X (company)

X
Formerly called
 Google X (2010–2015)
Subsidiary of Alphabet Inc.
Industry Research and development
Founded
  • January 2010 (2010-01) (as Google X, under Google)
  • October 2, 2015 (2015-10-02) (as X, under Alphabet Inc.)
Founders
Headquarters Mountain View, California, United States
Key people
Products
Parent Google (2010–2015)
Alphabet Inc. (2015–present)
Subsidiaries
Website x.company

X, an American semi-secret research-and-development facility founded by Google in January 2010 as Google X,[1][2] operates as a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc.[3] X has its headquarters about a mile and a half from Google's corporate headquarters, the Googleplex, in Mountain View, California.[4][5]

Work at X is overseen by entrepreneur scientist Astro Teller, as CEO and "Captain of Moonshots".[6][7][8] The lab started with the development of Google's self-driving car.[8]

On October 2, 2015, after the complete restructuring of Google into Alphabet, the company was renamed to X.

Projects

While X projects are often referred to as "moonshots" within the company, not all so-described moonshots are part of X. For example, Calico, Google's life extension project, is considered a moonshot but is not a part of X.[9][10]

In mid-2014, Google said there were eight projects being developed at X.[11] As of late 2014, X projects that have been revealed include Wing, Glass, Loon, and the driverless car.

Waymo (self-driving car)

A Waymo self-driving car on the road in Mountain View, making a left turn.

Waymo was a project by Google that involves developing technology for driverless cars. In December 2016, Google transitioned the project into a new company called Waymo, housed under Google's parent company Alphabet. The project was led by Google engineer Sebastian Thrun, director of the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and co-inventor of Google Street View. Thrun's team at Stanford created the robotic vehicle Stanley which won the 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge and its US$2 million prize from the United States Department of Defense.[12] The team developing the system consisted of 15 engineers working for Google, including Chris Urmson, Mike Montemerlo, and Anthony Levandowski, who had worked on the DARPA Grand and Urban Challenges.[13]

The U.S. state of Nevada passed a law in June 2011 concerning the operation of driverless cars in Nevada. Google had been lobbying for driverless car laws.[14][15][16] The license was issued to a Toyota Prius modified with Google's experimental driver-less technology.[17] As of March 2016, Google had test driven their fleet of vehicles, in autonomous mode, a total of 1,498,214 mi (2,411,142 km).[18]

Loon

A Project Loon research balloon.

Project Loon is a project that aims to bring internet access to everyone by creating an internet network of balloons flying through the stratosphere. It uses wireless routers in balloons that are above weather and plans to give access to the internet to those who can't reach it or are in need of help.[19]

Wing

Project Wing is a project that aims to rapidly deliver products across a city by using flying vehicles, similar to the Amazon Prime Air concept.[20] At the time of the announcement on August 28, 2014, it had already been in development secretly at Google for about two years, with full-scale testing being carried out in Australia. The flying vehicles take off vertically, then rotate to a horizontal position for flying around. For delivery, it hovers and winches packages down to the ground. At the end of the tether is a small bundle of electronics which detects that the package has hit the ground, detaches from the delivery, and is pulled back up into the body of the vehicle. Dropping the cargo or landing were found to be unfeasible, as users compromised the safety.[21]

Glass

Google Glass with black frames for prescription lenses.

Project Glass is a research and development program by Google to develop an augmented reality head-mounted display (HMD).[22] The intended purpose of Project Glass products would be the hands-free displaying of information currently available to most smartphone users,[23] and allowing for interaction with the Internet via natural language voice commands.[24] One Google glass costs $1500.

Barge

In October 2013, the existence of four Google barges was revealed, with the vessels registered under the dummy corporation By And Large. Two of the barges have a superstructure whose construction has been kept under the utmost secrecy, while speculations indicate they could be used as marketing for, and stores for, Google Glass. However, these are merely speculations. Others have suggested that it might be used as a floating data center.[25]

Graduated projects

Explorations

  • Foghorn
  • Calcifer

Other projects

  • The web of things, a way of connecting real-world objects to the Internet.[5]
  • Long lasting smartphone batteries.[33]

Projects that X has considered and rejected include a space elevator, which was deemed to be currently infeasible;[34] a hoverboard, which was determined to be too costly relative to the societal benefits;[35] a user-safe jetpack, which was thought to be too loud and energy-wasting;[36] and teleportation, which was found to violate the laws of physics.[36]

Approach

In February 2016, Astro Teller, the X "Captain of Moonshots," gave a TED talk[37] in which he described the X approach to projects. Unusual characteristics of the approach included constantly trying to find reasons to kill off projects by tackling the hardest parts first, and both celebrating and rewarding staff when projects were killed off due to failure.

