Hasta La Gadget!

At this years’ Google I/O developers conference, a Fireside Chat with several members of the core Google Glass team proved to reveal much on not just the future of the device, but its origins as well. While earlier in the day a single slide had been shown depicting a set of six original prototypes of what was then called Project Glass, here lead industrial designer Isabelle Olsson had one key prototype on hand to show SlashGear in the plastic, as it were.

As Olsson made clear, this device was created as one of the very first iterations of what’s been reduced to a simple skeleton frame and single, removable computer element. What you’re seeing here is a set of development boards attached to two full-eye glass lenses, white plastic, tape, exposed cords and all.

Isabelle Olsson: When the team started working on this, it was very clear that we’re not taking something that already existed and making incremental improvements to it. The team wanted to create something that’s much more intuitive, immediate, and intimate. But to create a new kind of wearable technology, that’s so ambitious, and very messy at points.

In addition to showing how this pair of glasses worked with folding sides and a real, working set of innards (if you can call them innards, of course), Olsson showed one of the prototype pairs of prescription Glass glasses as well. These are seen in the box below, and their design was seen on Google employees here and there during the week as well, live and active.

Olsson: I will never forget the first day on the team and when I walked into a room wearing these CRAZY things on their heads. I brought the prototype so you could see what I walked in to. It comes in a fancy bag…

Olsson: I think like the colors of the board, maybe, fits my hair color, but I don’t know. It’s kind of heavy, though. I think I’m going to take it off now. So – but – how do you go from something like this to what we’re all wearing today?

Olsson: We took a reductionist approach. We removed everything that wasn’t absolutely essential. And then in addition to that, I formed three principals to guide the team through this ambitious, messy process. Those are:

• Lightness
• Simplicity
• Scalability

You’ll find this particular chat split up across three different features, each surrounding Olsson’s fireside chat contributions. The one you’re in now of course stays within the bounds of the prototype you’re seeing above and below. There are also posts on color choices for Glass, a bit about Modular Fashion, and another expanding on the design of the final product.

Olsson: When I joined the project, we thought we needed 50 different adjustment mechanisms, but that wouldn’t make a good user experience. So we scaled it down to this one adjustment mechanism.

This prototype works with the Glass projection unit nearly the same as what we see in the Explorer Edition of Glass. It’s attached to one of two computer boards, the one on the right temple – here also working with a camera, even in this early state.

This first development board is also connected to the second board, the second presumably reserved for storage space connections and a battery. While tape holds this unit together along with soldered bits and pieces along the board as well as glue, here and there, they do work.

There’s a single button above the camera lens that activates the camera – there’s a similar button (a hidden button) in this area on the Explorer Edition of Glass as well. This original prototype works with essentially every element available in the final release – here it’s just a bit larger, and not really made to look too fashionable for the uninitiated.

Google I/O 2013 also played host to a chat we had with Sergey Brin – co-founder of Google and currently Director of Special Projects for the company. He also gave some insight into the way Glass was first tested, noting that while there were some non-functional bricks used to test form for Glass, it certainly all started with function:

Sergey Brin: We did have some non-functional models, but mostly we had functional, uglier, heavier models. Very early on we realized that comfort was so important, and that [led to] the decision to make them monocular.

We also made the decision not to have it occlude your vision, because we tried. We tried different configurations, because [it’s] something you’re going [need] to be comfortable. Hopefully you’re comfortable wearing it all day? [That’s] something that’s hard to make. You’re going to have to make a lot of other trade-offs.

Have a peek at the photos in a larger sense in the gallery below and let us know if you see anything you recognize – it’s all there, piece by piece.

Google Glass Original Prototype eyes-on with Isabelle Olsson is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Because Google’s most popular operating system – and the most popular operating system on the planet, mind you – is Android, it only makes sense that much of the company’s yearly developers conference would be centered in this multi-device environment. What we expected for this year’s Google I/O was an upgrade to a new version of the mobile OS and a new device (or two) to run it on. Instead what we got was a major upgrade to Google’s social networking connections and services working in and around Android – a turning point, perhaps, for the company in a single three-day series of events.

