Shocker: Google Glass runs on Android

BY Stefan Constantinescu

Published 19 Apr 2013

I’ve been describing Google Glass to friends and family as a “smartphone that’s attached to your head”, and it looks like Larry Page, the CEO of Google, just confirmed my suspicions. During Google’s financial results earning call today, he said, and I quote:

“Obviously, Glass runs on Android, so [Android] has been pretty transportable across devices, and I think that will continue.”

The second part of his sentence, saying that we’ll continue to see Android being “transportable across devices”, is what I find interesting. Rumor has it that Google is working on a smart watch. If I had to guess which OS it’ll run, I’d say Android.

But back to Glass, does it even need the full power of Android? Absolutely not, especially considering all you’re going to see are tiny notifications in the corner of your eye, but Google has this embedded operating system laying around, so why not use it?

Whenever Apple releases their wearable computing product, there’s a good chance it’ll run iOS. And whenever Microsoft launches their rumored smart watch, I wouldn’t be surprised to see headlines that say Windows 8 is now available on a device that straps to your wrist.