Sandeep Monangi

In 2009 Ukrainian immigrant Jan Koum and a friend, Brian Acton, launched Whatsapp with the goal of creating a text-messaging application that would connect users with family and friends abroad at a low cost. Since its inception Whatsapp has been ad-free. It now has 450 million global users who pay a 99-cent annual fee for the service.

In 2012 Facebook founder/CEO Mark Zuckerberg approached Koum about the possibility of acquiring his business. Concerned about Facebook's pervasive use of ads and anxious to maintain his company's independence, Koum showed little interest. Nonetheless a friendship developed between the two men in the course of numerous hikes and dinners.

"As we got to know each other," Koum told The Wall Street Journal, "we got to respect each other more."

Facebook wasn't the only high-tech company courting Whatsapp. In 2013 Google made an "odd" proposal to Whatsapp, according to Internet news Web site The Information: It offered millions for the right to be notified if the messaging app entered into acquisition talks with other companies. The unusual "right to know" offer reportedly was hatched by Google mergers-and-acquistions chief Don Harrison after the company was burned by Facebook's $1 billion purchase of Instagram in 2012.

Whatsapp wisely rejected the offer, perhaps anticipating that Facebook would have lost interest if Google had been welcomed into the competition.

Early this past February Whatsapp received its official offer from Zuckerberg. Framing it as a partnership, Zuckerberg affirmed that Facebook would not try to force ads on Whatsapp or otherwise complicate the app, Koum says.

Around this time, according to The Information, Google also entered the race, going so far as to notify Sequoia Capital, Whatsapp's venture-capital investor, that it was prepared to outbid Facebook no matter what the cost. Whatsapp refused to engage with Google, however, reportedly viewing Facebook as a better match and suspecting that Google was interested primarily in thwarting its competitor.

Zuckerberg and Koum mapped out an arrangement whereby Whatsapp would operate separately from the social-media behemoth. At Zuckerberg's insistence, Koum also agreed to accept a seat on Facebook's board of directors. The $19 billion deal was struck.

Talking to the Journal, Koum focused on his and Zuckerberg's common goals rather than on their differences: "We have a shared mission of connecting the world and making it more open," he said.

Did Facebook overpay for Whatsapp? The deal could pay off if the app meets its goal of a billion users. The acquisition also will give Facebook the stronger presence it has been seeking on mobile devices.

Moreover, the prospect of losing to a competitor can be a legitimate reason to overpay for a commodity, according to Harvard Business School and Harvard Law School professor Guhan Subramanian. In so-called all-pay auctions, each bidder believes that it will suffer in the marketplace if a competitor gets the target company. In the end the winning bidder overpays, but perhaps suffers less than the losing bidder.

Viewed in this light, Facebook's possible overpayment is rational, rather than a sign of competitive arousal, the type of "auction fever" that leads bidders to try to win at any cost.

Meanwhile, across Silicon Valley, both hopes and fears that the deal would spark a new wave of exorbitant start-up acquisitions abounded. Concern is growing that the Whatsapp purchase marks the start of a high-tech bubble like the dot-com bubble that burst at the turn of this century.

Here are some standout negotiating moves in the Whatsapp purchase.

A STRONG RELATIONSHIP.

Zuckerberg won over Koum by patiently pursuing his friendship and trust. Ultimately Koum came to view their differences as compatible rather than insurmountable, forging close ties that should serve them well when, inevitably, problems arise in their partnership.

A CALCULATED OVERPAYMENT.

Often the winner of an auction or other intensely competitive negotiation relishes only a short-term victory, as there is a good chance he or she overpaid for the prize. Sometimes the best way to avoid overpaying in an auction is to stay out of it entirely. When your analysis suggests that you would suffer if a competitor won the prize, however, overpayment may be a rational move.

INNOVATIVE THINKING.

Though the strategy didn't work this time, Google's Don Harrison came up with a novel negotiating strategy in the "right to know" offer, one that he or others may adopt more successfully in the future. The strategy could help companies stay informed about potentially beneficial opportunities and also scare off competitors.

(This article first appeared in the Negotiation newsletter, published by the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School, www.pon.harvard.edu.)

Modi dressed up for the occasion

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Kejriwal giving interview.

