Remember Google Glass—Google’s ultra-dorky, poorly supported, $1,500 face computer? Conventional wisdom said that the product was dead: it’s not sold anymore, the website was more or less shut down in 2015, its Twitter and Facebook were deleted, and the OS stopped receiving updates. But someone at Google apparently still cares about this clunky little headset, and this week the device got both a firmware update and a companion app update.
Glass can now make use of paired Bluetooth input devices, like keyboards and mice. Android Police actually dusted off a unit and got the new firmware up and running, discovering that you’ll actually get a mouse cursor on the unit if you pair a mouse.
There’s also an update to the “MyGlass” app, Google Glass’ Android companion app. After three years of rot and a target version of Android 4.2, the app was pretty broken in Android. It has been updated to target Android 5.1, and it now finally has a Notification Listener Service. This allows the app to sync notifications from the phone to the device, just like Android Wear. It has also been updated to prompt the user to disable the battery-saving Doze mode for the app so it can work when the phone is asleep.
After Glass’ initial launch and failure, the Glass team “graduated” Google X and moved it under the control of Nest’s then-boss Tony Fadell. Fadell had the group “reset their strategy” for a new version, and Google even hired a bunch of people from Amazon’s Fire Phone team, but a followup never came. The last we heard from the group was a foldable prototype unit that hit the FCC at the end of 2015.
Source: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/06/google-glass-is-apparently-back-from-the-dead-starts-getting-software-updates/
Submitted by: Arnfried Walbrecht
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