Thanks to Android Police, an APK teardown of “GlassVoice” reveals a whole host of new features – yet some, if brought to reality, won’t help with the privacy concerns many have about the device.
Let’s get the worrying stuff out the way; after all, I’m a bad-news-before-good kinda guy.
Google hasn’t (yet) included eye-control for Glass, saying “OK Glass, take picture” is less worrisome than someone blinking a couple of times.
Yet, the ‘Gaze’ folder which contains mentions of these kinds of features is growing…
The latest to be added is exactly that used in my example, a “double_blink_detector.txt” – any guesses to what that one does? Of course it may be that it can only be assigned to certain features, say, double-blink to stop your current video chat (or “Hangout”).
So, on that note, let’s hastily move onto the good stuff…
Here’s a list of the new entries in res/raw (taken from Android Police’s teardown)
- Add a Calendar Event
- Call Me a Car
- Capture a Panorama
- Check Me In
- Create a 3D Model
- Find a Recipe
- Learn a Song
- Play a Game
- Play Music
- Record a Recipe
- Remind Me To…
- Show a Compass
- Start a Bike Ride
- Start a Round of Golf
- Start a Run
- Start a Stopwatch
- Start a Timer
- Translate This
- Tune an Instrument
That there is a pretty comprehensive set of features – what’s interesting is that clearly most of the basic functionality Google wants has now been implemented; now they’re venturing into the more obscure (cool) functions such as “Tune an Instrument”.
“Play Music” appears to be the most complete function; the others are (for now) simply entries. Included in the file is an actual layout; stocked with album art, album name, track name, and artist’s name… alongside the Music iconography which was contained previously.
What do you think about this new “hidden” functionality in Glass? Is it turning out to be a device you want? (Or want to develop for?)