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The system creates "lock-out mechanisms" to disable cell phones from performing certain functions, such as texting, while one is driving.

The patent describes how sensors in a mobile phone could tell how quickly a person was moving and would be sensitive enough to work out whether a person was in the driving seat or in a safe operating area of a vehicle, allowing passengers to text as normal.

"A handheld computing device can provide a lock-out mechanism without requiring any modifications or additions to a vehicle," the patent said.

"The device can comprise a motion analyser, a scenery analyser and a lock-out mechanism. The motion analyser can detect whether the handheld computing device is in motion beyond a predetermined threshold level.

"The scenery analyser can determine whether a holder of handheld computing device is located within a safe operating area of a vehicle.

"And the lock-out mechanism can disable one or more functions of the handheld computing device based on output of the motion analyser, and enable the one or more functions based on output of the scenery analyser," it said.

The patent further develops the idea and says the vehicle itself could contain technology that could effectively block the signal to a phone inside a moving car.

It is not clear how this could ensure that passengers' phones would not be affected, a newspaper reported.

The patent application, which was filed in 2008, but only published and granted recently, also said that police report that their ability to catch drivers texting is limited "because the texting device can be used out of sight (eg on the driver's lap), thus making texting even more dangerous.

"Texting while driving has become so widespread it is doubtful that law enforcement will have any significant effect on stopping the practice," the patent said.

Earlier this month, it was reported that Apple has filed a patent for 'transparent texting' technology to make texting while walking safer by replacing the text background with a live video feed of whatever is in front of the smartphone user.

Smartphones from online retail giant Amazon have been in the pipeline for years now, but the wait my be soon coming to an end if recent rumours and leaks are to be believed.

Recently the Wall Street Journal reported that Amazon's first smartphone will be unveiled in June this year, and will go on sale in the third quarter. Now thanks to BGR, we get to see images of the alleged smartphone, confirming the multi camera setup that will make for a glassless 3D experience.

According to BGR, the phone will have a total of six cameras – one primary (13MP) imaging camera on the back, one secondary front facing camera, and four other low-power infrared cameras situated at the four corners of the screen.

The device's extra cameras supposedly track the position of the user's face and eyes in relation to the display. This allows Amazon's software to make constant adjustments to the on-screen elements, altering the perspective of visuals on the screen. The end result of this trickery should make for a 3D experience without the use of any special glasses, no matter which angle the user views the screen from.

Apart from the plethora of cameras, the device will come with a 4.7-inch display featuring a resolution of 720p rather than the 1080p resolution many flagship smartphones now come with. Powering the device will be an unnamed Qualcomm Snapdragon processor and 2GB of RAM. The phone will run a heavily customised version of Google's Android, similar to the one that powers Amazon's Kindle Fire tablets.

With the most novel aspect of the phone being the 3D software interface, Amazon has supposedly tried to use the technology in as many areas as possible. Starting right from the lockscreen, the phone will come with several wallpapers with perspectives that shift when the user tilts the screen in any orientation.

Apart from this even app icons will have a 3D effect, as will core user interface elements. In the WSJ report, Amazon is already approaching third-party developers to make use of the feature in their apps and games. Amazon itself will make its various digital stores 3D compatible, allowing users to view product images in 3D.

BGR adds that the phone displayed in the images wears a sort of case that is meant to ward off prying eyes from the final design of the device. Moreover, this is just one of many smartphones that Amazon is currently working on, and another more entry-level device could be launched in the months following the launch of the 3D smartphone.

TAGS: Mobile Phones, Open Source Android, Amazon, 3D Smartphone, Qualcomm Snapdragon

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NEW YORK: Yay, it's Nick! How can I help?

Thanks for asking, Cortana. And thanks for making the Windows phone software better, Microsoft.

With the new Cortana virtual assistant, Windows catches up with Apple's iOS and Google's Android in a major way. Microsoft takes some of the best parts of Apple's and Google's virtual assistants and adds a few useful tools of its own. The result is Cortana, named after an artificial-intelligence character in Microsoft's "Halo" video games.

The new Windows system, Windows Phone 8.1, has several other new features, which I'll review separately Tuesday.

The update, including Cortana, will come with new phones starting next month, while existing phones will be able to download it for free in the coming months. On Monday, Microsoft is making a preview version available to software developers. I was able to test that version over the past week.

