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While the first iteration of Google Glass was scuttled in the market by concerns about privacy, etiquette, and safety, the smart glasses may find fresh relevance in helping children with autism spectrum disorder to socialize with others. A new report published in the journal npj Digital Medicine details a pilot study in which autistic children used Superpower Glass, a prototype machine learning-assisted app designed to run on Google Glass paired with an Android smartphone. The app, trained from hundreds of thousands of facial images, displays an onscreen emoticon to alert the wearer when someone with whom they’re interacting expresses one of several core emotions, such as anger, happiness, or surprise. After using this tech at home for an average of about 10 weeks, the families in the study reported that their kids demonstrated increased eye contact and greater ability at reading facial expressions, results that were confirmed by testing. Anecdotally, those behavioral changes have per...