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Scott Stein There are so many smart glasses being made by so many companies right now, but so little good thought being put into how to develop for them. That's partly because many of them rely on AI as their primary "app," serving up information or fulfilling requests on demand.There should be better ideas, though, especially with Google's Android XR promising to extend apps to Google's glasses, new smart glasses like Even Realities' G2 that have a growing ecosystem of mini apps for their monochrome displays, Snap's roster of augmented reality lens developers and Meta opening up app deve
Google is expected to debut its AI-powered Android XR smart glasses, rivaling Meta's Ray-Ban smart glasses. Google first teased the return of smart glasses at its I/O keynote in 2024 (remember Google Glasses?). Last year, the company showed off a Gemini-powered prototype version, which Abrar Al-Heeti, CNET's senior tech reporter, tested at Mobile World Congress. Al-Heeti was especially impressed by the Google Maps demo, which provided directions based on a picture she viewed through the glasses, as well as the ability to look at a vinyl album cover and ask Gemini to play a song from it. Sounds