Google’s New Smart Glasses. For Travelers: Live Translation, Navigation

Google is giving travelers another option for a wearable live translator and personal travel guide. The company revealed more information about its upcoming smart glasses at the I/O developer conference on Tuesday, among a slew of other announcements. 

Gentle Monster and Warby Parker will be the first eyewear brands to deploy the tech, which the latter said would be released “after 2025.” 

They’ll be a direct competitor to the Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses, which recently got a feature for live voice translation along with the ability to act as a tour guide. The company tried smart glasses once before with Google Glass but stopped making them in 2015.

This is also among the latest examples of big tech companies developing hardware with computing power to handle advanced AI. Apple’s latest iPhone, for example, was built with dedicated AI features. 

And OpenAI on Wednesday said it is acquiring io, a device company co-founded by Jony Ive, who led design for the iPhone, iMac, and iPad.

Google in December introduced Android XR — the operating system for the glasses and an upcoming headset — developed in partnership with Samsung and Qualcomm. It’s built with an AI assistant powered by Gemini, allowing users to control the device by voice and have conversations about what’s in view.

Google showcased some of the headset's travel-related features during the event on Tuesday.

The glasses will be equipped with a camera, microphones, and speakers. There’s an optional in-lens display to view information privately. And the glasses connect to the user’s phone and apps. Developers can start building apps for the platform later this year.

Glasses: Live Translation 

The translation feature for the glasses glitched during the middle of Google’s live demo, but the company has some time to get it right.  

During the Google demo, one user spoke Hindi and another spoke Farsi. Each spoke a phrase in those languages, and then the other saw the English translation as text through the lenses of their glasses. The first phrase worked, but then the AI lagged and the users ended the demo. 

Glasses: Search for Places and Get Directions

Nishtha Bhatia, product manager for glasses and AI at Google, did a live demo on Tuesday to showcase how the glasses can help users navigate a city.

The demo showed that the AI can remember what it sees and answer questions about it later. The glasses can also take photos and videos and save them to the user’s phone.

• Bhatia: “Gemini, what was the name of the coffee shop on the cup I had earlier?”
• Gemini: “Hm, that might have been Bloomsgiving. From what I can tell, it’s a vibrant coffee shop on Castro Street.”
• Bhatia: “Can you show me the photos of that cafe? I want to check out the vibes.”
• Gemini: Shows the Bloomsgiving listing from Google Maps.
• Bhatia: “Gemini, show me what it would take to walk here.”
• Gemini: “Getting those directions now. It’ll take you about an hour.” And then the glasses show step-by-step directions and a 3-D map that the user can see through the lenses. 
• Bhatia: “Go ahead and send Dieter an invite for that cafe and to get coffee at 3 p.m. today.”
• Gemini: “I’ll send out that invite now. Enjoy the coffee.” And Gemini connects with Calendar to schedule the appointment. 

Project Moohan XR Headset: Trip Planning and Virtual Travel

Samsung’s Project Moohan is the first device that will be powered by Android XR, available for purchase later this year. Developers have been making apps and games for the headset since last year.

It is intended to rival devices like the Apple Vision Pro and Meta Quest.

The headset has functions for both virtual reality — meaning the full visual is virtual — and augmented reality, allowing the user to view virtual screens in the real world.

Through the Google Maps app, the user can soar above and through cities in virtual reality, as well as view landmarks as if standing on the ground in person. As Google demonstrated: The user could say, “Can you take me to Florence?” and the app “teleports” the user there. 

Then, the user could ask, “Can you show me immersive videos of this place…and where can I book a tour?” And the device pulls the user to the augmented reality setting to show search results. The Google demo showed three virtual screens with the user's living room: A map of Florence, a YouTube search of immersive Florence videos, and a travel blog. 

Through the Major League Baseball app, the user should be able to view a live game while chatting with Gemini about what’s happening.