Google pulls off skydiving stunt

At the Google I/O conference this week, people jumped out of an airship above downtown San Francisco to demonstrate one of the many uses for Google's Glass technology, in a first-of-its-kind stunt.

The skydivers made jumping out of an airship look easy. But before they could do it, Google had some challenges to overcome, not the least of which was how to get a good Internet connection at 4,000 feet.

Not only was it the first time skydivers using wing-suits got permission to jump out of a zeppelin airship in the U.S., but the feat posed some odd technical problems that Google engineers solved after a MacGyver moment or two.

For instance, the Glasses weren't designed to be worn by someone falling through the air at 200 miles an hour in bright sunlight. In early testing on the ground, engineers worried that the glare from the sun would interfere with the devices, according to Google. At one point, they applied electrical tape to the lenses to serve as a sort of filter. Eventually, they came up with a better solution -- they applied photochromic film to the lenses.

An even bigger problem to figure out was how to get the live video feed of what the skydivers were seeing through the Glasses and out to the Internet. This is not a simple feat in a city where cell phone reception itself can be spotty on the streets below.