Facebook parent Meta adds AI voice chat, live translation to Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses as it competes with Apple, Google, OpenAI
Facebook parent Meta has begun rolling out AI-powered features to its Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses, including the ability to carry on a continuous voice conversation with Meta’s chatbot and to translate multiple languages.
Users in Meta’s early access programme in the US and Canada can now download firmware version 11, adding “live AI”, the company said.
Users can now carry on a continuous conversation with the Meta AI chatbot, without having to say the “Hey, Meta” prompt, and can interrupt the chatbot, ask follow-up questions or change the topic.
A live video feature allows users to ask Meta AI about what they are seeing in real-time.
Live translation
The features were introduced at Meta’s Connect developer conference in September as an answer to OpenAI’s Advanced Voice Mode with Vision and Google’s Project Astra.
The update also adds live translation between English and Spanish, French or Italian.
Meta said when users converse with people in those languages they will hear what the other person is saying in English through the glasses’ open-ear speakers and receive a transcript on their paired phone.
The update also adds Shazam support, allowing users to say, “Hey, Meta, Shazam this song” to prompt the glasses to identify the song currently playing.
Large tech companies are rushing to roll out AI-powered features across multiple platforms, including Apple Intelligence on iPhones and Google AI features on Android devices.
Meta is one of the first to market with real-time AI features on smart glasses, something Google has promised to deliver, without committing to a timeline.
Next-gen AR glasses
At the Meta Connect 2024 event in September Meta also announced next-generation augmented reality (AR) glasses called Orion, previously codenamed Project Nazare, which the company claimed would be the most advanced pair of AR glasses ever made.
Meta said that it had begun developing its AR glasses five years ago, as it doesn’t “think people should have to make the choice between a world of information at your fingertips and being present in the physical world around you”.
The Orion device is currently being tested with certain “Meta employees and select external audiences access to Orion”, the company said at the time.