New York Times Cooking is coming to Meta's AI and display glasses

Meta has shown off an integration with the New York Times Cooking app that will bring the publication's recipes to its display glasses and to the wider lineup of Ray-Ban AI glasses without a screen. The feature is not available yet, but Engadget saw a short demonstration during Meta's developer state of the union at Connect.

Hands-free mode

New York Times Cooking is getting a hands-free mode. Users pair their glasses with the app and receive audio cues for the dish they are preparing, so they no longer have to unlock and scroll through a phone with wet or greasy hands.

The audio is not a plain reading of the written recipe. According to The New York Times' AJ Chavar, the cooking team built a system that restructures lengthy instructions into brief spoken steps, preserving the author's expertise while supplying ingredients and measurements in order.

Cards on Ray-Ban Display

On Meta's Ray-Ban Display glasses each step is kept short and shown on its own card in the lens display, and the cook swipes through the cards as the dish progresses.

Release timing

Chavar did not say when the app would reach Meta's glasses, but said the hands-free mode is rolling out later this fall. The announcement answers an old complaint about the hardware: in an earlier review the glasses did not hold up as a cooking aid, because recipe content came only through Meta AI and steps often disappeared from the display before a cook could finish them.