Google Glass may be the most exciting product to hit the scene in the past couple of years, but due to its relative infancy, still has quite a way to go before it can be considered anywhere near the finished article. But in the last few days, we have seen Google stepping up its efforts to prepare the face computer for the consumer market, and following the release of Glass prescription frames and lenses, the search company has also unveiled a hard case for the digital frames.
It’s news that seems to have come completely out of the blue. Google is selling Motorola’s mobile division to Lenovo for just $2.91 billion less than three years after picking it up.
Google has, for the first time, showcased a series of mini-games designed specifically for use with its Glass project, in a move that the search giant hopes will inspire developers into creating some interesting, exciting, and cutting-edge titles tailored to the face computer. If Glass is ever going to offer any kind of appeal to fans of casual games, though, one suspects that devs will need to vastly improve what Google has mustered, with the company's collective of mini-games hardly rousing even a flicker of entertainment.
Google has teamed up with Lego in its latest Chrome experiment, which allows users to create their own buildings using virtual Lego bricks. Yes, it is quite a flagrant copycat of Minecraft et al, but Lego is something that most of us share in common to varying degrees, and this WebGL-based environment makes construction as fun as when we were five years old. Not only can you let your imagination run wild and build castles, mansions and so on, but you can also select the plot of land you wish to build upon using the Google Maps utility. Luckily, though, there's no planning permission involved, enabling you to get straight to work!
Well, we didn't see that one coming! A report from industry sleuth Eldar Murtazin suggests that Google may cease its popular Nexus line of smartphone and tablet from next year. Instead, Murtazin says, the Big G will focus instead on re-releasing pre-existing devices as Google Play Edition models, running on stock Android and without any OEM bloatware.
There's a moment when every good product makes the jump from the geek world to the mainstream world. A time in history where it goes from being something that only those who live and breath technology know about to truly living in the consciousness of the average man walking down the street. Today, Google Glass makes that jump after being parodied on America's longest-running animated show, The Simpsons.
The App Store and Google Play Store is far from short of remote control apps. That is, apps to control a PC or Mac from a smartphone or a tablet. With apps like LogMeIn and Splashtop proving popularas well as countless other lesser lights keeping the big boys honest, owners of phones and tablets aren't short of choice when it comes to remotely controlling their computers. Still, that apparently isn't going to stop Google from entering the fray.
A Californian woman found herself the subject of litigation and national attention after having been caught and handed over ticket for driving whilst using Google’s Glass, but despite not being punished by court, the law remains ambiguous as to whether drivers can wear the search giant’s face computer. 42-year-old Cecilia Abadie shared the news of her now-revoked ticket via social media, but while she has been let off by judge for driving 85mph in her Toyota Prius while wearing Glass, it remains to be seen whether the act of using Glass while driving is actually against the law.
So here's an interesting question, and one that hadn't really crossed our minds until just now. It's a valid question, if you dig deep enough, too. What if Google was a real person? And by real, we mean, a real person with skin and bones, not just a company, or a search engine.
Google Play Editions are all the rage right now. After years of smartphone enthusiasts wishing that hardware makers would offer versions of their smartphones with a stock installation of Android as an option, the GPE versions of devices like the HTC One and Samsung Galaxy S4 have proven predictably popular amongst enthusiasts. It's debatable whether the general phone-buying public even noticed, but that's not the point.
