There’s something special about Google Glass. It could be the insane price of it, or it could be the fact that it’s the coolest piece of wearable tech to hit the scene in years. Today, Google Glass gets a cool new update that will potentially, and hopefully, save money for the Glass wearer when the product officially launches in 2014. The update, XE9, has a host of new features, such as YouTube apps, Vignettes, sound search, and most happily the update removes the need for mobile data tethering, said Engadget.
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Previously, Glass users had to rely on mobile phone data to receive information. The new update removes this niggle, which is fortuitous as the newly updated Glass OS has many refurbished apps that would suck the juice from your data plan like a hungry vampire. First up are vignettes, which superimpose a screenshot of your Glass display. This lets other people see what you’re seeing. After taking an image select “Make Vignette”. Glass captures the image, it’s then up to you to share it.
Here’s an interesting one: we can now screencast from Glass to our Android phones. This seems very counterproductive though. Wasn’t the whole point of Glass to shift us away from mobile devices? Someone should find a use for this.
The next addition is a lot like Shazam, but Google is calling it Sound Search. Just long-press the Google search button or say “ok glass, Google what song is this? from the home screen.
Here’s what we think is the most important update, YouTube video search. This, combined with voice search will give us access to all the information in the world, practically. It’s YouTube for goodness sakes’, outside of extra-special government secrets (like Obama’s hamburger sauce preference) it’s got it all.
Finally, there are more Google Now cards (who’s using these things?) that display transit information, reminder cards, news alerts, as well as nearby attractions and photo spots. There’s more on the Glass update page, or wait until 2014 for the damned thing.
