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SMART SPECS
Meta’s AI helper lives on your head and ‘remembers’ things for you by scanning what you see – it’s got huge holiday perk
It's going to get even smarter, according to one top Meta exec
MARK Zuckerberg's AI smart glasses are now so clever they can "remember" what you see – and serve up a genius trick for your next holiday.
A top Meta exec sat down with The Sun to reveal how artificial intelligence specs can already change your life.
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We spoke to Meta's Li-Chen Miller, VP of Product for Wearables at the tech giant formerly known as Facebook.
Her team is responsible for building the Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses, which have the Meta AI built right in.
They use cameras to scan the world around you, and use built-in microphones and speakers to let you ask Meta AI all about it.
“I’m using my glasses more than ever," Miller told The Sun's Sean Keach at Meta's Menlo Park campus in California.
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She explained how you can ask the glasses to remember specific parts of your day.
Then you can use it to recall that info later on.
“I got to the hotel and I’m like: ‘Remember my hotel room.’ And I took a picture – ‘remember the number’.
“Later I was like ‘what’s my number? What was the hotel room number again?’ It just told me the number.”
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Miller says that this tech goes way beyond just remembering numbers.
The amount of detail that they can draw in from the world around you is pretty impressive.
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She's been using it to keep track of which tins of cat food each of her moggies like – and can quickly scan a can to see if it's a good fit.
“Cars are very finicky, and my boy likes seafood, my girl does not like seafood," Miller explained.
“So every day I look at the can of cat food, and Chipotle likes this flavor, Adobo likes this flavor, Chipotle hates this flavor.
“I read the design, the label, and then it would tell me that Cpiotle likes tuna and Adobo likes salmon or whatever.
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“So then I have a whole pile of cat food to donate that neither of them like.”
MEMORY MACHINE
You can also use the glasses to plan out your future – and avoid having to constantly take your phone out of your pocket.
So if you spot something you'd like to buy at a later date, you can ask the glasses to remember it and remind you to grab it when you get a chance.
“If you want a book, you could look at this and be like ‘remind me to buy this book’," she told The Sun.
Right now, in the glasses today, I can ask like which is the most unique dish. I can ask which one has mushroom. I can ask which one is spicy.
Li-Chen Miller
“It would take a picture. And then it knows exactly what that book is.
“I can literally just be like: ‘Remember, buy this book’.
“It would remind me at the time, and it would tell me what the title is.
“And I can even ask like: what else has the author written? It’ll give me other books.”
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This is also handy for shopping, too.
Imagine scanning the insides of your fridge – and then using the glasses to recall what was in there when you're at the shop.
“You’ve opened your fridge, and then you’ve asked can you just record everything that’s in my fridge,” Miller said.
“And then you go to the shop, I’ll remind you what I’m low on.”
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
You could even use it for creating recipes based on what's inside your fridge.
But it's also handy for eating out – especially if you're chowing down at a restaurant on holiday.
For instance, you could take a look at a foreign-language menu and ask for translations, or even advice on ordering.
It'll translate the text right there on the spot and answer your questions.
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“Right now, in the glasses today, I can ask like which is the most unique dish. I can ask which one has mushroom. I can ask which one is spicy," Miller told The Sun.
“I can do that today with my glasses. I use it all the time.”
It all sounds a bit wacky and farfetched, but it's a reality that exists right now.
TOP SPECS
The downside is that you'll have to pay £299 / $299 for a pair of these smart glasses.
But eventually, Meta thinks that its wearables will be extremely commonplace.
Miller said that "100%" it will be "absolutely very normal" to future generations.
It won't always be just using the glasses to take snapshots of moments either.
Right now you have to ask Meta to remember something manually – for example, by taking a photo.
DO YOU NEED A PAIR OF META SPECS?
Here's what The Sun's tech expert has to say...
You might be wondering whether it's worth snapping up a pair of Meta smart specs. It's a fair question.
Smartphones feel like they've peaked, really. So people are looking for what's next.
It's easy to imagine a future where smart glasses are very common – especially once they can also show you things, like Meta's Orion prototype.
For now, they can just talk to you. And for some people, that'll be enough.
The Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses already have enough features to convince plenty of gadget obsessives to pay £299 / $299.
If you're not cash-flush then these are by no means an essential. You need a phone. You certainly don't need these.
You could imagine augmented-reality smart glasses becoming more of a must-have in the 2030s.
For now, they're very clever – and you'll probably find some very creative ways of using them.
Don't forget that it's not just about AI. They also work as pretty handy cameras for recording moments without having to pull a phone out.
So if you've got a bit of cash spare, you could do far worse than picking up a pair of Meta's AI-powered spectacles.
Your phone can probably go another year without being upgraded, anyway.
But there's a possible future where your glasses just "remember" all on their own.
And then they could give you advice based on that massive catalogue of information.
NOT-SO-SMARTPHONE
Just last week, The Sun spoke to Andrew Bosworth, the chief technology officer at Meta.
Boz, as he's usually known, runs Meta's Reality Labs, which is responsible for the company's smart glasses.
- Watch our exclusive interview with Meta's Boz
And he said that they're currently working on prototype glasses that see and process what you're doing – to answer questions about almost anything.
“We have some really amazing demos internally where a pair of glasses that are designed to be sensing glasses are paying attention to what’s going on over the course of the day,” Boz told The Sun.
“And then you can ask them questions about your day and you say: ‘Hey, in the interior design meeting, what was the third colour I picked?’
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“And it just knows. And you’re like ‘Oh, there was a poster on the wall at work. What did it say?’
“And it says: ‘Oh yeah, there was a kid’s birthday party happening at this time, at this place.’ And so your day becomes queryable.
“And then you take that and – we haven’t done this yet – but you turn that into an agent that’s working on your behalf. And it’s like: ‘Oh don’t forget, your wife left you a post-it just to pick up a coffee on the way.”
He explained that it's this kind of "seeing" that gives smart glasses a huge advantage over phones.
“I think that is actually the thing that will hit us the hardest first, because that is truly an advantage that these devices have that your phone does not have,” Boz explains excitedly.
“Your phone is with you at all times, but it can’t see what you’re seeing.
“It can’t hear what you’re hearing and it doesn’t have the ability to do much proactively on your behalf, as a consequence.
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“And these glasses absolutely combined with Meta AI, they are capable of observing and recording and querying and understanding what’s happening.”
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Boz added: "I just think the AI – the sensing part of these glasses, the AI parts of these glasses – is gonna be the bigger impact on society sooner."
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