Hasta La Gadget!

Google Glass continues to show up among celebrities, with the latest to don the wearable being musician Jon Bon Jovi. The singer played with the loaner headset backstage, before keyboard player David Bryan opted to wear it while playing on-stage in New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium. They’re not the only ones to talk Glass’ potential in the real-world recently, either, with the headset getting put through its paces on the mean streets of Manhattan and Istanbul.

“Glass and wearable-technology is an example of another step in consumer-facing innovation that will change how we share the music experience with our fans in the future,” Bryan told Mashable. “This is relatively uncharted territory for the quick-moving developer community and I am excited to see what is created.”

The wearable’s appeal has generally been among developers and augmented reality researchers, though Google hasn’t shied away from chasing celebrity appeal. As part of its #ifihadglass promotion earlier this year the company offered Explorer Edition units to Alyssa Milano, Neil Patrick Harris, Imogen Heap, and LeVar Burton, among others.

Another recipient was author Gary Shteyngart, who took to the New Yorker this week to write about his experiences roaming Manhattan with the headset. “I hear that in San Francisco, where these devices are far more in evidence, the term “Glassholes” is already current,” he writes, explaining how children follow him in the street and strangers call out to him unexpectedly, “but in New York I am a conquering hero.”

Meanwhile, in slightly more dangerous settings, Glass has been showing its potential as a first-person video reporting tool. Journalist Tim Pool described using a modified version of the headset – hacked to run general Android apps – to cover the Istanbul protests at ground-level to the Guardian, live-streaming the footage to audiences of hundreds of thousands.

The common theme between all three experiences is the immediacy Glass offers, whether that’s of being able to see a first-person view of a 55,000 sell-out crowd in concert, the view from a therapist’s couch, or running through the streets trying to avoid tear-gas. There’s more on Glass’ potential as a wearable camera in our hands-on report.

Glass outings: Bon Jovi, Gary Shteyngart and journalist Tim Pool talk wearables is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2013, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Google has acquired a small share of Himax Display Technologies, which is perhaps best known for rolling out the first USB 3.0 pico projector. Perhaps lesser known is its involvement with Glass, having created the tiny display on the device. The acquisition is still pending, and leaves room for additional shares.

Under the acquisition, Google will acquire a 6.3-percent share in the maker of liquid crystal on silicon chips, more commonly called LCOS. Likewise, Google will also retain an option for boosting that number to 8.5-percent at the same price as the initial acquisition for the duration of 12 months at the time of closing.

Should such a further acquisition happen, Google’s total holdings would then amount to 14.8-percent. Still, Himax Technologies retains 81.5-percent at the moment, and for the foreseeable future will remain the major shareholder. Other investors in the company include Intel Capital Corporation, KPCB Holdings, Inc., and Khosla Ventures I, L.P.

Though announced, the acquisition is still in the process of closing, having to go through the required regulatory measures and such. It is expected the deal will close during the third quarter of this year. The funds received from the deal will then be used by Himax for upgrades, expansion capacity, and other related areas. Himax Technologies will invest in its Display Technologies as part of this.

Said Himax’s President and CEO Jordan Wu, “Google is a preeminent global technology leader. We are delighted to receive this investment and to form a strategic partnership with Google. Beginning the second quarter of this year, we had already begun expanding capacity to meet demand for our LCOS product line. This investment from Google further validates our commitment to developing breakthrough technologies and state-of-the-art production facilities.”

VIA: Android Community

SOURCE: Yahoo Finance

Google buys stake in Himax, maker of the Glass display is written by Brittany Hillen & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2013, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Earlier this week, an exploit surfaced by way of Lookout Mobile Security that would allow Google Glass to be controlled by a hacker using malicious QR codes. This was quickly – and quietly – patched, but another threat remains, one that extends beyond Glass and could facilitate data theft: a WiFi-based vulnerability that utilizes a man-in-the-middle attack to get the device to connect to a malicious wireless network.

This information comes from Symantec, who refers to a device called a Wi-Fi Pineapple, which functions by impersonating a wireless network that a device – such as Glass – has already connected to in the past. It does this by using the network’s SSID. So, for example, if Glass had previously connected to a network called My Awesome WiFI, the device could impersonate that SSID while instead broadcasting a malicious network.

This takes advantage of a feature that most devices have, whereby they remember a network they have previously connected to and stay on the outlook for it. The result of this is convenient – the device will automatically connect to a recognized network, removing the hassle. It is also where the vulnerability lies, and users should be aware of it, says Symantec.

Of course, this problem could affect any device that does this, but Glass is said to make avoiding this problem more difficult due to the way its interface works, sans any input devices like a keyboard. Glass will find a network it recognizes and connect to it, and the user may never notice anything off about it.

Although the problem is known, figuring out a solution that works to avoid this kind of potential attack is more complicated, with Symantec saying that things like utilizing MAC addresses are still vulnerable. For now, users are advised that the “practicable solution” is to act like any network can be malicious, and to either utilize encryption or a VPN.

