Wearing the Reference Design Prototype of Google Glasses: A Case Study in Optical and Wearable Wearable Technicolor

I spent about five minutes wearing the reference design prototype of Google’s new smart glasses. They have a low-res version of a waveguide in the center of each lens that shows some information, such as voice interactions with people, and a simplified version of the directions you see on the internet. They were… fine? When it comes to AR glasses, the tech is still years away. In the meantime, it’s smart of them to partner with Warby Parker, Gentle Monster, and Kering to put Android XR in glasses that I expect to start coming out next year. Meta’s ability to be the only major player in the space is diminishing because Apple will soon release a pair of glasses with artificial intelligence.

Is the AI Pin Really Designed for the Tech? An Analysis of Current Trends and Future Trends in Wearable Artificial Intelligence

It leads me to believe we are talking about a mix of the Plaud NotePin and the AI Pin. Plaud can be worn in a variety of fashions, including as a necklace, which is pill-shaped. The Humaneai Pin has a camera, speaker, microphone, and apple-esque elegance in its design. It didn’t violate almost every tenet of good Wearable design, but it got too hot to wear comfortably, and it had to pay for a Long Term Evolution subscription. In some ways, that means we’re kind of talking about an always-listening, smart body cam (that could also be a decorative item on your desk).

multimodal artificial intelligence requires a device that can see what you see while you’re there, access a large language model, interact with you, and lastlong enough to be useful in a variety of scenarios. Big Tech has mostly decided on gadgets that are Wearables, particularly glasses and pins. The thing most players in this space can’t agree on is whether the average person will want a display. Ive and Altman don’t think so so far.

We are in the first phase of the spaghetti phase of artificial intelligence hardware. Big Tech and smaller gadget makers alike are throwing anything and everything at the wall to see what sticks. Silicon Valley wants generative AI on your devices. It is not clear what the best approach would be, or how much a person would pay for it. We’re all trying to guess who is going to solve the code in terms of form factor, company, and use cases; instead of murderers, rooms, and weapons, you could see it as a board game Clue. Is it Samsung with Project Moohan in your living room as you ask Gemini to take you to Tokyo? Meta uses its Ray-Ban glasses on a Thai beach, and it uses live artificial intelligence to translate drinks menu. Bee or Plaud in a boardroom, diligently summarizing action items from your meeting? Or maybe it is Ive and the prototype will use whatever scenarios are meant for it.

Early prototypes of the device exist (Altman mentioned taking one home in his promo video with Ive). Altman told OpenAI employees this week that it will be able to sit on a desk or be carried around. Supply chain rumors suggest it will be roughly the size of an iPod Shuffle and also be worn like a necklace.

A senior reporter with 13 years of experience focuses on health tech and more. She worked at Gizmodo and PC Magazine in the past.

There were a number of announcements this week, including a Grok model coming to azure and Microsoft bet on how to evolve the plumbing of the web for artificial intelligence agents. The company’s keynote speeches were disrupted by protesters who were protesting its business with Israel. Microsoft tried to block the ability for employees to send internal emails containing the words “Palestine,” “Gaza” and “Genocide” because of the tense situation.

The company held an event on Thursday in San Francisco to debut its Claude 4 models , which it claims are the world’s best for coding. With OpenAI, Google, and Meta all battling to win the interface layer of AI, Anthropic is positioning itself as the model arms dealer of choice. It was telling that Windsurf, which is in talks to sell to OpenAI, was seemingly intentionally left out of getting day-one access to the new models. This is the equivalent of a trade ban if models are countries. What does it say about the current state of the industry, when the lab is out with models that it knows want to blackmail people?

Is Google OK with ChatGPT? Introducing Voice-Based AI for the OpenAI Project Astra and the Veo Model, with an Unexpectedly Growing User Base

It’s still quite possible that ChatGPT’s growth continues unabated while Gemini struggles to become a household name. A shift in how people use technology would hurt their business over time. For now, though, it looks like Google might be okay.

There’s also no question that Google is well-positioned to continue leading on the frontier of model development. The new models are very good and the idea of a post- phone world with Project Astra seems to have been pitched by the search giant. The company has compute to deliver tools that are impressive, like the new Veo video model, while OpenAI’s Sora remains heavily gated due to graphics constraints.

Importantly, Ive ended his consulting relationship with Apple in 2022, the year before he met Altman. The deal made Ive rich but kept him from working on products that could compete with Apple. Now, Ive and Altman are teaming up to announce what I expect to be a voice-first AI device later next year.

Ive and his design team plan to focus solely on OpenAI when Love From ends their existing client work. OpenAI, meanwhile, already has open “future of computing” roles for others to join the io team it brought over. One job listing for a senior research engineer says the ideal candidate has already “spent time in the weeds teaching models to speak and perceive.” A total of $555K plus equity is included in total compensation.

The leaders of OpenAI and Google have been living rent-free in each other’s heads since ChatGPT caught the world by storm. Last year, OpenAI held an event the day before to showcase the advanced voice mode, and the audience was on edge about whether the same thing would happen this year.

As always, I welcome your feedback, especially if you have thoughts on this issue, an opinion about stackable simulations, or a story idea to share. You can respond here or ping me securely on Signal.