Google Offers Glass Explorers An Invite To Make A Friend A Glasshole, Too

Google is bringing more Glass Explorers into the program, and it’s doing that the best way it knows how: by letting current users invite a friend. Those among you old enough to remember when Gmail first started will remember this was once the only method to get on board with that service, and now Glass-owning folks can ask a single friend to join them in testing out Glass before its wide consumer release.
Current Glass members are getting emails from Google detailing how they can bring someone new on board, as Zagg’s community blog notes tonight. Explorers invited via this extension to the original program, which Google seeded via invites sent out to lucky winners selected from a Twitter hashtag-based competition, must be U.S. residents, 18 or older, and able to pick up Glass in person in SF, NYC or LA. Google likes to welcome new Glass users in person, as you might recall from the first round of device releases.
Glass will likely still cost the $1,500 the company charged its first round of Explorers, but the expansion of the program hopefully means we’re inching closer to the day when Google decides to make Glass available for the general public. That’s not happening until at least 2014, according to the latest from the company, however, and all that this latest program extension means is that Google is likely looking to draw feedback on the experimental platform from a wider group of beta testers.
New developments in the works for Glass include the native app SDK, which will allow software to run on Glass itself, independent of an attached smartphone. The so-called Glass Development Kit (GDK) isn’t yet out for public release, but it’s based on the Android SDK and Google is telling developers to try their ideas there first if they’re getting impatient. So Explorers old and new could have some exciting new software to play with very soon.
If you’ve been jonesing for some face computing, now’s the time to start harassing that Glass-wearing friend.