Google just inserted a pair of AR glasses in a Project Astra demo during I/O

In a video demonstrating the prowess of its new Project Astra app, the protester asked Gemini “do you remember where you saw my glasses?” The AI ​​impressively responded, “Yes, I do. Your glasses were on a desk near a red apple,” although that object wasn’t actually visible when the question was asked. But this wasn’t your standard visual aid. These glasses had an onboard camera and some sort of visual interface!

The tester took his glasses and put them on, then asked the AI ​​more questions about the things it was looking at. Obviously there’s a camera on the device that helps it pick up the environment, and we were shown some sort of interface where a waveform moved to indicate that it was listening. The on-screen captions also appeared to reflect the response read aloud to the wearer. So if we follow along, there’s at least a built-in microphone and speaker, as well as some sort of processor and battery to power the whole thing.

We only got a brief glimpse of the laptop, but from the sneaky seconds it was in view, a few things were obvious. The glasses had a simple black frame and didn’t look at all like Google Glass. They didn’t seem very bulky either.

In all likelihood, Google isn’t ready to actually launch a pair of glasses at I/O. He looked past the wearable appearance and barely mentioned them, to say that Project Astra and the company’s vision of “universal agents” could be applied to devices like our phones or glasses. We don’t know much else right now, but if you’re mourning Google Glass or the company’s other failed wearable products, this might still give you some hope.

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