Amazon Is Reportedly Building Alexa Smart Specs
Get ready to hear the soft voice of your AI assistant cooing right into your ear, wherever you are. The Financial Times reports ($) that Amazon is building a wearable addition to its AI assistant range in the form of smart spectacles.
Developed by ex-Google Glass lead Babak Parviz, the device would apparently ditch the camera and screen that have been a focal point of other smart glasses. Instead, Amazon's effort would provide an ever-present Alexa by syncing with a nearby smartphone and using bone-conduction audio so users don’t need to wear headphones. The newspaper says that they could be launched by the end of the year.
Amazon wouldn't be the first to consider covering your face in technology as you go about your daily life. Google's infamous Project Glass tried and prominently failed to make such an idea work, almost certainly because it was far ahead of its time. Apple has been rumored to be developing its own augmented reality specs. And Snap made a silly-fun pair of life-logging glasses, too.
But the development of Alexa specs could be a smart move for Amazon on a few levels. First, it would sidestep some of the battery-life limitations that cameras and screens place on wearable hardware. Second, it would allow it to put Alexa in the wild and not just the home, which is something that Siri and Assistant already do for Apple and Google by virtue of their presence on smartphones.
Of course, Amazon's mobile hardware history is a little spotty: its Kindle range is unstoppable, but its own smartphone flopped hard. Still, if it can crack the making of its own specs, their arrival could further cement AI butler technology as the primary way we interact with our machines—a future we think may be inevitable.
Keep Reading
Most Popular
Large language models can do jaw-dropping things. But nobody knows exactly why.
And that's a problem. Figuring it out is one of the biggest scientific puzzles of our time and a crucial step towards controlling more powerful future models.
How scientists traced a mysterious covid case back to six toilets
When wastewater surveillance turns into a hunt for a single infected individual, the ethics get tricky.
The problem with plug-in hybrids? Their drivers.
Plug-in hybrids are often sold as a transition to EVs, but new data from Europe shows we’re still underestimating the emissions they produce.
Google DeepMind’s new generative model makes Super Mario–like games from scratch
Genie learns how to control games by watching hours and hours of video. It could help train next-gen robots too.
Stay connected
Get the latest updates from
MIT Technology Review
Discover special offers, top stories, upcoming events, and more.