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MIT Researchers Bring JavaScript To Google Glass

Posted by samzenpus on from the nice-glasses dept.

colinneagle (2544914) writes "Earlier this week, Brandyn White, a PhD candidate at the University of Maryland, and Scott Greenberg, a PhD candidate at MIT, led a workshop at the MIT Media Lab to showcase an open source project called WearScript, a JavaScript environment that runs on Google Glass. White demonstrated how Glass's UI extends beyond its touchpad, winks, and head movements by adding a homemade eye tracker to Glass as an input device. The camera and controller were dissected from a $25 PC video camera and attached to the Glass frame with a 3D-printed mount. A few modifications were made, such as replacing the obtrusively bright LEDs with infrared LEDs, and a cable was added with a little soldering. The whole process takes about 15 minutes for someone with component soldering skills. With this eye tracker and a few lines of WearScript, the researchers demonstrated a new interface by playing Super Mario on Google Glass with just eye movements."

13 of 70 comments (clear)

  1. Headache by Dan+East · · Score: 5, Funny

    the researchers demonstrated a new interface by playing Super Mario on Google Glass with just eye movements

    Followed by the researchers demonstrating how to try and relieve a headache by massaging their temples with their thumbs.

    --
    Better known as 318230.
    1. Re:Headache by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I got a GREAT BIG COCK

      Yeah and tell it to stop crowing at 6am or I'm gonna shoot it and deep fry it.

    2. Re:Headache by Mashiki · · Score: 5, Funny

      First two things showing up on Google glass after JS showing up:
      Popup ads.
      The second? UR PENIS TOO SMALL! VIAGRA CHEAP!!!!111!

      --
      Om, nomnomnom...
    3. Re:Headache by e133tc1pher · · Score: 2

      No joke, that was seriously tedious and took me hours to get right (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSn6s3DPTSg). The real point of the video was to show that we made a cheap eye tracker ($25) add-on for Glass along with a better pupil detection algorithm than was previously available (https://github.com/wearscript/wearscript-eyetracking). We're working with accessibility labs to use it as an input device for users who can't use the touchpad on Glass. The goal is to make it widely available for people to hack on so that everyone benefits as opposed to $10k proprietary systems that have bad support for modern software/devices. Adding in Mario was just an easy point of reference, everyone knows the relative complexity of that as opposed to a synthetic test.

  2. Wow, that opens a up a whole world of dontgiveadam by BrendaEM · · Score: 3, Funny

    Flash will be next.

    --
    https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendaEM
  3. MIT researchers? by oneiros27 · · Score: 3, Informative

    ... Brandyn White, a PhD candidate at the University of Maryland, and Scott Greenberg, a PhD candidate at MIT ...

    At least this time we can blame Network World for the crappy headline, and not someone here at Slashdot. We can just blame them for not bothering to read the summary, much less the article.

    --
    Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
  4. Now it's doomed by Kardos · · Score: 2

    So how long is it going to be before someone writes some sort of java script that blinds the user?

    1. Re:Now it's doomed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      So how long is it going to be before someone writes some sort of java script that blinds the user?

      There are other kinds?

  5. The lengths we go to by djhaskin987 · · Score: 2

    just to play super mario.

  6. Re:why all the javascript hate? by freeze128 · · Score: 3, Informative

    Because it's responsible for all the things people hate about web pages. Pop-up ads, pop under ads, floating ads, flash ads, flash exploits, java exploits....

    A better question would be: What has javascript done that's GOOD?

  7. Re:Ph.D.? by e133tc1pher · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I didn't know soldering some electronics together and porting a language to a platform is Ph.D. level work.

    Agreed. This is my research http://scholar.google.com/cita... . WearScript is a tool that helps us in our current research (which is an extension of this https://www.youtube.com/watch?... ). When you do research you can either use tools that already exist or you can take a detour and invest in making better tools so you can do more effective research, that's what this is.

  8. Re:why all the javascript hate? by raymorris · · Score: 2

    Often, the vulnerability will be in a Java or Flash applet and the exploit will be via JavaScript. A vulnerable applet just sits there being vulnerable until a bad guy takes control of it via script. That's why this setting exists:

    1. Open Internet Explorer.

    2. Click the Tools menu and then click Internet Options.

    3. Click the Security tab, click the Internet icon and then click Custom Level.

    4. Scroll down to the Scripting section. Under Active scripting, select the Enable option. Then, under Scripting of Java applets, select Enable. Click OK.

    5. Surf for 20 twenty minutes.

    6. Restore from backup because you've probably been pownd.

  9. Re:why all the javascript hate? by cascadingstylesheet · · Score: 2

    Because it's responsible for all the things people hate about web pages. Pop-up ads, pop under ads, floating ads, flash ads, flash exploits, java exploits.... A better question would be: What has javascript done that's GOOD?

    Says the man who's never used jQuery ... you can't be serious.

    Yes, with great power comes great responsibility. But don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. (And I have more cliches where those came from!)