Hello and welcome to the weekend. You’re looking well, some might say “refreshed”. Is it the diet, the exercise, a relaxing holiday? You’d tell me if you’d had something “done”, right? According to the experts, and some thrilling anecdotes, cosmetic procedures are more popular than ever, but admitting to them certainly isn’t. And secrets – from those kept by the Botox brigade to the mysteries revealed by devastating drought – appear to play a theme this week.Are the wildly popular smartglasses the final nail in the coffin of personal privacy? Illustration: Saratta Chuengsatiansup/The GuardianThey have been branded “pervert or predator” glasses, a portent that a dystopian age of surveillance is upon us. Wherever you look, someone has an opinion (not always negative) on Meta Glasses, the clunky-ish but somehow sought-after offering from the tech gods. Now people are also reporting they have been secretly filmed in their own homes, at concerts and at work – and there’s a whole line of business helping it along.‘We don’t have privacy any more’: Meta’s smartglasses are supposed to let you know the wearer is recording by the presence of a flashing LED light. But there are hundreds of vendors, easily discoverable online, who specialise in disabling it. One of those tells Maggie Harrison Dupré: “In public, I don’t think we have privacy any more, period. My argument is if you’re really worried about your privacy, don’t go outside.”And it gets worse: Covert recordings may just be the first step in a more sophisticated surveillance apparatus integrated with another deeply controversial technology: facial recognition.How long will it take to read: Just under nine minutes.Further reading: ‘I’ve definitely lost followers’: influencers face backlash over Meta ‘pervert glasses’ content.2. How drought has devastated the DanubeA geologist takes advantage of the low water leves in the Danube to view the myhtical ‘famine rock’. Photograph: David Levene/The GuardianThe heatwave scorching Europe and much of the northern hemisphere has turned once verdant landscapes dry and desolate. One of the starkest examples has been on the shores of the EU’s longest river. The Guardian travelled 100 miles along the Danube, where some residents are struggling to secure drinking water.Hunger stones: In the Hungarian capital, Budapest, there is a rock that for centuries has served as a warning. It was named Ínség-szikla – the Rock of Starvation. When it began to emerge from the Danube, it meant the river had fallen so low that floating mills could no longer operate, crops were probably failing, and hunger would almost certainly follow. Today, amid record-low water levels on the river, the rock has surfaced almost in its entirety, along with the sandy riverbed on which it rests, astonishing geologists and government scientists sent to examine it.Notable quote: “It’s gone. Everything has dried up. Since I started farming this land after the end of communist rule, I’ve never seen a catastrophe like this.”How long will it take to read: Three and a quarter minutes.Further reading: The threatening thaw: climate professor on heatwave risks to tipping point of permafrost, and, for something hopeful: ‘Success story’ hailed as bluefin tunas caught off Yorkshire for first time since 1960s.3. Life, death and making an album from a hospital bedJames Ellis Ford in his home in London. Photograph: Manuel Vazquez/The GuardianJames Ford went from tearing up 00s dancefloors as one half of Simian Mobile Disco – musicians and DJs who elevated the electro-rave era of the decade – to becoming the most sought-after ear in music, collaborating with the Arctic Monkeys, Pet Shop Boys and Pulp. But when he was at the height of his powers, leukaemia struck.