At Google I/O tomorrow we’re definitely going to see some things to do with wearables. The most famous wearable is of course Google Glass, and Google has given it some love in the days leading up to their keynote.
Yesterday, Google announced 12 new apps for Glass. Known as Glassware, these apps are officially approved by Google and follow all the guidelines. The apps announced add some pretty neat functionality as well as entertainment. The 12 apps announced are :
94Fifty Basketball works with the 94Fifty Smart Sensor Basketball to help you with your game. It measures muscle memory that the human eye can’t see. You’ll get feedback after each shot to help you shoot like Ray Allen. (ok, maybe not Ray Allen but maybe it’ll help you make varsity.)
The Guardian keeps you up to date on breaking news alerts and lets you save the articles you want to read later.
Duolingo makes learning a new language feel more like a game and less like high school Spanish class.
GuidiGO is your personal tour guide. Choose from 27 destinations and over 250 guided tours. Relive the Impressionist history of Montmartre, the magic of the Hagia Sofia in Istanbul, or the hidden secrets of San Francisco!
Allthecooks is no stranger to Glass, but they’ve added some new features to keep your hands free while cooking. You can now use voice commands to switch between recipes and directions.
Zombies, Run! Because let’s face it, running is more fun when you’re being chased by zombies.
Star Chart lets you look up at the sky and explore the stars, planets and constellations above.
Shazam on Glass can tell you the name of the track and artist of a song that’s playing around you. Just say “OK Glass, Recognize this song.”
Goal.com lets you keep up with everything happening in the world of football. (World Cup fans, we’re looking at you.)
Livestream let’s you broadcast live video, read chat messages from your audience and share your point of view via social networks.
musiXmatch picks up on the music playing around you and shows you the song lyrics for songs in any language.
Google has also announced some more improvements to the camera for Glass, with Viewfinder. When you say the words ‘Ok Glass, show the viewfinder’ you’ll now get some L’s in the glass prism so you can frame your shot. What you see is what you get.
Last but not least is that new Glass units (those lucky UK peeps) will be receiving an updated hardware model as well. The RAM has been doubled, going from 1GB to 2GB, allowing for a bit of speed and more caching. Google also points to improvements they’ve made in software including increasing battery life by over 20%, and increasing the speed of voice search by 10%.
Now, we just need to know when we can order Glass in Australia.
the memory bump is most likely due to supply and cost of 1GB Memory modules with most phones now sporting 2GB of memory the need for 1GB memory would be reduced
Some great apps for Glass in that list.
GuidiGO has 6 tour maps available for Australia. Port Douglas, Cairns, Sydney, Adelaide, Perth and Broome.
Allthecooks, and The Guardian, are apps that I’d definitely want, if I could afford Glass.