Google invests in Taiwanese maker of Glass components

Google appears to be preparing to ramp up production of its Google Glass product with an investment in a Taiwanese chip maker that manufactures components used in the wearable device.

Google will buy shares to hold a 6.3 percent interest in Himax Display, a subsidiary of Himax Technologies, the Taiwanese company said on Monday.

The investment will fund production upgrades and expand capacity at Himax Display's facilities that make liquid crystal on silicon (LCOS) chips. These chips are typically found in projectors, but are also used in the head-mounted display for Google Glass. Since this year's second quarter, the company had already begun expanding capacity to meet demand for its LCOS products.

"Himax Display has been a great partner for several years now," Google said in an email. "This investment is an extension of this partnership, which we hope will allow the team to continue to develop their operations."

The investment comes just as Google plans to launch its wearable glasses device later this year in the U.S. With the product, users can make searches, check email, and take photos through voice commands.

Earlier this year, the company made its device available to a select group of customers, but at the steep price of US$1,500. Google's deal with HiMax Display, however, could help the company reduce the costs of manufacturing the product.

Google is reportedly using Taiwan's Hon Hai Precision Industry, also known as Foxconn, to assemble the devices in the U.S.

HiMax Technologies, founded in 2011, is a semiconductor maker that specializes in display imaging processing technologies. The deal with Google will close in this year's third quarter.

Symantec: Google Glass still vulnerable to Wi-Fi attack

Google fixed one Wi-Fi security problem with its wearable computer Glass, but Symantec says there's another problem, which has been a long-known weakness in wireless networking.

The security vendor has been analyzing Google Glass in its labs and found a second issue that is just as harmful as the now-patched QR-code vulnerability found by Lookout Mobile Security, which was made public earlier this week.

Many Wi-Fi devices regularly look for networks that they have been connected to before, wroteCandid Wueest, a threat researcher for Symantec. The behavior is convenient for users, since they don't have to manually connect to a known network, he wrote.

But for as little as US$100, a hacker can buy a device that impersonates the known Wi-Fi network by borrowing the network's name, known as its SSID (Service Set Identifier).

If a mobile device such as Google Glass looks for a known network with the SSID of "myPrivateWiFi," a device called the Wi-Fi Pineapple can respond, pretending it is the network.

Wi-Fi Pineapple is intended as a tool for security researchers. It sits between a targeted device and the Internet. Once it has tricked a Wi-Fi device into thinking it is the legitimate network, it can then spy on the data traffic.

If the traffic between a pair of Google Glasses and a remote server is unencrypted, an attacker using Wi-Fi Pineapple can view it, a major privacy and security problem known as a man-in-the-middle attack (MITM).
The issue isn't exclusive to Google Glass and could affect any device used, for example, by someone in a coffee shop. Savvy laptop and mobile phone users may be able to take steps to prevent data from leaking by using a VPN (Virtual Private Network). But the keyboard-less interface of Google Glass could make thwarting this style of attack more complicated.

In early June, Google fixed the vulnerability found by Lookout, which found that Glass would scan a QR Code instructing it to connect to a malicious Wi-Fi access point. Lookout, which told Google of the problem in May, then directed Glass to a malicious website that ran a known Android 4.04 vulnerability, which gave the security vendor complete control over the glasses.

Google issued several fixes, including one that required users to approve instructions contained in QR codes.
The fundamental problem of Wi-Fi devices looking for known networks isn't an easy one to solve, Wueest wrote. Devices could check a hardware identifier, called the MAC (Media Access Control) address, of a Wi-Fi router and match it with the SSID. But MAC addresses are easily faked, he wrote.

"The more practicable solution is to treat every network as hostile and ensure that all the applications use encrypted communications like SSL [Secure Sockets Layers] or tunnel through a VPN," Wueest wrote.
Google couldn't immediately be reached for comment.

Symantec: Google Glass still vulnerable to Wi-Fi attack

Google fixed one Wi-Fi security problem with its wearable computer Glass, but Symantec says there’s another problem, which has been a long-known weakness in wireless networking.

The security vendor has been analyzing Google Glass in its labs and found a second issue that is just as harmful as the now-patched QR-code vulnerability found by Lookout Mobile Security, which was made public earlier this week.

Many Wi-Fi devices regularly look for networks that they have been connected to before, wrote Candid Wueest, a threat researcher for Symantec. The behavior is convenient for users, since they don’t have to manually connect to a known network, he wrote.

But for as little as $100, a hacker can buy a device that impersonates the known Wi-Fi network by borrowing the network’s name, known as its SSID (Service Set Identifier).

If a mobile device such as Google Glass looks for a known network with the SSID of “myPrivateWiFi,” a device called the Wi-Fi Pineapple can respond, pretending it is the network.

Wi-Fi Pineapple is intended as a tool for security researchers. It sits between a targeted device and the Internet. Once it has tricked a Wi-Fi device into thinking it is the legitimate network, it can then spy on the data traffic.

If the traffic between a pair of Google Glasses and a remote server is unencrypted, an attacker using Wi-Fi Pineapple can view it, a major privacy and security problem known as a man-in-the-middle attack (MITM).
The issue isn’t exclusive to Google Glass and could affect any device used, for example, by someone in a coffee shop. Savvy laptop and mobile phone users may be able to take steps to prevent data from leaking by using a VPN (Virtual Private Network). But the keyboard-less interface of Google Glass could make thwarting this style of attack more complicated.

