Israeli software company Plataine demonstrated a new artificial intelligence-driven app for Alphabet's product Glass during a July 24 session at the Google Cloud Next conference in San Francisco, Wired reports.
Google began marketing the original Google Glass — a wearable headset that displays information to the user on a pair of eyeglasses — to consumers in 2012. The hardware product didn't catch on in the consumer market, but industry professionals took note, leading Google's parent company Alphabet to relaunch Glass as a business tool called Glass Enterprise Edition in July 2017.
"Many of you probably remember Google Glass from the consumer days — it's back," Jennifer Bennett, technical director to Google Cloud's CTO office, said at the conference before introducing Plataine's project. "Glass has become a really interesting technology for the enterprise."
Plataine's app uses Google Cloud's AI services to specialize the product for the manufacturing industry. During the demo, the company's product lead Anat Karni showed the audience how the app can alert factory workers about urgent production issues and spit back recommendations to resolve them. A worker can also ask the app for help — for example, the app can suggest what materials the worker should select and where to find them on the factory floor.
The app can also display a worker's actions to factory bosses looking to track production operations.
Plataine's app represents a new step in Glass' capabilities, allowing workers wearing the headset to speak directly to it much like they would a virtual assistant like Apple's Siri or Amazon's Alexa. The app can also respond verbally to the wearer, according to Wired.