Google just hit our inbox with an email inviting folks who pre-ordered the Explorer Edition of Project Glass to two-day hackathons in San Francisco and New York, where they'll be the first group of developers -- not being paid by Page and Co.

ENGADGET: Google invites Glass pre-order holders to hackathons in New York, San Francisco

This is a problem not only for the Explorer program, but for the whole Glass project itself.

FORBES: If You Have A Great Idea (And $1,500) You Can Be A Google Glass Explorer

Days earlier, around when the first Explorer Editions started shipping, Maris tried wearing his Project Glass headset on the streets of New York City.

ENGADGET: Bill Maris, the Man Behind Google Ventures, on the Present Challenges and Future Potential of Glass

The "Mona Lisa" experiment was transmitted at a slow data rate of about 300 bits per second, but the "pathfinding achievement sets the stage for ... high data rate laser-communication demonstrations that will be a central feature of NASA's next moon mission, the Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer, " said Goddard's Richard Vondrak, the orbiter's deputy project scientist.

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