Google Glass development is evolving beyond Android, as an open-source JavaScript framework opens the wearable platform to new software and hardware possibilities.
WearScript is billed as a combination of “the power of Android development on Glass with the learning curve of a website,” according to the open-source JavaScript environment’s website. It is a framework for rapidly prototyping and developing Glass applications in JavaScript rather than Android’s native Java. The framework can utilize or repurpose any of Glass’ native capabilities while also connecting the wearable to other input devices and hardware.
The project’s core developers, MIT Ph.D. candidate Scott Greenwald, and University of Maryland Ph.D. candidate and lead developer Brandyn White, hosted a WearScript workshop and Glass hackathon this week for Glass explorers, MIT Media Lab participants and other applicants. They gave a hands-on WearScript tutorial covering topics such as how to link mobile and desktop devices to Glass, and how a WearScript-enabled Glass device can control an Arduino board, followed the next day by a hackathon to develop WearScript applications.
After enabling the environment, front-end JavaScript developers start with the command, “OK Glass, Wear a Script,” to begin experimenting with some of WearScript’s possible applications. One demonstration White gave showed how WearScript can extend the Glass UI by mounting a homemade eye tracker on the frame as an input device, and proceeding to play a game of Super Mario Bros. using only eye movements.
WearScript APIs can also connect Glass to other wearable devices such as the Pebble smartwatch and the Myo gesture control armband.
Greenwald, White and the project’s other contributors have also been experimenting with how WearScript could integrate Glass with other concepts and purposes. Aside from the added input device connectivity, they’ve explored applications for augmented reality and programming for the Internet of Things, while working to integrate Glass functionality with Node.js and Python.
WearScript is hosted on GitHub.
