Hackers give Google Glass facial recognition capabilities

At Philz Coffee in Palo Alto, Calif., a kid who looks like he should still be in high school is sitting across from me. He's wearing Google Glass. As I stare into the device's cyborg eye, I'm waiting for its tiny screen to light up.

Then, I wait for a signal that Google Glass has recognized my face.

It isn't supposed to do that, but has hacked it.

"Essentially what I am building is an alternative operating system that runs on Glass but is not controlled by Google," he said.

Balaban wants to make it possible to do all sorts of things with Glass that Google's designers didn't have in mind.

One of the biggest fears about Google Glass is that the proliferation of these head-mounted computers equipped with intelligent cameras will fundamentally.

Google has tried to respond to these fears by designing Glass so it is obvious to the people around these devices when and how they are being used. For example, to take a picture with Google Glass, you need to issue a voice command or tap your temple before the screen lights up.

But hackers are proving it's possible to re-engineer Google Glass in any number of creative ways. And in the process, they've put Google in an awkward position. The company needs to embrace their creative talents if it hopes to build a software ecosystem around its new device that might one day attract millions of consumers. But at the same time, Google wants to try to rein in uses for Glass or spook politicians pointed questions about privacy.

So when Balaban first announced he had built an app that let folks use Glass for facial recognition, Google reacted harshly.

"I'd be lying if I said I was surprised," he said.

The company said it wouldn't support programs on Glass that made facial recognition possible — and changed its terms of service to ban them. But that hasn't stopped techies like Balaban from building these services anyway.

And now, there are all sorts of things developers are doing with Glass that were not built into the original design.

Michael DiGiovanni created Winky — a program that lets someone wearing Google Glass.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2013/07/17/202725167/clever-hacks-give-google-glass-many-unintended-powers