SOURCE: Tech Hive

Google Glass vulnerable to malicious wireless networks, says Symantec is written by Brittany Hillen & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2013, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Google has quietly patched a Glass security exploit that could have allowed hackers to take control of the wearable by showing it a QR code, the researcher who identified the flaw tells SlashGear. The exploit, discovered by Marc Rogers, Principal Security Researcher at Lookout Mobile Security, took advantage of Glass’ streamlined setup process that saw the camera automatically – and transparently to the wearer – spot QR codes in images and use them to trigger WiFi connections and other configurations. By creating malicious codes, and hiding them in images, Rogers was able to get Glass to connect to a compromised network, show details of all network traffic from the wearable, and even take full remote control.

The exploit – which we referred to in our June interview with Rogers, though without specific details as Google and Lookout were still addressing the fix at the time – has been fixed as of Glass firmware XE6, released on June 4. It’s a turnaround the Lookout researcher is impressed by, after only informing the search giant of the issue on May 16. “This responsive turnaround indicates the depth of Google’s commitment to privacy and security for this device,” he says, “and set a benchmark for how connected things should be secured going forward.”

At the root of the issue was how Google attempted to handle Glass setup, given the non-traditional input options the wearable offers. Without a keyboard, and with only voice-recognition and minimal trackpad access using the small panel on the side of the headset, the Glass team turned instead to visual setup tools.

Using QR codes – the glyphs also known as “2D barcodes” – Glass could be set configured to connect to a certain WiFi network, Bluetooth device, or something else. So as to minimize the need for the user to strum through the menus, Glass would automatically identify any QR codes in images snapped with the camera, and act on them automatically.

It’s that automation – which came with no notification to the user that codes had been spotted and acted upon – which opened up the loophole Rogers could take advantage of. By reverse-engineering Google’s QR codes, he could create a range of his own glyphs that would instruct Glass to connect to a WiFi network of his choosing. Using the software tool SSLstrip, he could then gain access to all of the network traffic from the wearable, such as messages, emails, and Hangouts calls.

Taking it one step further, by pushing Glass to a page on the wireless access point that took advantage of an Android 4.0.4 vulnerability, Rogers could then hack the headset itself and actually take control of it, even to the point of remotely turning on the camera and seeing what the wearer was looking at.

As of XE6, Google has changed the Glass software so that the camera will only identify QR codes when the user specifically triggers scanning through the settings, rather than looking for them proactively. The use of 2D barcodes for settings was seen as a first step for the technology and wearables; more everyday examples could have been automatically translating menus in foreign languages, or automatically downloading music tracks from QR codes discretely embedded in band posters.

The Lookout researcher doesn’t expect this to be the last vulnerability identified in Glass, though he also argues that it’s probably a good thing. By running through the hardware and software in limited “Explorer Edition” public trials first, he points out, by the time the consumer version arrives – expected sometime in 2014 – users will be more “able to trust Glass … because it has been tested.”

Still, it’s indicative of a largely unconsidered issue as more and more devices get not only smarter but increasingly autonomous. “When you have billions of connected devices, without UIs, how do you manage updates?” he asked, rhetorically, warning that we could see a new age of potential loopholes as ways of patching flaws lag behind functionality.

Next up, Lookout intends to pare through other connected devices in other fields – Rogers told us he’s looking at car manufacturers, environmental controls, and smartwatches – to see what exploits he can uncover. If the developers of those gadgets are looking for a good example of updating practice to follow, though, they could do worse than mimic Google, he says. Otherwise, poorly-managed security could lead to the public simply not trusting tomorrow’s gadgets.

“There’s a risk that we will get a little bit scared by new things, and there’s a risk that we could miss out on cool things [as a result]” Rogers explained, if the flaw hadn’t been spotted until the commercial model. It’s an example of how the so-called “internet of things” raises new challenges to security experts and manufacturers, he says, especially given that some of the companies developing such devices are specialized in either software or hardware, but seldom both.

Google Glass exploit hacked wearable with QR codes is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2013, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Google updated the look and feel of the Google Play Store yesterday for desktop users, giving it a cleaner look that fits more in the line with the mobile version. However, the update hints at the possibility that Google Glass apps could be distributed through Google Play, and Glass owners may be able to browse the Google Play store on Glass itself.

When you go to download an app in Google Play, you can choose from a list of all your Android devices from a drop-down menu. The updated Google Play store now lists Google Glass in the drop-down menu, giving us proof that Google has at least some intention of bringing the two together at some point.

As it stands now, Glass owners have to navigate to a specific portal in the My Glass app on their Android device, which isn’t too terrible of a process, but it would be so much more convenient for Glass users to download and install apps without the leaving the comfort of that small heads-up display and touchpad on the side of their head.

Of course, the appearance of Google Glass in that drop-down menu leads to a grayed-out selection, meaning that compatibility between the two isn’t quite ready just yet, but Google may be in the process of getting it up and running.

We already know that Google Glass is getting some kind of boutique app store with Glass-specific apps, thanks to code that was discovered in the latest Glass update, but Google hasn’t addressed it publicly and they haven’t enabled it yet. This boutique method seems a little different than the simple Google Play integration, so it’s possible Google is experimenting with a few different options right now.

VIA: Android and Me

Google Play Glass Boutique support hinted in new store update is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2013, SlashGear. All right reserved.