Google unveiled its Glass Development Kit (GDK) earlier this week at a Glass hackathon in San Francisco, inviting developers to create third party apps for its wearable technology. The company is looking to lure programmers with parts of Glass that were previously unavailable. Developers can now build Glass apps that work offline, in real time, and use the hardware accelerometer and GPS. Until now, developers were only able to work with the Mirror API.

“The GDK opens up more programming options, so that developers can access the location provider; control the camera; insert voice commands and triggers into the options menu; create live cards; and detect gestures on the touch pad,” reports CNET.

The kit is an add-on to the previously released Android SDK that lets you build Glassware that runs directly on Glass (for details, see the Google Developers site).

Several companies that had early access to the GDK attended the hackathon to demo the apps they had created. “One of the most impressive was a Glassware app called Word Lens,” notes CNET, “which translates printed words as you look at them and replaces them with words from the target language.”

Other apps were demonstrated at the vent, including: “AllTheCooks, for hands-free cooking directions and recipe management; Strava’s exercise trackers for running and bicycling; the word game Spellista; and GolfSight, which can reveal fairway distances and help you keep score of your golf game as you play.”

“The GDK will give you a way to build services for users in a natural and everyday way in their lives,” Timothy Jordan, Glass’s senior developer advocate at Google, told the 100 or so developers invited to the event.