News?
Why would a google "Smart" product run anything else? especially if it will sync with a google phone?
Google chief exec Larry Page has confirmed his company's techno-spectacles Google Glass will run some form of Android. During an earnings call yesterday for Google's first-quarter 2013 financial numbers, Page revealed the choice of operating system when asked about the new product and how it would fit in the existing Google …
I was expecting Windows for Spectacles Consumer Edition 1.0 (tm)
"Hi! I'm Clippy. It looks like you're trying to use IE for Spectacles. Oh - I see this is standard CSS from 1998 - I'm sorry, I'm not able to render that without a dozen extra ActiveX controls, a reboot and compatibility mode being enabled. Would you like me to get on with that whilst you perform your operation, Dr. Chamberlain?"
I guess it's just about conceivable, given that Android and Chrome OS are distinct, that there would have been a third branded OS since Goggles are neither primarily interested in displaying HTML content or, as I understand it, intended to run full, largely discrete, self-contained applications.
The reverse. I'd rather journalists only reported on the actual stuff and cut the repetition.
Murder:
1) "Someone was found dead. They think it was murder."
2) "Confirmed murder."
3) "Funeral of murder victim."
4.1-4.n) "Police are investigating the murder. Leads, blah, questioned, blah."
5) "Police have charged ..."
5) "Accused has gone to court."
6.1-6.n) "In the murder trial..."
7) "Accused has been found guilty/not guilty..." If not guilty, go to 4.
7.2) "The murderer was sentenced to ..."
8) "Family of the murder vicitim is suing..."
As they say, 90% of "news" is known in advance. Journalism: it's a load of journalism.
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It's not especially shocking. They got an extra story out of it, and given the popularity of the topic, a whole bunch of clickthroughs to the article (ka-ching), and then through to the comments, and those who comment (ka-ching, and ka-ching (though both smaller than the first one...)). The bottom line is that the bottom line is looking a small amount better after the posting of this story.
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From http://developer.android.com/about/dashboards/index.html - most Android users (54.3%) have Android 4.x. Those who don't probably aren't going to be the target market rushing out to buy some new device like this anyway...
As for numbers, yes it means that with total Android sales of 750 million ( http://www.androidpolice.com/2013/03/13/google-ceo-larry-page-750-million-android-devices-activated-to-date-more-than-250-million-in-the-last-6-months/ ), there will "only" be a potential userbase of over 400 million. I mean, what's that? It's only way more than all the iphones that have ever been sold.
As far as I'm aware there's a project to fold the Android drivers back into the Linux development cycle short term. Mid-term Torvalds and Google have agreed on both being based on the same kernel. Checked on Wikipedia and apparently this is scheduled for kernel 3.3 to 3.8; "The merge will be complete starting with Kernel 3.8".
The upshot is that if Glass is not running Linux now, it could be soon.
The question is less what it runs on, but what we can run on it. If those are glasses which run non-free software transmitting everything to Google they are a privacy nightmare. If however you have free software which does the processing locally or at your server or a server run by someone you trust, it can be OK.
If Android would be free instead of just open source, we wouldn't have that problem. Everyone could decide to make their own version of it or choose one of the many which are already around, just like Linux. If you don't like Unity, take Xubuntu instead of Ubuntu. If you don't like Shuttleworth at all, take Debian or Fedora or SuSE or whatever. You are not bound to the ideas of a single person, you can choose to do whatever you want.
That is freedom, and that's what is important, particularly with those invasive devices. If we don't fight for it now, expect your future brain enhancement computer to require regular software licenses and/or to upload all your most intimate thoughts to some big company with access to everybody who claims to be a covernmental entity and maybe advertisers.