Apple's Siri virtual assistant on iPhones and iPads has a feisty personality. She has good comebacks for such questions as, "What is the meaning of life?"She's also helpful with directions, restaurant recommendations and appointment reminders. Google Now on Android phones is boring by comparison, but it's better at anticipating your needs and giving you information before you even ask.

Cortana combines Siri's personality with Google Now's knack for anticipation.

Cortana also incorporates a feature for blocking calls, texts and notifications during times of your choosing, while letting you set exceptions for specific people or emergencies (defined as someone trying to call again within three minutes). That feature is separate on iPhones and Samsung's Android phones. Cortana will also identify the name of songs heard in a retail store or bar, while you need separate apps such as SoundHound or Shazam on other phones.

By David Carr

Yahoo, a company that seems like a permanent adolescent in search of an identity, is about to try a new persona: high-quality television programmer.

According to The Wall Street Journal, the company's chief executive, Marissa Mayer, is "looking for series that are ready to launch and don't require a lot of development."

Well, aren't we all?

At a time when the culture is addicted to high-end television narratives, Yahoo wants in on the action, partly because while its site may have (flat) traffic - 700 million global visits a month - and (declining) revenue, it has zero cachet and no discernible way forward.

For many years, digital media players watched longingly as HBO and then AMC, FX and Showtime managed to rise above the clutter on television, where Americans still spend five hours a day. So last year, when Netflix broke through with "House of Cards," it made sense that companies like Amazon, Hulu and Yahoo would want to follow suit.

There are signs that it is working - streaming for Amazon Prime tripled in the last year and the company has introduced its own device, Fire TV, which will fight for shelf space in your home along with Apple TV, Chromecast and Roku. At the same time, Comcast is seeking a merger that will give it the scale to invest in technology, and HBO Go is pushing to follow the consumer onto mobile.

"People always want to be what they aren't," said Jonah Peretti of BuzzFeed when we discussed the crisscross the other day.

The prize is dear. Winning in the distribution of high-end content is about mining an audience, and you can't blame technology companies for believing they have relevant skill sets.

Silicon Valley has capitalized on its ability to create compelling software that animates devices and, very often, the people sitting in front of them. Surely, industry executives believed, they could head down the coast 400 miles and make a different kind of software using stars and sophisticated production values with some success. How hard could it be?

The answer is, very hard indeed.

"It is the pure arrogance of the newly rich and the newly powerful to think content is easy," said John Landgraf, chief executive of FX Networks, which has had success with "Justified," "The Americans" and "Sons of Anarchy." "Breaking through in a cluttered marketplace requires expertise in all of the elements of storytelling. There are so many ways it can go wrong."

It can be done, as HBO has demonstrated. Right now, despite all the competitors who are trying to eat its lucrative lunch, the premium cable service is crushing it.

"Game of Thrones," a fantasy-inspired epic, has become an unlikely bona fide hit, with 6.6 million people tuning in for the premiere of its fourth season. "True Detective," a moody swamp-noir set in Louisiana, became a much-talked about win this winter, and "Silicon Valley" is about to have a moment, nailing the greedy hippie ethos that makes the tech world such a compelling, silly place. Comedies like "Veep" and "Girls" did well enough to earn their spots as well as their renewals.

But in the years leading up to those successes, not even HBO seemed able to be HBO. Using its tried and true formula of funding proven auteurs, the network followed up "The Sopranos" with "Luck," "John From Cincinnati," "Treme" and "The Newsroom" - shows that it was equally proud of but that failed to connect with an audience. A company executive described the period as "those years we don't talk about."

I have covered television (and film) long enough to know that wandering around Sunset Boulevard with a big bag of money shopping for programming is more likely to result in a mugging than a hit show. It requires connections in the agency world, technical muscle, moody writers, fragile stars - the list goes on. And even if you navigate all those shoals adroitly - spending large amounts of money the whole way - there also has to be some luck, a serendipitous grab of the zeitgeist. It's a tough racket.

Hollywood and Silicon Valley regard each other with mutual suspicion. The entertainment industry is viewed as a metric-free place of profligate whimsy by the engineering culture, and the valley in turn is seen as a place that has no regard for intellectual property and that has a profound lack of taste.

