Google unveils new AI-enabled products

STORY: These are Google’s new augmented-reality glasses that display translations of conversations in real time using artificial intelligence.

A decade after the debut of Google Glass, Google has unveiled a new pair of glasses with a built-in computer.

At its annual Google I/O developer conference, the company showed a video of its glasses prototype displaying captions in English, Mandarin, Spanish and American Sign Language.

The unnamed pair of specs were teased alongside other new AI-enabled products,

as part of Google’ plans to bridge the real world and its digital universe of search, Maps and other services using artificial intelligence.

The company demonstrated a feature that lets users take video of store shelves with various products and ask the search app to perform functions such as identify options from Black-owned businesses.

Google also says Maps will soon launch an immersive view for some big cities that fuses Street View and aerial images.

(Sundar Pichai, CEO of Alphabet and Google) “It allows you to explore a place like never before. Let’s go to London and take a look. What a beautiful city. Say you’re planning to visit Westminster with your family. You can get into this immersive straight from Maps on your phone and you can pan around the sites.”

The tech giant also unveiled a palette of 10 skin tones

that it describes as a step forward in making gadgets and apps that better serve people of color.

The company partnered with Harvard University sociologist Ellis Monk who studies colorism.

Monk says he had felt dehumanized by cameras that failed to detect his face and reflect his skin tone.

Google also teased a tablet to be launched in 2023 and a smartwatch that will go on sale in late 2022.

The new hardware is part of a strategy to offer products comparable to rival Apple that could provide rich rewards from Google’s ad sales.

The company still derives most of its revenue from ads, but devices could matter more for Google over the long run.