Engineer builds AR ad blocker for real life using Snap Spectacles and Gemini AI | Aamir Khollam, Interesting Engineering A prototype AR app detects ads in your surroundings and blocks them live through Snap Spectacles using Google’s Gemini AI. You can pay for YouTube Premium to avoid watching ads... during your sacred food-with-YouTube ritual, or pay for Spotify to not pester you with ads while you try to get a morning workout in, but what can you do about real-life advertisements? A Belgian software developer may have found a workaround. Stijn Spanhove has created an experimental augmented reality app that detects and digitally covers physical ads like billboards and soda cans in the real world. Built for Snap’s fifth-generation AR glasses (Snap Spectacles), the prototype uses Google’s Gemini AI to identify branded content and instantly mask it. Instead of the original imagery, the app places a bright red square over the detected ad. These red blocks also name the hidden brand, like “Bol. billboard,” turning ad removal into a kind of real-time brand callout. “It’s exciting to imagine a future where you control the physical content you see,” Spanhove posted on X (formerly Twitter). In follow-up replies, he hinted at additional features, including options to replace the red square with personal photos or text from a notes app. Check it out below – Combines Snap and Google tools The app relies on Snap’s Depth Cache API to register objects in 3D space and maintain spatial consistency as the user moves. Gemini, Google’s generative AI model, identifies the ads themselves, whether on large posters, newspaper pages, or food packaging. This allows the blocker to function beyond obvious signage. In demo clips shared by Spanhove, it successfully covers ads on cereal boxes, magazines, and public signage, though not without a delay of a second or two. The red overlays appear to float stably, following head movements and perspective shifts with accuracy. Still, it’s early days. Spanhove describes the software as “experimental,” and the user experience reflects that. Because Snap Spectacles use transparent displays, the overlays can’t fully block light, so the original ad sometimes faintly shows through. Also, the Spectacles’ narrow 46-degree field of view limits coverage to only what’s directly ahead. Design stirs debate The app has sparked strong reactions online. Many praised the concept of user-controlled visual space, while others criticized the bold red boxes as more jarring than the ads themselves. One suggestion, from user Hexographer ⬣Backup account⬣, proposed replacing the red blocks with more visually pleasing alternatives, such as “images of local foliage or animal life.” They also suggested that users could set a custom folder of replacement visuals, including personal or family photos. Others asked for cross-platform support, but the app currently only works with Snap Spectacles. Devices like the Apple Vision Pro or Meta Quest will need separate development efforts. Despite its limitations, the project arrives at a moment when major tech firms like Meta and Microsoft have scaled back their AR ambitions. Snap, meanwhile, continues renting its Spectacles to developers at $99 per month, making experiments like Spanhove’s possible. Read more:show more

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