Google to Glass devs: 'Duh! Go ahead, hack your headset'
'We intentionally left the device unlocked'
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Google might not want people selling its Google Glass Explorer Edition high-tech specs, but it has no problem with developers hacking on the hardware and software, if recent developments are any indication.
The Chocolate Factory released the GPL-licensed portions of the source code to the software that powers Glass over the weekend, mere days after an independent developer announced that he had discovered an easy way to jailbreak the device.
On Friday, Forbes reported that Android and iOS developer Jay Freeman, aka "Saurik", had managed to unlock his Glass specs in about two hours – all, he said, while he was having dinner with friends.
The technique he used was a common one that works on a variety of Android devices, which involves tricking the OS into thinking it's running inside an emulator for testing, rather than on actual hardware.
Freeman told Forbes that he wasn't sure just what getting his Glass specs into this unlocked mode would actually allow him to achieve. But now that Google has made the Glass source code available, it should be possible to build custom firmware images for the device, as the Cyanogenmod project does for phones and tablets.
Not that any of this came as a surprise to the group developing the futuristic eyewear at Google, however. On Friday, XML co-creator and Google developer advocate Tim Bray gave a public roll of his eyes on Twitter:
Yes, Glass is hackable. Duh. goo.gl/HQpLC
— Tim Bray (@timbray) April 26, 2013
Google X Lab developer Stephen Lau elaborated on his Google+ page, to the effect that when a company like Google releases a device that's intended exclusively for developers, nobody should be surprised when that device proves to be highly hackable:
Not to bring anybody down... but seriously... we intentionally left the device unlocked so you guys could hack it and do crazy fun shit with it. I mean, FFS, you paid $1500 for it... go to town on it. Show me something cool.
As far as what that "something" might be, the options are wide open. Also on Friday, Jay Lee, another early Glass developer, managed to extract some of the hardware specs of the device, and he found it to be a fairly capable piece of kit.
The Explorer Edition devices are powered by a Texas Instruments OMAP 4430 processor, which features dual ARM Cortex-A9 cores coupled with an Imagination Technologies PowerVR SGX540 GPU. Ordinarily these chips run at between 1 and 1.2GHz, but it wasn't immediately clear whether Google might have throttled down their clock speeds to give Glass longer battery life.
In addition, Lee found that his Glass headset reported 682MB of RAM, though he suspects the actual number is probably 1GB, part of which is being reserved for system use.
All in all, those specifications mean the Glass headgear – which runs Android 4.0 "Ice Cream Sandwich" – is actually more powerful than many Android phones, 40 per cent of which are still running Android 2.3 "Gingerbread."
That should allow developers to create a wide array of interesting apps for the system – provided, that is, their creations don't involve driving, going to strip clubs, or drinking beer. ®
COMMENTS
Highly Rated
Re: Love it.
"I don't care what the naysayers, pessimists, Luddites or anyone else who poo-poos this device say, I want one."
As do I. The potential of this technology to enhance our lives is incredible. It's exactly the kind of sci-fi invention I used to fantasise about as a kid. I would love to have the ability to record every moment of my life and be able to use it as a marvellous adjunct to my all-too-fallible memory.
However, I want to do so on my own terms. Those terms include retaining control of the imagery and recordings and experiences taken with the device. I, and I alone, get to choose who sees what, and what is done with it. I cannot and will not tolerate having some faceless American corporation, or equally faceless police-state bureaucracy, constantly looking over my shoulder, narrowly analysing and studying my every act, for the express purpose of exploiting and manipulating me into buying things, or of controlling my life and behaviour for their benefit.
So as it stands, Google Glass is not for me, and will never be unless and until I can guarantee that I, only I, have access to and control of the data that it creates. Hacking the device is a great start towards this end, I grant, and it opens a world of possibilities. But I'll want to be sure before I let that shit anywhere near me.
I'm not a Luddite, so much as I subscribe to the now seemingly-outdated notion that my life is my own, and that my experiences and memories belong to me. I do not consider this notion to be unreasonable.
It will never catch on
Something like this is far too disruptive. It would be like men not wearing hats in public, or if people stopped standing for "God Save the Queen" in cinemas.
@RAMChYLD Re: It will never catch on
"Wait, people actually stand for the national anthem in cinemas?"
The noise you just heard was the point flying past you very, very fast..
Re: Powerglove
"What problem will it solve"
- Being able to refer to a circuit diagram without turning your head away - important when poking probes into active electronics.
- Being able to monitor a patient's pulse, blood pressure, O2 level etc. during an operation without turning your head away.
- Seeing someone's name pop up when you look at them - vital for those of us with poor memories for names.
- Seeing a list of comparative prices from other vendors when you look at an item in a shop.
- The Russian car-cam effect: lots of high quality recordings of historically important events for all to see.
- Lots of recordings of fun times to review in your dotage, that would otherwise not be recorded.
I could go on, but that's a start.
Love it.
I don't care what the naysayers, pessimists, Luddites or anyone else who poo-poos this device say, I want one. Not because it will look cool (it won't until it becomes socially accepted, I'll look like a dick to most people), and not because I'm the kind of person who buys the latest shiny shiny, but because of what it represents as a stepping stone in, however clumsily at first, taking the first step towards fully integrating technology into our experience of the world in a meaningful way that we can interact with as we go about our day without having to stop to operate it, and in 20 years when we've got chips in our visual cortex constantly updating us wirelessly with actually useful information overlaid onto our view of the world I will look back fondly at where it all started.