We began our journey in a bit of a behind-the-scenes tour of the Moscone Center in San Francisco to see what Google had in store. It appeared that the setup was rather similar to what we’d seen the year before – save the massive models hovering above the third floor.

While on the third floor we literally saw the word ANDROID dominating the floor aside Chrome, the second floor retained a set of services for multiple platforms. The second floor also had Google Glass holding its own unique space on the level’s far side. Below you’ll see an on-site preview of the first of three floors through Glass – aka #throughglass – this method of collection acting as a teaser for what would become the dominant subject of the conference – whether Google intended it to or not.

It was announced by Google that they’d at this point counted 900 million Android activations across the planet. This number jumped from just 400 million activations in 2012 and 100 million activations in 2011 – that’s four times the number from one year to the next, then nearly double that number again between last year and here.

Just this past month, Android activations were marked at 1.35 million per day on average back on the 13th of March according to Google – at 750 million activations back then and 900 million now, the company could be seeing over 1.5 billion Android activations by the end of the year.

Devices

Google showed of a single new device – a new “Google Edition” or “Nexus Edition” of the Samsung GALAXY S 4. This device would be sold straight from Google the way a Nexus smartphone or tablet would, but would retain the Samsung GALAXY S 4 brand name. While device announcements such as this are normally joined by a giveaway for attendees of the conference, here it was joined by a price tag and availability date: June 25th for a healthy $649 unlocked and without contractual obligations.

We had our own up-close look at this GALAXY S 4 courtesy of Hugo Barra. Google’s Vice President of Android Product Management showed this device as exactly what you’d expect it would be – at least as swift as the Samsung-skinned original and ready to act as a non-Nexus alternative for those wishing to pick up Jelly Bean straight from the source.

NVIDIA came in to take a bit of the hype and excitement of the week with a double-down announcement of their SHIELD device becoming available for pre-sale. NVIDIA’s SHIELD was both announced for pre-sale for early adopters and had its normal retailer pre-sale bumped up due to an apparent rush of requests from normal consumers.

Google Glass was, of course, on a much larger percentage of the center’s population than anywhere else in the world at any time up until this point, with the one possible exception being inside Google and Google X itself. Google Glass runs on its own unique version of Android, the device itself able to be hacked at this point to run Ubuntu (this also proven at a I/O breakout session just this week). Though it wasn’t mentioned but in passing during I/O’s keynote session, Glass and development surrounding it ended up being the star of the week.

Sliding in on the wearable wave as well was a device announced this week by Recon – the Recon Je. This pair of glasses works with a miniature computer that runs Android as well. We had a quick peek at this device here in its near-complete state as well – it’ll be released by the end of the year, well ahead of Google’s own Glass consumer push.

Services

The system known as Google Play game services was launched to tie together gamers on not only Android, but iOS and in-browser as well for desktop machines. This system will allow game saves to the cloud so that users can sign in with their game profile from any device and pick up their game where they left off. It will also support easier connections for multi-player games between users playing on different platforms.

Groups such as Glu Mobile and Gameloft have already begun integrating Google Play game services connectivity and functionality into their games. Developers at Vector Unit announced and demonstrated the ability to connect over the web with speed with their upcoming title Riptide GP 2 – a game also demonstrated this week on NVIDIA SHIELD out on the main floor at Google I/O.

Development

As this is a developers convention, Google chose it for the announcement point of the system that the company says could end Android fragmentation woes forever. This system is called Android Studio and will act as Google’s first all-inclusive developer tool they’ve ever offered – an IDE (integrated developer environment) that offers features such as virtual multi-device display testing and real-time views of multiple language translations in-app.

Android Studio works on Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux at the moment. In speaking with multiple developers throughout the week, we found the fact that these three platforms were chosen first to be a common notion. Why give developers a Chromebook Pixel with an operating system based on the web and announce an Android developer system that’s not entirely web-based?

