Gadgetory

not since the iPhone or iPad has a gadget generated more buzz than Google glass so of course I wanted to take it apart and explore its internal hardware now unfortunately as I'll show you this version of Google glass wasn't built to be easily dissected or repaired I'm bill Detweiler and this is cracking open according to google executive chairman Eric Schmidt glass is still probably a year away from hitting store shelves but true to the company's iterative development style Google is shipping 10,000 or so Explorer units like the one I'm wearing to developers beta testers and winners of Google's if I had glass contest and while the company may make a few tweaks to the product before launch these test units still give us a good idea of what to expect in terms of overall design and hardware so let's look at the specs according to Google glass has a five megapixel camera that can shoot video at 720p it supports 802 11 B and G Wi-Fi and Bluetooth audio is provided by a bone conduction transducer and the display is the equivalent of a 25 inch high-definition screen from 8 feet away as for buttons and connectors there is a listen button on/off button capture button a touch sensitive area and a microUSB port there's also a status LED and a rear-facing sensor array now Google notes that glass has 16 gigs of flash storage 12 of which are available to the user but they don't specify what processor the unit has or how much RAM it comes with and normally this wouldn't be a problem as fans of cracking open know this is the point of the show where I show you how to pop off the gadgets cover and get to the tech inside unfortunately glass was less than cooperative cracking open Google glass begins by removing the frame and nose piece now thanks to a single torques t-50 processes relatively simple removing the camera and display assemblies plastic cover was also relatively simple unfortunately this is where my cracking open came to a screeching halt I tried everything I can think of to get inside glasses main and rear modules prying poking even heating nothing worked and because I wasn't given the green light to destroy this unit during my teardown cutting the plastic off wasn't an option so what are the CPU and RAM specs for glass well luckily there are published reports of a developer using an Android debugging utility to pull information on the CPU and RAM from the operating system if his information is accurate glass has a Texas Instruments OMAP 44:30 processor which was also used on the Amazon Kindle Fire and one gig of ram given want other developers and journalists have posted online glass also appears to have a gyroscope accelerometer and ambient light sensor now I know this cracking open wasn't as thorough as most and I hate not being able to show you the circuit boards and chips inside Google glass but as there are so few of the Explorer edition units available and given that they cost $1500 each I just couldn't risk damaging it and perhaps that's the biggest takeaway from this half teardown given the camera and display Assembly's construction it's not inconceivable that you could replace it if it broke but I don't see any way to safely get inside the main or rear modules if they break you'll likely need a complete replacement now for more information on Google glass including real world tests check out Rachel King's non nerds guide over on sister site ZDNet and of course CNET's full review now c-more teardown photos and read my full Hardware analysis limited as it may be go to TechRepublic comm forward slash cracking open I'm Bill Detweiler thanks for watching