A new month means another software update from the Glass team to make the beta product even more useful and capable.
- Video Player Controls
- More Google Now Cards
- Hashtag support for captions
- more voice commands for navigation
- Volume Control
- and more
Video Player Controls
Video controls
The latest update allows you to pause, rewind and fast forward a video you recorded with Glass by tapping for pause/play and swiping back/front for skipping past the boring to the good stuff.
Google Now Cards
New Movie Cards in your timeline
The Glass team continues to add more of the handy Google Now cards from your phone to your Glass timeline with this month getting movies, reservations and events (assumes you have enabled the Gmail setting to allow Now to grab email information) public alerts and even Happy Birthday wishes. So now Glass can remind you of that wicked cool night you have planned with a calendar, concert ticket, late night dinner, and hotel plan all coming right to your Timeline.
#hashtag and voice captioning
Add hashtags to your G+ photos.
XE8 allows for the voice command to add a caption to that picture or video you just took via “ok glass, add a caption.” and if you say “hashtag awesome” it will become #awesome for the caption. The #throughglass is still automatically added to the image/video as before.
Improved voice navigation commands
ability to voice command during navigation
Glass has made it easier to stay hands-free while navigating which hopefully will help ease some people’s concerns over distracted driving. Now with XE8, you can ask Glass to show the route or hide it if it was already showing it as well as stop navigation once you arrive or know where you are going.
Dedicated Volume Setting
dedicated volume settings card
Volume control has been a much-requested feature since folks started getting their hands on the bone conducting marvel and now XE8 adds a dedicated settings card so you can take it to 11 or mute during that important meeting. You can also access the volume during voice and video calls.
More Features
The update also brings voice note capabilities for Evernote and Path users though surprisingly still no Google Keep note support. Path users can command “ok Glass, Post an update” and Evernote users use “ok, Glass take a note.”
Another subtle but cool update is making voice commands more natural and fluid. No more “ok, Glass.” pause, “Send a Message to” wait “Stephanie” as the latest update allows you to speak naturally “Ok, Glass, send a message to Stephanie”
During video calls, you can now swipe down to check your timeline but this will mute your camera and the other parties in the call will no longer see your point of view. Others won’t see your timeline during the call while you search so no worries about broadcasting your email or text messages. Once you found what you were looking for in your timeline you can switch back to streaming out your POV by actively rejoining the video call by taping the video call card just to the left of the home screen in your timeline.
So that is the August 2013 XE8 Glass update, plug in your Glass to an outlet and a steady wifi connection and let the update do its thing. Enjoy and see you next month for XE9.