Glass

Earlier this week, Brandyn White, a PhD candidate at the University of Maryland, and Scott Greenberg, a PhD candidate at MIT, led a workshop at the MIT Media Lab to showcase an open source project called WearScript, a Javascript environment that runs on Google Glass. The category of wearables is still evolving. Besides activity trackers and smartwatches, the killer wearable app is yet to be discovered because wearables don’t have the lean back or lean forward human-machine interface (HMI) of tablets and smartphones.

Despite the many uses for Google Glass, this new class of wearable devices is inevitably meeting some growing pains (pictured above is 7'3" Indiana Pacers center Roy Hibbert, a Glass wearer who has experienced some growing pains) as the world gets used to them. One wearer successfully fought a traffic ticket recently and now another early adopter suffered the "embarrassing" experience of being removed from a movie theater for bringing the accessory.

Google Glass is slowly coming within reach of members of the general populace who aren't developers, celebrities, or elite early adopters.

 A Los Angeles woman was fined after she was caught wearing Google Glass behind the wheel.

Cecilia Abadie was stopped by an officer in the San Diego area of California who issued a ticket for "driving with a monitor visible to driver (Google Glass)."

The device allegedly violated California's Vehicle Code Section 27602 which states a person cannot drive with a video screen visible to the driver. However, exceptions to the law include the use of a GPS or tracking equipment, in which Google Glass could be included.

You're not the only one who missed out on dropping $1,500 for Google Glass Explorer Edition. An Australian geek, who goes by the "Evil Dead" name Ash_Williams on Australian PC hardware community forum Overclockers, doesn't have one either. So he made his own.

The hacker's version is called Flass, a combination of "fake" and "glass." It's powered by a Nokia N9 phone. The TV-out feature of the phone feeds the eye display, which is mounted on a set of real glasses using cable ties. Ash_Williams has gone through four different versions of Flass so far.

A group of researchers have uncovered a security vulnerability in the Google Glass platform which could allow attackers to hijack devices with specially-crafted QR codes.

Security firm Lookout said that it has found a method for covertly taking control of Google Glass headsets by exploiting flaws in the way Glass interacts with the photographic codes.

Plenty of eyes may be focused on Google Glass as the device attracts attention in the field of "augmented reality," but a crop of other players developing their own glasses-like products are also hoping to stand out as the industry matures.

Take Scope Technologies, which has partnered with Epson to develop computer-assisted glasses it calls the "augmented reality training system," designed to help guide the user through complicated industrial maintenance processes like assembling fuel pumps, making changes to HVAC systems, or fixing broken car parts.

Thanks to a glaringly obvious security flaw in the futuristic Google Glass wearable computer, a hacker could within minutes take control of the device -- seeing what you look at, hearing what you hear, experiencing life through your senses.

“If the camera is on your head and the microphone is on your head, I’m seeing through your eyes, I’m hearing through your ears. The only thing I can’t get access to are smells in the room and your thoughts,” Jay “saurik” Freeman told FoxNews.com.

When real, normal people get a hold of Google Glass, they might be fascinated.

Equally, they might be underwhelmed. Their sense of underwhelment might increase with every mocking comment they get from other real, normal people.

In any case, Google Glass won't be thrust into the real, normal world for a year. Or even more. Meanwhile, we have to struggle with the knowledge that tech personality Robert Scoble wears his in the public toilets. During the weekend, he even posted an image of his hirsute, unsuited torso, complete with head and Google Glass on nose, in the shower.

Baidu, the Chinese search engine used in China, is reportedly working on a Chinese version of Google Project Glass that'll be called Baidu Eye. Because OF COURSE they would. It makes perfect sense for knockoff Google to knock off Project Glass, right?

Sina is reporting that it's pretty much exactly like Google Glass: