The author tested the AI translation on a variety of texts, including street signs, menus, and books, with mixed results. For instance, it could translate the title of a children's book accurately but failed to provide detailed translations of menu items at restaurants. The author concludes that the AI translation feature is more of a temperamental party trick than a genuinely useful travel tool at this point.
Key takeaways:
- The author tested the new AI translation feature on Meta’s Ray-Ban smart sunglasses in Montreal, a foreign environment for them.
- The AI translation feature is designed to provide a quick, hands-free way to understand text written in foreign languages, but it currently only works with written text, not spoken language.
- The author found the AI translation feature to be inconsistent, with it sometimes providing accurate translations, but often failing to provide detailed or specific translations, especially with menus and signs.
- To use the AI translation, the user needs to say "Hey Meta, look at …" and then ask it to translate what it’s looking at. The glasses take a snapshot of whatever is in front of you, and then tell you about the text after a few seconds of processing.