On that note, Google also let it be known that the Chrome OS experience was coming to its Android web browser with several account-sync abilities. One of the more interesting of these was form autocomplete, this allowing users to store their credit card information and contact information as they normally would on the desktop version of the browser and pull it up automatically from the mobile web.

Apps

Announced as an upgrade to the buy-and-own system already in place, Google Play Music All Access was revealed as a real competitor to streaming music services like Spotify and Rdio. This system is able to stream music both in a web browser and in-app, costing the user $9.99 a month for access – if they don’t get in on the deal early, that is.

This system is based on a choose-your-own-playlist system that also offers up smart selections from Google’s robots – at the moment, it’s both in-web and on Android, but not ready for iOS. This system is ready to roll for both mobile and in-browser users of Google Music.

Perhaps the most important app announced this week was the cross-platform chat platform expanding what was originally reserved for Google+ in video chat. Here we saw Google+ Hangouts for Android, iOS, in-browser inside Google+, and as a OS X app. Users sign in with their Google+ account and use contacts through Circles to connect.

Google+ Hangouts are able to work with text, stickers and icons, video and photo sharing, and video chat. This system will be expanding to include new types of sharing in the future as Google+ as a social network leads the way. This system is now live in effect for all platforms announced, desktop, Android, and iOS included.

Wrap-up

Android has been presented this week as one of several central systems part of the greater ecosystem that is Google, a company that aims to get technology “out of your way”. Google’s CEO Larry Page stepped on stage at the start of this conference to express his wish for an ideal future: “technology should do the hard work, so you can get on and live your life.”

In the end, Android became a power here that was assumed while Google’s ecosystem grew around it. It’s here that Google makes it clear: Android itself doesn’t need to be updated every time the company has a big event. It’s the year of the Context Ecosystem, and Google’s presentation of Android at Google I/O 2013 has once again proven it.

Google I/O 2013 wrap-up: Expanding the Android Ecosystem is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

We’ve heard several times that Google Glass would be available for those with actual prescription glasses, but details have been a bit slim regarding this. However, during Google I/O this week, prescription Google Glass frames have indeed been spotted on the heads of several Google employees, but it’s said they’re still in the prototype phase of development.

A couple of Googlers were spotted roaming around the floor at Moscone over the week, but from the photos at hand, it looks like Google only has one type of prescription frame that’s out and about, which looks to be the same frame seen in the image above. It’s not said if Google will make multiple frames available, but we wouldn’t be surprised if they offered several different generic options.

UPDATE: We’ve got a few photos of our own – have a peek at the bits and pieces, courtesy of the lead Industrial Designer for Glass, Isabelle Olsson.

As for how the prescription version works, it seems that the Google Glass hardware itself can’t be removed from the frames, which means they probably won’t be your main pair of glasses, unless you plan on wearing Google Glass all the time, but that will sooner or later be impossible, as there are already many places that you won’t be able to wear Glass.

Secondly, just like the regular frames of Google Glass, prescription frames won’t be able to fold up like a traditional pair of glasses, making it difficult to store them somewhere conveniently if you need to take them off in certain situations. However, this information is slightly different from what the company said back in March, where the Glass design would be “modular,” meaning that you could attach glass to any (or most) pair of glasses or sunglasses. The “modular” word was also thrown around during a Google I/O session this week.

Then again, you’ll obviously still be able to get custom lenses to fit into prescription Google Glass, so if you don’t happen to like any of the frames that Google will release, you’ll at least be able to get the right lenses fitted into them. Now, if only we could get better-looking detachable sunglasses for Google Glass, it’d be perfect.

Google Glass prescription frames appear at Google I/O [UPDATE] is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

This week at a fireside chat during Google I/O 2013, Mary Lou Jepsen – currently the head of the Display Division at Google X – let it be known that “there’s no more silicon in Silicon Valley – it’s all iPhone apps.” She quickly added – “or Android apps, I should say.” An overarching theme from her set of words in the extended chat made it clear: she’s not satisfied with the current atmosphere for hardware innovation, particularly when it comes to startup funding.