"Say what you will about Hollywood, the mechanism for finding talent is actually pretty good," said Mike Judge, a former programmer in Silicon Valley who went on to make "Beavis and Butt-Head," "Office Space" and, most recently, HBO's "Silicon Valley."

"People in Silicon Valley are generally smarter than people in Hollywood, but it takes a different kind of intelligence to make television, especially a lot of it, and do it well," Judge said. "Telling stories requires lots of skills, not just making people laugh, but also who does the best color correction."

Yahoo is especially unplugged from that world. In her move to differentiate on quality, Mayer has looked at more than 100 projects and is leaning hard on Kathy Savitt, Yahoo's chief marketing officer, according to The Journal. But neither has much significant history in the entertainment business, and Mickie Rosen and Erin McPherson, two executives familiar with the media business, recently left the company.

This is not the first time that Yahoo has made a big push into Hollywood - in 2004, it had a well-covered foray into major productions with major stars, an effort that ended in naught.

"This is a very hard business with a very high reward," said James McQuivey, an analyst at Forrester Research. "Yahoo feels compelled to do it because of problems that they have and the opportunity it represents, but they have a lot less skill and knowledge than the other players."

He added, "Finding a big audience that uses you to make their life easier or more convenient, as Yahoo has by creating something useful, is very different than providing a cultural experience that scratches a very deep part of the brain."

"House of Cards" is a great aiming point for other digital players, but that achievement was not easy. Begin with the fact that Netflix was able to collect years of data on consumers through its video rental service. It already had a significant distribution platform in television, something that Yahoo, which lives on desktop and mobile, sorely lacks.

Netflix booked David Fincher, a director with proven commercial and creative credentials, to produce the series, then pushed it into the public consciousness with a blunt force marketing campaign on and off the service.

Before "House of Cards," Netflix made "Lilyhammer," which entered the water like an Olympic dive, without so much as a ripple. Two series that followed, "Hemlock Grove" and "Arrested Development," came and went without a lot of bounce. "Orange Is the New Black" may have turned heads, but it will be years before Netflix has the kind of batting average that will put it in the front ranks of programmers.

In terms of technology companies that have prospered over the long haul in entertainment, I can think only of what Apple did with Pixar before selling it to Disney. In that case, vast processing power was paired with an absolute devotion to great stories. No other lasting success comes to mind.

For Yahoo, changing lanes from creating and hosting short-form video content to making lush, dramatic narratives is a bit like expecting a good sprinter to run a marathon.

With all the money sloshing around, maybe it's time I consider pitching a series of my own. In the one I'm thinking about, the much-lauded chief executive of a tech company decides to go Hollywood in search of an identity and any kind of win. High jinks, plenty of mordant humor and a trail of tears ensue.

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"It's still early days, but atmospheric satellites could help bring Internet access to millions of people, and help solve other problems, including disaster relief and environmental damage like deforestation," said a Google spokesman in an email to AFP.

"It's why we're so excited to welcome Titan Aerospace to the Google family."

Google did not release the financial terms of the transaction. Titan's drones are able to run for five years at an altitude of some 65,000 feet (19,812 meters). They can perform similar functions to geostationary satellites, but are less costly.

Google, meanwhile, is developing Project Loon, which uses large balloons for transmitting Internet signals to regions that are not now connected.

Facebook, another tech titan interested in spreading the Internet to new territory, was reportedly interested in acquiring Titan.

But Facebook instead announced in late March that it was acquiring Ascenta, a British firm specializing in unmanned solar-powered vehicles.

According to a report by Moody's Investors Service, U.S. companies outside the financial industry were sitting on a combined $1.64 trillion of cash by the end of 2013. And tech giants like Apple, Google and Microsoft had the most.

Apple topped the list, with nearly $159 billion. A decade ago, before the iPhone came along, the company was holding about $5.5 billion. Laid out in dollar bills, Apple's current stockpile would cover around 630 square miles.

Apple seems happy to let its trove sit untouched, though the company has not said why.

John Maynard Keynes, the economist, argued that companies tend to hoard cash for three reasons: to perform day-to-day transactions, to protect themselves in the event business slows, and to prepare to make investments should opportunity arise.

