This is an article by Crhis Davies at slashgear.com. Pretty impressive technology:
Google Glass in focus: UI, Apps & More
Chris Davies, Feb 22nd 2013
You’ve seen the Glass concept videos, you’ve read the breathless hands-on reports, but how exactly is Google’s augmented reality system going to work? The search giant’s Google X Lab team has been coy on specifics so far, with little in the way of technical insight as to the systems responsible for keeping the headset running. Thanks to a source close to the Glass project, though, we’re excited to give you some insight into what magic actually happens inside that wearable eyepiece, what that UI looks like, and how the innovative functionality will work, both locally and in the cloud.
Google knows smartphones, and that’s familiar territory for the Android team, and so unsurprisingly Glass builds on top of that technology. So, inside the colorful casing there’s Android 4.0 running on what’s believed to be a dual-core OMAP processor. This isn’t quite a smartphone – there’s WiFi and Bluetooth, along with GPS, but no cellular radio – but the familiar sensors are present, including a gyroscope and an accelerometer to keep track of where the wearer is facing and what angle their head is at.
The eyepiece itself runs at 640 x 360 resolution and, when Glass is positioned on your face properly, floats discretely just above your line of vision; on the inner edge of the L-shaped housing there’s an infrared eye-tracking camera, while a bone conduction speaker is further back along. Glass is designed to get online either with its own WiFi connection, or to use Bluetooth and tether to your smartphone. That given, it’s pretty much platform agnostic for whatever device is used to get online: it doesn’t matter if you have a Galaxy S III in your pocket, or an iPhone, or a BlackBerry Z10, as long as they can be used as a modem.
