Tag: wearable tech

The popular music streaming service has officially rolled out its first application for this wearable technology.

Explorers now have a brand new way to be able to listen to music over their Google Glass wearable tech, as Pandora has now rolled out its very first app that is designed specifically for use over these devices.

The Glass app gives users the ability to be able to control their stations through the use of voice command.

The Google Glass app first came to life as an internal hackathon project earlier in 2014 that was held by Pandora. The company found that the effort was so popular that it went ahead and turned it into an official application designed for the augmented reality headset. It provides users with the ability to be able to listen to music through the AR glasses in three separate ways. The first is with the ear bud that is provided in the Glass Explorer kit. The second is with the additional optional stereo ear bud gadget. And the third is with the guilt in speaker of the wearable tech, itself, which doesn’t require any additional accessories.

The Google Glass version of the app can be controlled either through the touchpad or voice command.

Pandora made a blog post to share the control methods, in which it said that “Our Glassware allows you to access your personalized radio stations from wherever you are, interacting with the service through voice command or by using the touchpad.”

Users can also either play existing stations or create new ones through the use of the new app. Among the voice commands that are available to them are those that allow them to choose or form new stations. However, the touchpad goes above and beyond that for allowing users to play, skip, or pause tracks, as well as to rate individual tracks using the thumbs up or thumbs down signs.

In order to download the app, owners of the device simply need to visit the Google Glass page, turn on Pandora, and then sign in. This is the second app that has been designed by Pandora for wearable devices. The first one was made specifically for the Pebble smartwatch, and it was rolled out earlier in 2014. That said, the company has been dropping hints to suggest that there may be more focus on wearables in the future.

The new app for the head mounted wearable tech can make detections in real time.

Researchers, from Germany’s Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits, have created a first of its kind application for Google Glass that has the ability to measure human emotions and can also determine a person’s gender and gauge their age.

The SHORE real time analysis and face detection software was adapted to work with Glass.

The Sophisticated High-speed Object Recognition Engine (SHORE) can detect a human face with the help of the integrated camera in Glass and gauge a person’s emotions, determining if they are happy, sad, surprised, or angry through a facial expression analysis. At the same time, the app can estimate their age or determine their gender, as well as other aspects about them.

According to the specifications of the product on the official site, the gender detection rate of the face that is being viewed is 94.3 percent. To help the software identify real faces it utilizes a database of over 10,000 annotated faces as a point of reference. All calculations that the technology makes is done in real time by the eye-wear’s integrated CPU.

That being said, the researchers have noted that the app cannot verify a person’s identity and prohibits users from being able to discover a person’s identity through it. In fact, to ensure privacy, the app developers have promised that no data or images that are collected are sent to the cloud. The image data never leaves the device.

The Google Glass app could benefit individuals with sensory processing disorders.

This application is much more than just a gimmick. It has real potential for acting as a communication aid. For instance, a person who has a sensory processing disorder, such as autism, may benefit from the application because it can help them detect a person’s emotions. Interpreting emotions via facial expressions is something many autistics finds difficult.

Furthermore, the technology can be advantageous for those who are visually impaired, as it can provide them with supplementary audio information about the individuals who are within their surroundings. In addition, aside from Google Glass, the software could also be used in other apps like market research or interactive games.