So long iPhone. Generative AI needs a new device

WHEN A BEAMINGVRAIAIAIGPTAIAIAI Mark Zuckerberg took the stage in Menlo Park on September 27th to announce a new array of Meta products, the Facebook supremo may have buried the lead. He began talking about Quest 3, Meta’s virtual-reality () headset, which is understandable considering that his obsession with the metaverse is now inscribed in his company’s identity. Techies, though, were more excited by what came later: an announcement that Meta, in combination with Ray-Ban, would soon launch smart glasses incorporating an artificial-intelligence () virtual assistant. The specs will be able to see and hear, as well as answer their wearers’ questions. With luck, they will not hallucinate.You can be dismissive of smart glasses. They have been hyped before. But lending Meta credibility this time is the fact that the same week Open, the generative- pioneer, announced that its hit chatbot, Chat, can now see, hear and speak, besides conversing by text. Moreover, it emerged that Open was in talks with Sir Jony Ive, Apple’s former designer, to create a new gadget for the era. What form it will take is still unclear. But if the idea is to build a new consumer-electronics device better suited to the back-and-forth of seeing, talking and listening s, there is a fair chance it will no longer be reliant on the touchscreen.