Bite Interactive’s latest survey indicates that Google Glass is not desirable -  at least, in its current social state. The survey showed that 90% of  Americans simply think it looks too awkward, costs too much, and feels unappealing. Not only are smart phone users uninterested in using the device, sci-fi author Neil Gaiman also thinks it looks too silly.

“Would I wear Google Glasses? Almost definitely not since they look very, very silly.”

Gaiman points to another critique of Glass’s hyper-connectivity mode:

“I think trying to learn to be present while you’re present is a really good thing to do.”

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Hearst Corporation has launched the Elle Glassware app exclusively designed for Google Glass. The publication is the first magazine to launch a Google Glass app, though it joins other media companies including The New York Times and Mashable both of who already have Google Glass apps.

Hearst Corporation worked with Google on the app, which includes content from the magazine’s most widely read and shared sections online. The app features stories from ELLEDispatch, Street Chic and Lookbooks, as well as horoscopes. Users can share articles and photos and create reading lists and shopping wish lists using the app. The app is now available to as part of Google Glass’ Explorer launch.

“Hearst always strives to be on the leading edge of innovation—it is at the core of our company,” explained Phil Wiser, chief technology officer, Hearst Corporation, in a statement. “Across our media businesses, we are working to engage consumers everywhere content is consumed, now and in the future. Google Glass encourages us to think about our content in a new way. We are very pleased at the experience of partnering with Google on this project.”

Tech blog Mashable has introduced a new app for Google Glass called Mashable Velocity for Google Glass, which alerts users about that go viral.

When the app predicts that a story will go viral, the Google Glass user will get an alert. Users can decide to have Glass read a summary of the story to them aloud or share the story on their social networks.

Mashable created the Velocity tool, which predicts which stories will go viral before they go viral, back in December when they relaunched their website. Here is more about how it works from the site: “Velocity scours the social web, collecting lots and lots of data around how people are engaging with published articles. It then pulls all of that data back to Mashable, dumps it into our own predictive engine, and forecasts which articles are about to go viral.”

The biggest fear for non-Glass users have arrived, but it’s potentially for a good cause – Google Glass with facial recognition for doctors and hospitals. The creators of MedRef for Glass is hoping that the app will be great for hands-free care.

MedRec adds timeline cards and sharing contacts to Google Glass heads up display. These can be interacted with to lookup patient records by saying their name or taking a picture of their face. Care givers can then append photo and transcribed voice notes easily to get the most accessible and complete data possible applied to the patient’s treatment.

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This summer, the creators of iPhoneDevCamp will be hosting a similar not-for-profit weekend hackathon for Google Glass’s Google Mirror API in the San Francisco Bay Area. You won’t need your own Google Glass to attend.

People will gather, form teams, build cool timeline cards (“apps”) for Google Glass using The Google Mirror API, get up onstage to demo their creations, and then prizes are awarded for the best timeline cards created during this Hackathon.

GlassDevCamp is still seeking sponsors so it’s too early to tell how much it will cost to attend, but previous events have been around $50. Hackathons are not solely made for developers, UI designers are also encouraged to participate, but it might help to know a bit of “.NET, Dart, Go, Java, JavaScript, Objective-C, PHP, Python, and Ruby.”

For those outside of the Bay Area, sign up to find out about satellite events.

Andrew Vanden Heuvel is a virtual instructor with a passion for physics and online education – and now he has Google Glass. This short video shows the potential for Google Glass to take students on virtual field trips to places like the Large Hadron Collider at CERN where Heuvel was able to bike down the 17 mile long tunnel while answering questions about particles in real time.

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Google Glass is a small device that packs a lot of technical savvy, but how does it work? Today’s infographic from illustrator Martin Missfeldt reveals the beautiful mechanics behind the new eye-wear.

Missfeldt uses Google’s various patents on the device for his analysis, and suggests that:

Google Glass contains a mini-projector, which projected the layer via a clever, semi-transparent prism directly on the retina in the eye. Because of this the image, even though it is so close to the eye, is sharp and clear. You can move the front part of the Google Glass easily to optimize the focus.

Click through to see the infographic.

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Unless you are a celebrity like Neil Patrick Harris or a notable video game designer like Cliff Bleszinki, you probably won’t have a chance to empty your pockets on a pair of Google Glasses.

Bu why pay $1500 for the real thing when you can print your own Google Glass imitation? Some time and access to a 3D printer will produce these plastic Google Glasses that look just as great and can fool most at first glance. Be sure to walk around pretending to talk to your new device to make the appearance even more convincing.

You can download the 3D model from industrial designer Joris van Tubergen at Makerbot’s Thingiverse site.

Do you wear glasses but wish you could use Google’s mysterious computerized glasses when they are finally released?

The Road to Virtual Reality blog posted a photograph of someone wearing what appear to be Google glasses with prescription lenses.

Check it out: “A friend spotted someone wearing a prototype Google Glass HMD in New York City and shot me this photo. You can see that the Glass unit has prescription lenses — one of several styles that we’ve seen, including sunglasses and no lenses.”

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