There’s a growing list of places where smart glasses are banned—parts of some major cruise liners, courtrooms, and schools—but weirdly enough, some theaters might be trending in the opposite direction.
As noted by a report from the New York Times, theater productions in South Korea and some overseas are purposely handing out AI glasses at performances in a bid to make plays accessible to people who don’t speak Korean. The idea is that you put the AI glasses on your face while you watch the show, and then you use a combination of AI translation and the hardware’s open-ear audio to translate into your preferred language in real time.
The initiative is partially the product of the Korea Tourism Organization, which, through an agency called Smart Theater, financed a four-month program to test out AI glasses in theaters. The early results have been somewhat promising, according to people interviewed by the New York Times who have tried the pilot.
There’s nothing novel about AI translation in smart glasses (lots of glasses have that feature), but their official use in theaters definitely is. And though it may seem wild to shove smart glasses into a theater setting, there are some distinctions that make the idea more palatable. For one, the AI glasses being handed out to theater-goers definitely do not have cameras on them—for obvious reasons, which I probably don’t have to detail. (Recording theater performances discreetly is generally frowned upon, for one.)
That’s a stark difference compared to pairs like the Ray-Ban Meta AI glasses, which can capture high-res video and pictures, but they are also similar in that they can be a great source of open-ear audio. By “open-ear,” I mean that, unlike wireless earbuds, you don’t have to plug your ears up with silicone ear tips, which makes hearing your surroundings (i.e., an actor delivering their lines) a lot easier. They’re also generally more comfortable than wearing wireless earbuds and don’t run into the issue of having to reuse or discard a gross ear tip that’s been in someone else’s ear.
While AI translation is often surprisingly effective on AI glasses, in my experience, I’m not fully convinced that smart glasses are the only or the best way to provide it. Open wireless earbuds, for example—ones that hang around your ears without being shoved inside—could be just as effective when paired with an app and less annoying for people who need to wear prescription glasses to see the play.
Either way, it’s an interesting development for AI glasses, which are seemingly banned by public and semi-public spaces more often than they’re embraced. I wouldn’t plan on being able to wear your own pair anytime soon, though.
Read the full article here