Jepsen was joined by serial entrepreneurs Julia Hartz, co-founder and president of Eventbrite, Slava Rubin, CEO and co-founder of Indegogo, and Caterina Fake, founder and CEO of Findery and co-founder of Flickr. It was on this panel that Jepsen made the case for not just a broken device hardware startup model, but for new entrants into this startup world to be aiming for the moon. It was from within Google X, after all, that Google Glass originated.

“Assuming that you start big and swing for the fences – don’t do something small, first off. But assuming you do, and you get to that point where you’re taking on one of the largest companies in the world – even though you didn’t mean to – I’ve never started to mean to – be prepared to give away most of your stocks so you can win that gain, because otherwise you’re crushed.

Plan that early on, for what you’re going to do – at One Laptop Per Child, there’s this 60-minute expose on some of the larger forces that we came up against – and there’s a lot of stories I’ve not yet told about Pixel Qi. When you get in that seat, you have to be able to figure out a way where it’s more attractive for companies not to crush you.

And that’s very difficult.” – Mary Lou Jepsen

She added assurance that joining a big company is not for everyone – startups are great, she said, especially if you don’t want to get involved in the politics of working with a big company. You’ll be in a lifeboat, she explained, but though you’ll be dealing with holes in your boat here and there, you’ll be working with people that want to help you and are ready and willing to go that extra mile for you.

Meanwhile she warned that hardware funding, again, isn’t in a place where it should be. Groups that push cash to software startups are far easier to find at this time in history than those looking to build up a group for a hardware device.

“VCs (Venture Capital companies) don’t have the core competence anymore. Silicon Valley, pretty much, too – and I’m sure there’s exceptions, but by-and-large, to fund or even to due diligence on hardware.

But there are places that do fund hardware, and you can find them depending upon your bend – you have to be creative. There are Angels, certainly, and Super Angels to fund it.

But there’s not this sort of – path – but there’s not much competition, so you have an advantage.” – Mary Lou Jepsen

Have a peek at the video below for additional insight from Jepsen and let us know how well you’re taking the news – or the advice, as it were. Are you encouraged by the idea that Jepsen, one of Time Magazine’s 100 most influential people in the world and a ranking member of the top 50 female computer scientists of all time is suggesting that jumping in on a startup is a situation you should want to be a part of? Let us know!

Mary Lou Jepsen encourages Google X attitude in hardware engineering is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Due to an apparent collaborative request from NVIDIA’s retail partners aiming to carry their new SHIELD device, it would appear that the device’s pre-order date has been bumped. But where situations such as these generally have delays in mind, this change in the minds of the market rulers is in favor of an earlier time for consumers to join in on the purchase of this device. In other words: where the pre-order date for SHEILD for the public was the 20th of this month, it’s now today, May 17th.

The device formerly known as Project SHIELD will be coming from the same set of retail partners as it was when its first availability was announced before Google I/O. This change of heart affects each of the set: NVIDIA’s home page, Newegg, and Gamestop in the USA and Canada Computer in the Great White North. It’s just Micro Center that’s not got a pre-order page prepared at the moment – they’ll be going live inside the next few days.

SHIELD retains its specifications outlined in detail earlier this week, it being an NVIDIA Tegra 4 quad-core processor-powered gaming Android clamshell-style gaming handheld device made for both local and streaming game content. Utilizing the Tegra 4′s 72 GPU cores for graphics prowess, this machine is being marketed as both the highest-powered Android gaming device on the market while it brings streaming PC gaming at the same time.

It’s important to note, mind you, that the PC gaming streaming abilities SHIELD employs will not be launched in their full, finalized form when the device ships. Instead, NVIDIA suggests that this part of the equation will remain in Beta for an unspecified amount of time – but not so long that we imagine users will be freaking out.

Have a peek at the PC streaming abilities of this device as well as some Android gaming above in a couple of SlashGear’s several hands-on demos with this device as it inches closer to a final release. Expect shipping to take place sooner than later.

NVIDIA SHIELD pre-orders up today: partners rally for early bump is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.