A very excited Jake Spurlock joined theCube hosts John Furrier and Jeff Frick on the second day of Fluent Conference 2013, proudly wearing the Google Glass. He was happily embracing the goofiness of the situation, pointing out that, while it already does some cool things, Google Glass is certainly the future. Frick agreed, predicting that the phone will be the base station of one’s life and the reality will definitely be augmented. Google Glass represents the future of what is possible. User expectations are evolving, with Glass, real-time and server-side technology, along with agile and mobile capabilities all hitting the scene at the same time. This is the true SciFi scenario of a Brave New World, featuring a wearable computer.

Bootstrap, the all-purpose app

Jake Spurlock, Web Producer at Maker Media, is also the author of Bootstrap. The book was published this May by O’Reilly Media, and Jake was kind enough to give an overview of the product, explaining its objective. Bootstrap can be an application that fits many different needs, whether application development, blogs or admin interfaces. Its simple framework allows for building user interface components and websites. That explains why the book cover features a Finn Horse, which is supposed to be an all-purpose horse.

Where the prototyping is concerned, Spurlock admits that Bootstrap came out of Twitter — out of the need to standardize the internal toolsets. In the process, they realized they were building something better and bigger than Twitter. The code was created and posted on GitHub as open source.  And it proved the most popular project on GitHub, becoming a foundation for thousands of websites across the internet.

As it’s HTML, CSS and Javascript, it can be added to any platform on the internet. At its core, Bootstrap is based on a responsive framework. It is a great tool for creativity, perfect for people who prefer not to deal with the front end, because they can simply develop the core technology behind it and add Bootstrap on top.

Commercializing services

Jake started his own software company, built a cool commercial product and then released it as an open source, watching it develop. As a trend, the commercial, off-the-shelf market hasn’t evolved for the hyperscale market of Facebook, Google, Google File System, and the like. Innovation often comes from open source projects.

However, the book is more of a pragmatic approach of how to actually use Bootstrap, not so much a research of the process that led to its invention.

The interview ended with Jake and Co turning back to Google Glass. Narrating a very recent encounter with a stunned receptionist who recognized the Glass, they all wondered whether or not wearing Google Glass could secure better services in the future.