Google is finally making a strong case for Glass, one app at a time.

At a Glass hackathon today, Google gave a sneak peek of its Glass Development Kit (GDK), which it's been teasing since it announced Glass last year. With the release, Glass developers will be able to match the features of Google's own first-party apps by accessing functions like the Glass's gyroscope and GPS.

More interesting, though, are the sorts of apps GDK will give birth to.

  • The most interesting concept so far is WordLens, an app that overlays foreign language translations in real-time. It's essentially a real-world Google Translate, and it's exactly the sort of thing Glass was always meant to run.
  • Strava's fitnesss apps are also here. The apps, which are already on iOS and Android, will let Glass users track their jogs and bike rides from the Glass Home screen. Again, a perfect Glass use case.
  • Equally interesting was a new app from AllTheCooks, which lets Glass users search for and navigate recipes using just their voices. If done right, apps like this one could make tablet cookbook apps look just as old-fashioned as cookbooks themselves.
What all of these apps have in common is that they get to the core of what Glass has always been about: Small snippets of information accessed with very little work and augment the world around the wearer.

More, the apps are a big deal because they are finally grounding Glass in real-world uses that are far from the bizarre, unlikely skydiving demonstration Google used to show off the device last year.

In other words, Glass has come a long way from the video below.