[APK Teardown] Google Glass "XE4" System Dump - Are You A Typophile?

Despite not (yet) having Google Glass, I've managed to get a hold of a system dump, so it's time to have some fun for the day and see if Glass has any (more) hidden goodies for us. It'll also be fun to see just what makes Glass tick, and how the OS is laid out. APK Teardown is usually at its best when I have a previous version to diff against and, you know, when I've actually used or at least seen the software in question. I don't have any of those benefits for this teardown, so things could get interesting. Glass Vs. Android According to build.prop, this version of the Glass software is "XE4," so that's what I'm going to call it. "XE" no doubt stands for "eXplorer Edition." I wonder what XE 1 through 3 looked like? The device name is a very simple "Glass 1." Compared to the ridiculous code names we're used to with phones, this is a nice change of pace. Here's the /system/app folder, and boy is this familiar. The Glass "OS," if you can call it that, is pretty much Android 4.0.4 (give or take a few 100,000 build counts) with a few special APKs that make up the Glass interface. It reminds me a lot of Facebook Home or Windows 3.1. There's this underlying OS (Android) that powers everything and, most of the time, you aren't supposed to see it. All of the typical user-facing Android apps (Calculator, Contacts, Clock, Gmail, etc.) have been ripped out, but the core is just plain Android. Anything labeled "Android stuff" just seems to be the same 4.0.4 that we're familiar with, with all the non-English stuff stripped out, and maybe one or two extra permissions. The two exceptions to this are "GoogleTTS.apk," which is the Android 4.2 version of Google's Text To Speech engine, and "GoogleLoginService.apk," which, despite being labeled as "4.0.4," has some artwork I've never seen before: The top left one is called "android_make_it_google.png," the top right is "setups_bg_account.png," (a honeycomb setup screen?) and the bottom one is "android_gplus.png." Has anyone ever spotted these before? It's interesting that Glass is running on a version of Android that's over a year old. I wonder if they plan on eventually upgrading or if they're going the GTV route, and seemingly not caring about the base Android version. (GTV still runs Android 3.0!) The framework has been tweaked to make Glass look like Glass and not like Android, which means Glass APKs aren't going to easily run on your phone. I was really excited for a bit, though. Glass Could Use a Cleanup It's hard to be critical of a 0.0000001 version of a piece of software, but I will try my best anyway: Glass code currently seems like a bit of a disorganized mess. Normally I wouldn't dare question my Googley cyborg overlords when it comes to programming, but there are just a few things in here that bother me. This set of images (and all the supporting XML for them), is included in nearly every Glass app. That means there are twelve copies of this stuff floating around. Anything labeled "bar candy" is the Glass scrollbar, and probably belongs in a system-level location that everything has access to, like the framework. The same goes for things that would have a universal use, like the share button, "X" button, and the check marks. And this is just an example - there's duplicate stuff all over the place. I get the feeling they made one Glass app, and just duplicated the base stuff for that app over and over again for everything else. There's no other explanation for why the Bluetooth app contains things like camera libraries. I guess wasting space doesn't matter when you have 16GB of storage and almost no apps, but it just seems unnecessary. The "Glass Home" app is another thing that bothers me. This one app is responsible for the "Ok Glass" home screen, sure, but it's also handles the camera, settings, timeline, voice actions, email, and messaging. Shouldn't all this stuff be separate apps? The only Glass apps important enough to actually have separate APKs are Maps, Phone, and Handouts. This reminds me of Android in the pre-Froyo days when every app (Maps, Gmail, etc.) was bundled with the system, and the only way to update anything was to push out a full system update. Google spent a lot of the Froyo/Gingerbread era working on "decoupling" apps from the Android system and offloading them to the Android Market so that they could be easily updated, and to this day Google still occasionally runs into problems from this early decision. Hopefully Glass doesn't have similar issues. Maybe Glass is fine with one monolithic APK because everything is so simple, or because they are just getting started, or because there is no app store to speak of right now, but it just doesn't seem like the right way to do things.

Selena Gomez Tweets Pic With Fan Wearing a Justin Bieber T-shirt

While Justin Bieber is off getting busted in Sweden for allegedly having pot on his tour bus, ex-girlfriend Selena Gomez has been busy promoting her new single, “Come & Get It,” back home in the U.S. The singer tweeted this adorable shot Thursday morning while stopping by VEVO’s studios, of herself with two young face-painted fans, including one sporting a Bieber t-shirt. She posed with a surprised face while pointing to the image of the Biebs. “Spending time @VEVO with my littles,” the caption read. The pic has already been favorited more than 6,800 times and shared more than 9,100 times in the first couple of hours since it went online. Yeah, we kinda love this more than anything else we’ve seen yet today too. Especially because of the little girl on the right. She’s kind of everything.

LivingSocial cyber attack affects millions of customers

LivingSocial, the second-largest daily deal company behind Groupon Inc, said on Friday it was hit by a cyber attack that may have affected more than 50 million customers. The company said the attack on its computer systems resulted in unauthorized access to customer data, including names, email addresses, date of birth for some users and “encrypted” passwords. LivingSocial stressed customer credit card and merchants’ financial and banking information were not affected or accessed. It also does not store passwords in plain text. “We are actively working with law enforcement to investigate this issue,” the company, part-owned by Amazon.com Inc, wrote in an email to employees. LivingSocial does not disclose how many customers it has. However, spokesman Andrew Weinstein said “a substantial portion” of the company’s customer base was affected. LivingSocial is also contacting customers who closed accounts, because it still has their information stored in databases, he added. The attack hit customers in the United States, Canada, the U.K., Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, Southern Europe and Latin America. Customers in South Korea, Indonesia, Philippines and Thailand were not affected, Weinstein said. “In light of recent successful widespread attacks against major social networking sites, it’s obvious that these providers are simply not doing enough to protect their customers’ information,” said George Tubin, senior security strategist at Trusteer, a computer security company. The attack comes as LivingSocial struggles to handle a decline in consumer and merchant demand for daily deals. The company raised $110 million from investors, including Amazon earlier this year, but was forced to make large concessions to get the new money. Amazon invested $56 million in LivingSocial in the first quarter, according to a regulatory filing on Friday, which also revealed the company had a first-quarter operating loss of $44 million on revenue of $135 million. LivingSocial said on Friday it was beginning to contact more than 50 million customers whose data may have been affected by the cyber attack. LivingSocial told customers in an email that they should log on to LivingSocial.com to create a new password for their accounts. “We also encourage you, for your own personal data security, to consider changing password(s) on any other sites on which you use the same or similar password(s),” LivingSocial Chief Executive Tim O’Shaughnessy wrote in the email. “We are sorry this incident occurred.” All Things D reported the cyber attack earlier on Friday.

Kate Middleton See-Through Dress Photo

Have you ever seen Kate Middleton see-through dress photo that was sold $125,871 on Thursday? If you’ve never seen that, scroll down your mouse to see how hot she is.

As reported by Associated Press, Kate Middleton see-through dress was bought by an anonymous British male.

Now, check out Kate Middleton see-through dress photo below.