Apple certainly isn't using its cash for acquisitions. Compared to its competitors, the company spends very little money buying technologies new or old.

Google has spent billions on video sites, robots, driverless-car technology and artificial intelligence software. Amazon has bought robot-makers, e-commerce services and hardware startups. And Facebook has spent more than $20 billion in just the last two months on a messaging platform and virtual reality technology.

Yet Apple has barely broken the skin over the last decade, buying AuthenTec, a fingerprint sensor company; Siri, the voice service; and Topsy, a data analytics company.

Apple has never even made a single acquisition more than $1 billion. Where are the robots, the driverless cars, the virtual reality goggles?

In an interview in February with The Wall Street Journal, Timothy D. Cook, Apple's chief executive, said the company had looked at big companies but had no urge to buy for the sake of buying.

"The money is also not burning a hole in our pocket where we say let's make a list of 10 and pick the best one," Cook said. He said Apple was "not going to go out and buy something for the purposes of just being big."

But the money is burning a hole in the pockets of investors who want Apple to use some of its cash to pay dividends, buy back stock or both. Carl Icahn, the vocal billionaire investor, is leading the charge.

Rick Lane, an analyst with Moody's who wrote the report on the company's cash holdings, said Apple could be holding onto some of its cash for a rainy day. Apple once fell on "very difficult times," he said, "and had to rely on, in part, the kindness of others."

"Without having to rely on the capital markets, which can be mercurial, it's a kind of self-insurance to have that cash on hands for the times when things go bump in the night," he said.

So what could Apple buy with its miles of cash?

Compared to Google, Apple seems to be focused on the here and now rather than the far-off future. (Google is building autonomous robots and cars.)

Apple could leapfrog its competitors and go all in, picking up Mars. (Yes, the planet.) NASA scientists recently said a human mission to Mars with the goal of building a colony would cost about $160 billion. NASA even floated the idea that big corporations could sponsor the trip.

If going from iPads to interplanetary missions seems like a stretch, maybe Apple could explore transportation on Earth.

Last year Philip W. Schiller, Apple's senior vice president for worldwide marketing, said that before the company built the iPhone, executives had discussed building a car.

Rather than start from scratch, Apple could take less than 20 percent of its cash and pick up Tesla for around $30 billion. Paint the cars white, slap on an Apple logo, dot an "i" before crossing the "t" - and you have an entirely new product category: iTesla.

Of course, Apple would immediately want to jump into the driverless car market - since that is clearly the future of the industry - so the company could buy a few artificial intelligence labs and pick up whichever robotics companies Google hasn't already.

Or Apple could stick with communications. There are very few companies Apple relies on more than the telecommunications giants. While Apple designs and builds its iPhones and iPads on its own, the company still needs Verizon, AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile to connect those gadgets to music, video and the Internet.

Why not just bypass the telecom companies? T-Mobile, which boasts the fastest Internet service on the planet, is currently worth about $26 billion, about 16 percent of Apple's cash. Sprint is a little more expensive, with a market value of $37 billion. But Apple could pick up both and still have more than $90 billion left.

Microsoft can probably feel Apple's pain. In 2002, Microsoft was rich, sitting on $36 billion. While Bill Gates always believed that Microsoft should have enough cash on hand to operate for a year without making a penny, investors disagreed, calling for a dividend.

Microsoft tried to hold out, saying it wouldn't bow to investors' demands. Under pressure, the company finally relented, and it issued its first dividend.

We all know what happened to Microsoft in the decade that followed.

An internet chat would become just that, a simulation of a reallife chat among people you can see. Marketmen and analysts might snigger at the size of the payout for what is a tiny company manned by engineers, but Facebook has shown that it is willing to bid heavily and decisively to acquire targets it likes. It paid $19 billion for WhatsApp, which has 450 million users, but little in the way of revenue and left analysts gasping. But messaging and user base are important tools to integrate with Facebook.

Some analysts are said to have questioned Facebook's strategy. One viewed virtual reality as having the same story as it did two decades ago, one of "hip, hype and hop". But if Facebook's Oculus bet pays off technically, in the sense that it becomes fully integrated with Facebook and its applications, then Mark Zuckerberg would have a killer product to sell. Indeed, the possibilities of 3D imaging are limitless. Television telecasts of, say, El Clasico matches featuring FC Barcelona and Real Madrid could be watched in 3D in an experience that would be akin to being present in the stadium itself. In James Cameron's 2009 film Avatar, security personnel remotely operate virtual versions of themselves on an alien planet. We could move one step closer to that, too, if this bet works out.

