On my previous post, Google Glass: An Evolutionary Leap, I explained what Google Glass is all about and how it works. The present post deals with bits and nuts of its specifications.
The most anticipated device of Google, The Google Glass, may use some of the most advance technologies available, but the style and simplicity of the glass makes everything looks so easy when you are on the user side. The Glass consists of six main parts as of now. These parts are held together by a stylish looking eye wear frame. The main parts are namely the CPU (incl. GPS), Battery, Camera, Speakers, Microphone and a Prism.
The most anticipated device of Google, The Google Glass, may use some of the most advance technologies available, but the style and simplicity of the glass makes everything looks so easy when you are on the user side. The Glass consists of six main parts as of now. These parts are held together by a stylish looking eye wear frame. The main parts are namely the CPU (incl. GPS), Battery, Camera, Speakers, Microphone and a Prism.
CPUAlthough there is no official data available from Google about the processor specifications, however, rumor has it that the device uses a dual-core OMAP 4430 system on a chip and it runs on Android 4.0.4 Ice Cream Sandwich. The RAM is believed to be 1 GB which has some of its part reserved for the hardware. It’s certainly not a gaming console if you were expecting so, but it’s enough to power the features that the Glass offers.
BatteryGoogle Glass uses a single celled battery of lithium polymer. The battery is rated as 2.1 watt-hours (570mAh). Many high end smart phones use more than 2000mAh battery for powering the devices. The low rated battery gives a really short battery life to Google Glass. The users of the Google Glass Explorer Version often find it difficult to use it for a whole day without charging. If you are recording a video, it will hardly last 45 minutes or so. This is one of the places where the Google can work on before it releases the commercial version of the Glass.
One of the coolest features of the Glass is its integrated camera that takes a picture in a point of view (POV) frame. The minimum shutter lag in the Glass Camera makes the shooting easier. Head mounted camera decreases the motion while taking the snap. It is an advantage when compared to a hand held camera, since head is the most stable part of the body it minimizes the shaking effect while taking a picture. The 5MP camera can take snapshots of 2560 x 1888 resolution images and 720p videos. The camera takes the snap on the voice command - “take a picture” or by tapping the touch pad or just by a wink of the eye.
Speakers
The tiny oval shaped bone conduction transducer or speaker
in Google Glass does all the audio transfer from the device to your audio receptors.
The bone conduction technology allows
you to listen to the audio sound without an actual ear piece plugged into your
ear. The speaker vibrates in low frequency to transfer the sound through the
cranial bones into your inner ear.
Microphone
The Glass also has a microphone near the camera. The high
quality and effective voice recognizer in Google Glass uses the microphone to
collect audio command and respond accordingly.
Google uses both technological prowess and smart application of optics to achieve a high quality display which hover couple of feet away from your eyes and forms a layer over the view in reality. The
output from a tiny 640 x 360 LCD screen is guided through a micro projector and projected on a smart prism which projects a layer over reality. The prism focuses the image directly to the user’s retina, thereby creating a virtual screen in front of your eyes which Google says is “equivalent of a 25 inch high definition screen from eight feet away.” The Glass 
can also be set in a way that a miniature display hangs at the upper right corner of your sightline without obstructing your natural view.Apart from these, the Glass also features a “12 GB of usable memory, synced with Google cloud storage. 16 GB Flash total.” There is a touch pad on the side of the CPU starting from temple to the ear. You can swipe over the touch pad to navigate through the options in the display. The Glass supports Bluetooth and Wifi – 802.11b/g. It is compatible with any Bluetooth capable phone. With the Glass also comes an exclusive Micro USB cable and charger, adjustable nose pads (of different sizes) and a durable frame. That’s all you can get out of the Google Glass Explorer Edition. With a price tag of $1500, its quite a good deal for tech enthusiasts.
