenue-generating equipment that is going into the data centers,” Oracle’s Safra Catz said on Tuesday.

The biggest gainer was one of Oracle’s so-called neo-cloud competitors, CoreWeave, which rose 20% on continued exuberance around insatiable demand for AI compute. Neo-clouds compete against Google, Amazon, and Microsoft for cloud customers by focusing on offering better access and tools for artificial intelligence.

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Klarna opens at $52 per share in NYSE debut after pricing IPO above range

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Klarna opens at  per share in NYSE debut after pricing IPO above range

Sebastian Siemiatkowski, chief executive officer and co-founder of Klarna Holding AB, center, and Michael Moritz, chairman of Klarna Bank AB, center right, during the company’s initial public offering (IPO) at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York, US, on Wednesday, Sept. 10, 2025.

Michael Nagle | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Klarna shares popped 30% in their New York Stock Exchange debut Wednesday, opening at $52, after the Swedish online lender priced its IPO above its expected range.

The company, known for its popular buy now, pay later products, priced shares at $40 on Tuesday, raising $1.37 billion for the company and existing shareholders. The offering valued Klarna at about $15 billion.

The IPO marks the latest in a growing list of high-profile tech IPOs this year, suggesting increased demand from Wall Street for new offerings. Companies like stablecoin issuer Circle and design software platform Figma soared in their respective debuts. Meanwhile, crypto exchange Gemini is expected to go public later this week.

“To me, it really just is a milestone,” Klarna’s co-founder and CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski told CNBC in an interview on Wednesday. “It’s a little bit like a wedding. You prepare so much and you plan for it and it’s a big party. But in the end — marriage goes on.”

Klarna’s entry into the public markets will test Wall Street’s excitement about the direction of its business. The company has in recent months talked up its move into banking, rolling out a debit card and personal deposit accounts in the U.S.

Klarna has signed 700,000 card customers in the U.S. so far and has 5 million people on a waiting list seeking access to the product, Siemiatkowski told CNBC. He added that Klarna Card represents a different proposition to rival fintech Affirm’s card offering, which has attracted 2 million users since its launch in 2021.

“We’re attracting a slightly different audience maybe than the Affirm card,” Siemiatkowski said. “I get the impression that is more a card where people use it simply to be able to have financing with interest on slightly higher tickets.”

In addition to Affirm, Klarna also competes with Afterpay, which was acquired for $29 billion in 2021 by Square, now a unit of Block.

Klarna faces some potential regulatory headwinds. In the U.K., the government has proposed new rules to bring BNPL loans under formal oversight to address affordability concerns regarding the market.

A banner for Swedish fintech Klarna, hangs on the front of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) to celebrate the company’s IPO in New York City, U.S., September 10, 2025.

Brendan McDermid | Reuters

The IPO is poised to generate billions of dollars in returns for some of Klarna’s long-time investors. Existing shareholders are offering the bulk of Klarna shares— 28.8 million — on the public market. At its IPO price of $40, that translates to over $1.2 billion. Meanwhile, Klarna raised $222 million from the IPO.

Sequoia, which first backed in Klarna in 2010, has invested $500 million in total. The venture firm sold 2 million of its 79 million shares in the IPO, meaning it’s generated an overall return of about $2.65 billion, based on the offer price.

Andrew Reed, a partner at Sequoia, told CNBC that he was still in college when Sequoia made its first investment in an “alternative payments company in Stockholm.” The early work, he said, was around expanding in Europe.

“Being here in New York 15 years later with over 100 million consumers and over $100 billion of GMV [gross merchandise value] and close to a million merchants, it is staggering what one year after another of execution and growth and Sebastian’s long-term vision can do,” Reed said.

Another Klarna investor hasn’t been so lucky. Japan’s SoftBank led a 2021 funding round in Klarna at a $46 billion valuation and has since seen the value of its stake plunge significantly.

WATCH: CNBC’s interview with Klarna CEO Sebastian Siematkowski

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