But it must be pointed out, advances in 3D glasses have been very few: essentially, today's 3D movie-viewing glasses are the same as what their cardboard green-and-redlens ancestors used to be decades ago. Why 3D movies have started to look more realistic is because digital cameras now work seamlessly with imaging and animation software to create superb images. Anyway, Facebook has apot of cash to spend and it seems it is spending money in an innovative way.

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The Finnish company, who is expected to soon complete a deal to sell its devices business to Microsoft, will also start selling a low cost 4G smartphone Lumia 635, for $189 (around Rs 11,300), excluding taxes, in July, the company said in a release.

"The Nokia Lumia 630 is expected to roll out in May, beginning with Asia, India/Middle East, South America and Europe, at $159 (around Rs9,500) for the single-SIM variant, and $169 for the dual-sim variant before taxes and subsidies," the company said.

Both the models of Lumia 630 support 3G SIM, built on latest Windows platform, and have 4.5 inch screen, 5 megapixel auto focus camera, 8 GB internal memory and support for up to 128 GB external storage.

Lumia 635 is almost the same as Lumia 630, but will additionally support 4G, with mobile internet speeds of up to 100 megabit per second.

Another smartphone, Nokia Lumia 930 is "expected to roll out globally in June starting with Europe, Asia, Middle East and India, available from USD 599 (about Rs36,000) before taxes and subsidies," Nokia said.

The 4G devices launch announcement comes soon after India's major telecom operators Bharti Airtel, Vodafone India and Idea Cellular, along with from newcomer Reliance Jio Infocomm, bought 1800 Mhz spectrum in many circles with the intention of offering 4G services which offer high speed mobile internet, almost 10 times the speed of 3G.

While Bharti Airtel has launched 4G services in some circles, Reliance Jio is expected to launch its own services by the end of 2014.

Kejriwal’s close aides taking him away from the angry supporters.

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"Your email is important to you, and making sure it stays safe and always available is important to us," said Gmail engineering security chief Nicolas Lidzborski in a blog post.

"Starting today, Gmail will always use an encrypted HTTPS connection when you check or send email.. Today's change means that no one can listen in on your messages as they go back and forth between you and Gmail's servers -- no matter if you're using public WiFi or logging in from your computer, phone or tablet."

Google has already begun scrambling most of the traffic at its websites as technology firms grapple with moves by US intelligence agencies to spy on what people are doing and sharing online.

And similar moves have been announced by Yahoo, Microsoft and Facebook to use encryption that limits the ability of a third party to read messages or emails.

US tech firms have been ramping up encryption since last year's explosive revelations about the vast surveillance capabilities of the National Security Agency and other intelligence services, based on leaked documents.

Lidzborski said Google's latest move "ensures that your messages are safe not only when they move between you and Gmail's servers, but also as they move between Google's data centers -- something we made a top priority after last summer's revelations."

Some reports say the NSA had been able to access data centers of Google and other Web firms.

Glass is still a pain to use, but a few apps reveal what it could become.

• By Rachel Metz on March 5, 2014

Aside from the fact that it’s not yet publicly available, there are plenty of reasons to not wear Google Glass even if you get the chance. To name just a few: it’s expensive, it looks and feels weird, it doesn’t work that well, and, whether you’re at home or walking down the street, people will stare at you and the small, prismatic display on your face.

Will the negatives always outweigh the positives? To explore whether Glass could get more useful, I’ve been wearing a bright orange unit and testing a variety of free apps that make the most of Glass’s nascent capabilities and its prime placement on my head. Most of them are available from Google’s Glassware market, which means they’re among a small group of apps already approved by the company. But I also tested some that had to be sideloaded onto the device using a computer—a multistep process that Google warns is done at your own risk, and that, at least in my case, temporarily disabled Glass at one point and scrambled its functions a couple times.

