Your Meta Ray-Ban Glasses just got a neat free software upgrade

One of the coolest products released in recent years has to be the Meta Ray-Ban Smart Glasses. Take the already ice cold Ray-Ban design language and load it up with some modern technological goodness, and the result is like something from an old sci-fi comic.

Or at least, it could be. Up to this point, the actual user experience has been slightly underwhelming, with lots of potential just waiting to be utilised.

Now, the device has taken a big leap forward. A new update offers a whole suite of Meta AI features, which should help to make your sunglasses even more useful.

The key feature added allows you to talk with your glasses about what you're seeing. This isn't exactly new – almost every phone brand is utilising this kind of feature within its AI feature-set – but it really does make a lot more sense in a wearable format.

The blog post Meta published announcing the features suggests that users could ask things like "What am I looking at?", which will prompt a response from the AI.

Alternatively, it could be used to gleam more information about something in front of you. Meta uses the example of a Van Gogh painting in a museum – simply ask the AI for more details and learn even more about what's in front of you.

It can even translate text, which could be really handy when trying to order from a menu overseas. That also leads into the next update we can expect – live translation. Again, it's nothing new for the industry at large, but it does make a lot more sense in a device you'll be wearing most of the day.

That's the overarching feeling I get for this release. It feels like a real coming of age moment for the device, which finally seems to have found its calling. I certainly hope that these updates can spur more people to give them a go.