Google is testing a prototype of glasses for its AI model Gemini.
Google wants to construct artificial intelligence into your glasses. On Wednesday, the tech giant unveiled prototype glasses based on the following generation of the corporate’s popular AI model, Gemini, aimed toward providing wearers with real-time details about their surroundings.
In a demo video shown to reporters on Tuesday, an individual testing the black, thick-rimmed glasses uses them to explore London. He cycles through a park and asks his name (Primrose Hill). He asks the AI whether cycling is allowed there, and the software replies that it will not be allowed. He also asks if there are supermarkets along his cycle path, and the AI says there may be a Sainsbury’s store nearby. The experience is primarily voice-based, unlike another competing smartglasses that heavily use digital overlays to supply user information.
He also summons the agent by utilizing his phone, pointing it at a bus and asking the AI if he’ll take him near Chinatown. The software that identifies the bus and its route says this might be the case. The device also helps the person find details about a sculpture he’s viewing and retrieve a door code from his email when he looks on the entry keypad.
The prototype glasses are powered by Gemini 2.0, a new edition of Google’s flagship generative AI model that was also announced on Tuesday. Gemini 2.0 places a heavy emphasis on enabling AI “agents” that may perform tasks corresponding to purchases or reservations on a user’s behalf. To create a more seamless experience, Google also made updates to Project Astra, the corporate’s AI agent platform first announced in May that improves latency and natural language understanding.
The glasses work by integrating the Gemini model with three other existing Google services: Search, Maps and Lens, which might use image recognition to seek out details about real objects or elements in photos. The company said it’ll soon make the glasses available to a small group of early testers. The company didn’t provide a timeline for a broader release or details on a possible full product launch or technical specifications, but said there can be “more news soon.”
“We believe it is one of the most powerful and intuitive form factors for experiencing this type of AI,” Bibo Xu, group product manager at Google DeepMind, the corporate’s AI lab, told reporters.
Google is a pioneer in the case of smart glasses. Twelve years ago, the tech giant introduced its ill-fated Google Glass, a pair of Internet-connected glasses that permit people record videos and perform Google searches. The product immediately sparked a backlash over privacy concerns and tested the general public’s relationship with wearable technology.
More than a decade later, that market has change into less hostile. Three years ago, Facebook parent company Meta released an easy pair of RayBan glasses intended for recording videos. In September, the corporate announced its recent Orion glasses, which use augmented reality and artificial intelligence to create holographic displays. Last 12 months, Apple introduced Vision Pro, a “spatial computer” that mixes elements of augmented and virtual reality in a single headset. Snapchat and Microsoft have also released smart glasses and safety glasses.
Since the Glass disaster, Google has slowly returned to the event of smart glasses. At its annual developer conference two years ago, the corporate unveiled a pair of glasses that performed live translation.
Google timed the announcements to coincide with the one-year anniversary of Gemini, which the corporate released last 12 months to compete with OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Other announcements included an experimental programming agent called Jules that uses AI to generate easy computer code and perform menial software engineering tasks corresponding to fixing bugs.
Another recent initiative is Project Mariner, which brings Google’s AI agents to the net. For example, in a demo, a small business creates a spreadsheet with an inventory of local vendors as potential partners. The AI searches all of their web sites and retrieves contact information for every of the targeted partners.
“Over the last year, we’ve invested in developing more agent models, meaning they can understand more about the world around you, think several steps ahead, and take action on your behalf under your supervision,” CEO Sundar Pichai said in a blog post. He added that the brand new agent capabilities “bring us closer to our vision of a universal assistant.”