Since Glass is still in its early stages and isn’t available to the general public, I didn’t expect any of the apps to be incredible. And I certainly didn’t find any killer apps that would make it worthwhile to buy Glass (which costs $1,500 now). But I did find several with potential to save time and make life easier, and a couple that are already effective even though Glass is clunky, finicky, and horribly obtrusive. 

Strava Cycling

When I go on long bike rides, I hate taking my eyes off the road to look down at the small bike computer on my handlebars to see my speed and mileage. The Strava Cycling app seemed like a neat way to avoid that: it shows that data and a ride timer in crisp, white text on Glass’s over-eye, see-through display, so it’s available at a quick glance up. A runner’s version is also available.

At first it was even more distracting to look at the data on the Glass display than it would be to look down at my bike computer, since it was hard to absorb what the display showed without ignoring the world beyond. But I grew used to it after a few rides and really liked being able to bring up this information quickly by just tilting my head, and have it disappear just as quickly. 

There are still some big issues hampering the app. I was concerned about the app’s ability to accurately track speed, as the numbers on the display seemed to lag behind when I rode up and down hills. Strava might be able to improve on that, but the company can only optimize its app so much to make up for another big problem: Glass’s poor battery life (Google says it’s good for “one day of typical use,” though in my medium-to-heavy use I never got more than several hours out of it). After a relatively short ride from home to the ocean and back—about six miles—with frequent checks of my stats, Glass had lost a significant amount of power. To last through a multi-hour ride, you’d really want to limit these checks, which defeats the purpose of seeing such information in real time.

Glass Hunt

Though I played a few of Google’s approved games via a Glassware bundle called Mini Games, I had more fun and success with Glass Hunt, a first-person-shooter game that you can sideload.

Glass Hunt is exceptionally simple: You aim a target at clay discs flying over a verdant landscape, and shoot down as many as you can by using your head to move the crosshairs of a target over each disc. Google has an almost identical game called “Clay Shooter” in Mini Games, but it has a much more spartan design and requires voice commands that made it much harder to control.

Mostly, Glass Hunt gives a good glimpse at how gaming could work in the near future on head-worn computers like Glass. With improved head tracking and interaction methods, games like this could be a blast.

Allthecooks Recipes

The app that made the most sense with Glass—and was one of the most fully baked—was Allthecooks Recipes.

The app is available as approved Glassware from Google, and it allows you to both search for and follow recipes using Glass and record your own step-by-step recipes to share with others. When I cook I’m constantly running back and forth between a mixing bowl and a cookbook (or a recipe on an iPhone screen), so anything that could save me some time and mess sounded good.

Allthecooks worked surprisingly well. I decided to whip something up at the office, which gave me some pretty strict limitations since we have only a microwave and a toaster. I used Glass to search for “microwaveable desserts” within the app and quickly found a recipe for easy peanut butter fudge.

Within the Glass Allthecooks app, you can see the ingredient list for any recipe by tilting your head upward. So I walked into the Safeway near my office, looked up the ingredients (literally, in this case) while navigating the aisles, and bought what I needed.

Back at the office, each step of the recipe was easy to read on Glass’s display, and there wasn’t too much text on each screen. Generally, Glass’s display turns off when not in use, but here it stayed illuminated long enough for me to complete a somewhat complicated step (pouring melted chocolate and peanut butter into a dish and thoroughly stirring in condensed milk). And if I got confused about what I was doing I could just swipe back and forth between the steps.

Word Lens

Word Lens, a popular smartphone app that translates printed text in real time into a variety of languages, sounded like a great idea for a head-worn computer: if you’re in a new country, why would you want to keep glancing at your smartphone’s screen when you could see translations happen right in front of your eyes?

The problem, unfortunately, is that Glass’s display isn’t right in front of your eyes—it’s above your right eye. This means it takes some practice before you get used to focusing the display on what you want to translate.

Also, it’s not quite instantaneous: you need to focus the display on the words you want to understand, which the app will take as a cue to zoom in on those words and then translate them.

On the plus side, the app did a decent job of translating text, as long as I stuck with simple fonts and short phrases (such as what you’d see on signs). As expected, Word Lens had the most trouble with sentences, text that doesn’t have much contrast from its background, and text on a really busy-looking background.

Word Lens is like the rest of the apps I tried and Glass itself: it has a ways to go before it’s really worth using in everyday life.