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On the eve of its one-day Glass sale, Google rolls out a bevy of features -- and rolls back an important one -- to its wearable headset that brings it up to speed with the latest Android operating system.
CNETWhile Google's Glass wearable is still proving a polarizing frontier in personal computing -- making headlines this past weekend when a reporter had it ripped off his face and smashed on the ground -- the company is quietly chipping away at its long list of features it would like to pack into the face-worn headset ahead of a eventual retail release.
On Monday, Google announced that it has brought Glass up to the latest Android iteration, KitKat, meaning not only will the device get better battery life, but developers can also now design applications for Glass using the latest Android software development kit (SDK) alongside its specialty Glass SDK. Google has typically released monthly updates for Glass, but held off in March to make the jump to Android 4.4.
More noteworthy, however, is that Google has decided to disable Glass' voice call functionality due to poor performance and lackluster users; fewer than 10 percent of Glass users are making voice calls with the device, the company reported.
"We hold ourselves to high standards for the features that we build, and video calls aren't living up to these standards," reads Google's blog post. "For this reason, we've made the hard decision to remove video calls from Glass until the experience is better."
The upgrade to KitKat is arriving a day before Google plans to let anyone purchase its Explorer prototype edition -- still for the same hefty price of $1,500 paid by the last year's early adopters -- for 24 hours only. The sale starts at 6 a.m. PT on April 15.
Other feature add-ons in the update include automatic voice command sorting by frequency and recent use, bundling of photos in Glass' timeline view, photo replies when using the Hangouts messaging app, and an easier way to send general Glass feedback to Google.
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