Among other new features, such as the immersive view in Google Maps, Google has presented at its I/O event – its annual developers’ conference – the latest model of augmented reality glasses, with the ability to show the user subtitles in real time while conversing with an interlocutor speaking in another language.
Augmented reality involves adding a layer of information about what the user has in front of their eyes
This is made possible by Google’s advances in real-time translation and is a most practical use for augmented reality glasses, which unlike virtual reality do not constitute full visual immersion but only the addition of a layer of information over the user’s field of view.
Although Google has not shared very specific details about the operation of the device, which is in prototype stage, an example of its integration in a conversation between two interlocutors who do not share a language has been shown.
Whoever wears the Google glasses receives the visual information corresponding to a real-time translation of the words of his interlocutor, like subtitles in a moviethe subtitles are superimposed on the glass of the glasses in such a way that they seem to float next to the face of the person who is speaking to them,
With this device Google expands the possibilities of augmented reality, beyond its use in smartphones and tablets on a device such as glasses, in a more specific iteration of what at the time involved the pioneering Google Glass that appeared in 2014.
In this case at least the prototype presented integrates more naturally by having the same appearance as normal glasses and could pose fewer problems related to privacy by lacking a camera that could be capturing images without the knowledge or consent of who might appear in the same.