In early June, Google fixed the vulnerability found by Lookout, which found that Glass would scan a QR Code instructing it to connect to a malicious Wi-Fi access point. Lookout, which told Google of the problem in May, then directed Glass to a malicious website that ran a known Android 4.04 vulnerability, which gave the security vendor complete control over the glasses.

Google issued several fixes, including one that required users to approve instructions contained in QR codes.
The fundamental problem of Wi-Fi devices looking for known networks isn’t an easy one to solve, Wueest wrote. Devices could check a hardware identifier, called the MAC (Media Access Control) address, of a Wi-Fi router and match it with the SSID. But MAC addresses are easily faked, he wrote.

“The more practicable solution is to treat every network as hostile and ensure that all the applications use encrypted communications like SSL [Secure Sockets Layers] or tunnel through a VPN,” Wueest wrote. 

GlassUp plans a sexier, cheaper take on Google Glass

A team of Italian designers has plans for a simpler, cheaper, and more stylish take on Google Glass. The GlassUp team announced Tuesday that it is raising money to produce its Glass competitor.
GlassUp, an IndieGogo project seeking to raise $150,000 to take its augmented eyewear to production, says that the team showed off its first prototype in January at the Consumer Electronics Show. The team hopes to deliver its first production models by February 2014 for an estimated price of $299, it said.
According to Francesco Giartosio, GlassUps’ chief executive, one of the chief differences between Google Glass and the GlassUp eyewear will be in how the device displays data; instead of projecting information onto the edge of the glass from an offset projector, GlassUp will use a dedicated lens embedded in the glass itself.
That will allows GlassUp to overlay monochromatic text directly “ahead” of the user’s eye, which Giartosio said was more ergonomic. GlassUp’s display has a resolution of 320 by 240 pixels.

GlassUpWhat life is like looking through GlassUp’s glasses.
With Google, “you have to lift up your eyes,” Giartosio said. “”It’s not comfortable and can’t be good for you continuously.” GlassUp weighs about 1.5 ounces, he said, with a battery life of 150 hours of standby time and 8 hours of normal usage.
GlassUp is just one of a number of companies vying to be the next big thing in “wearable computing,” with the argument being that consumers will eventually grow too lazy to haul their smartphone out of their pocket. Instead, a number of Google Glass competitors have developed wrist-mounted devices including the Pebble or the rumored Apple iWatch to provide glanceable information.
But while Glass is a standalone device, GlassUp characterizes its glasses as “basically a second screen output for your devices,”  that connect via Bluetooth to your phone or tablet.
As such, it will be “read only,” only able to receive information—unlike Glass, which can be used to send information back and forth. GlassUp will also forego voice input—something that will arrive in a future generation, according to Giartosio—and there won’t be a camera included for recording photos and video, either. However, sensors including an accelerometer, compass, ambient light sensor, and a precision altimeter are included.
The GlassUp glasses include a touchpad on the right side of the eyewear, which GlassUp says will support gestures such as swiping, as a means to avoid tapping on your phone all the time.

GlassUp
The information that GlassUp displays will be dependent on what sort of apps that you download. Giartosio says that GlassUp will develop five to ten apps on its own, and that 100 developers are already hoping to take a crack at GlassUp with their own apps.
The company envisions GlassUp projecting messages, tweets, and real-time directions on the screen, overlaying the “real world” that’s visible though the glasses. However, it’s difficult to see how apps that showed real-time translations of movies would work with GlassUp, as it lacks both a camera and audio sensors.
However, while Google has refined its industrial design, Giartosio says that GlassUp is located in northern Italy—right smack in the middle of eyeglass designers like Luxottica, Safilo, Marcolin, De Rigo, who design eyeglass brands like Ray-Ban, Oakley and others. The company will develop two models, a basic and a “sporty” model.

”People are waiting for this,” Giartosio said. Are they? Or will they instead buy Google Glass, when it reportedly goes on sale this fall? Time will tell.  

Tesla Owners Get Their Own Google Glass App

Tesla Model S owners and Google Glass Explorers. Two circles of a Venn diagram that likely don’t overlap. Much. But that hasn’t stopped Sahas Katta from developing an app for Glass that gives Tesla owners some basic control over their all-electric sled.

Katta had access to a Model S owned by a family member and reverse-engineered the official Tesla app for Android to run on Google Glass.

That means the functionality is limited to what Tesla baked into its original app, but it’s a solid start.

Katta’s Glass app allows users to view the amount of juice and charging status, remotely start and stop charging, and pop open the charge port. Locking and unlocking the doors is also included, as well as being able to honk the horn and flash the lights.

More useful is the ability to see the interior and exterior temperatures and then set the auto climate system to heat or cool the inside before the owner returns. And since the app relies on the built-in GPS of both the smartphone and the car, it can help owners find their Model S in a crowded parking lot. (Not that the Model S is that ubiquitous to begin with, unless you live in the Bay Area).

But again, the functionality is limited to what was included in the original Tesla Android app. But Katta has plans to expand, with voice controls to, say, open the trunk or lock the doors, get a push notification when the Model S completes charging, and even incorporate some kind of head-up display.