Subsidiaries

A number of companies have been acquired and merged into X, covering a diverse range of skills including wind turbines, robotics, artificial intelligence, humanoid robots, robotic arms, and computer vision. In 2013, X acquired Makani Power, a US company which develops tethered wings/kites with mounted wind turbines for low cost renewable energy generation.[38] In 2014, it acquired product design and mechanical engineering firm Gecko Design, whose previous products included the Fitbit activity tracker and low-cost computers.[39] As of 2015, X has acquired 14 companies: among them are Redwood Robotics, Meka Robotics, Boston Dynamics, and Jetpac.[39] In June 2017, X sold Boston Dynamics to SoftBank Group.[40]

Campus

A reporter from Bloomberg Businessweek visited the site in 2013 and described it as "ordinary two-story red-brick buildings about a half-mile from Google's main campus. There's a burbling fountain out front and rows of company-issued bikes, which employees use to shuttle to the main campus."[4]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Rowan, David (October 31, 2013). "Astro Teller of Google[x] wants to improve the world's broken industries". Retrieved January 25, 2014.
  2. ↑ "Secret Google lab 'rewards failure'". Newsnight. BBC. January 24, 2014. Retrieved January 25, 2014.
  3. ↑ "Google to be publicly traded under Alphabet Inc. in planned restructuring". Retrieved August 10, 2015.
  4. 1 2 Stone, B rad (May 22, 2013). "Inside Google's Secret Lab". Businessweek. Retrieved May 26, 2013.
  5. 1 2 Cain Miller, Claire; Bilton, Nick (November 13, 2011). "Google's Lab of Wildest Dreams". The New York Times. Retrieved February 23, 2012.
  6. ↑ "Introduction to Project Glass". Google+: Project Glass. April 4, 2012. Retrieved May 5, 2013 – via Google. A group of us from Google[x] started Project Glass to build this kind of technology…
  7. ↑ Shontell, Alyson (September 18, 2013). "Meet The Mastermind Behind Driverless Cars, Glass And More: Google's 'Chief Of Moonshots,' Astro Teller". Business Insider. Retrieved January 25, 2014.
  8. 1 2 Gertner, Jon (April 15, 2014). "The Truth About Google X: An Exclusive Look Behind The Secretive Lab's Closed Doors". Fast Company. Retrieved April 17, 2014.
  9. ↑ Harry McCracken; Lev Grossman (September 18, 2013). "Google vs. Death". Time. Retrieved September 18, 2013.
  10. ↑ Markoff, John (December 4, 2013). "Google Puts Money on Robots, Using the Man Behind Android". The New York Times. Retrieved December 4, 2013.
  11. ↑ Douglas Macmillan; Rolfe Winkler (May 27, 2014). "Google's Prototype for Autonomous Driving Has No Steering Wheel". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved May 28, 2014.
  12. ↑ John Markoff (October 9, 2010). "Google Cars Drive Themselves, in Traffic". The New York Times. Retrieved October 11, 2010.
  13. ↑ Sebastian Thrun (October 9, 2010). "What we're driving at". The Official Google Blog. Retrieved October 11, 2010.
  14. ↑ "Nevada enacts law authorizing autonomous (driverless) vehicles". Green Car Congress. June 25, 2011. Retrieved June 25, 2011.
  15. ↑ Alex Knapp (June 22, 2011). "Nevada Passes Law Authorizing Driverless Cars". Forbes. Retrieved June 25, 2011.
  16. ↑ John Markoff (May 10, 2011). "Google Lobbies Nevada To Allow Self-Driving Cars". The New York Times. Retrieved May 11, 2011.
  17. ↑ Mary Slosson (May 8, 2012). "Google gets first self-driven car license in Nevada". Reuters. Retrieved May 9, 2012.
  18. ↑ "Google Self-Driving Car Project Monthly Report - March 2016" (PDF). Google. Retrieved March 23, 2016.
  19. ↑ "Official website of project Loon".
  20. ↑ "Droning On". AOPA Pilot: 63. April 2015.
  21. ↑ Warwick, Graham. "Google Details 'Project Wing' Unmanned Package-Delivery R&D" Aviation Week & Space Technology, November 3, 2014. Accessed: November 5, 2014. Archived November 5, 2014, at the Wayback Machine. on November 5, 2014
  22. ↑ Goldman, David (April 4, 2012). "Google unveils 'Project Glass' virtual-reality glasses". Money. CNN.
  23. ↑ Albanesius, Chloe (April 4, 2012). "Google 'Project Glass' Replaces the Smartphone With Glasses". PC Magazine.
  24. ↑ Newman, Jared (April 4, 2012). "Google's 'Project Glass' Teases Augmented Reality Glasses". PCWorld.
  25. ↑ Casey Newton. "Google plans to dock mystery barge at former Army post in San Francisco". The Verge.
  26. ↑ "Introducing our smart contact lens project". January 16, 2014. Retrieved July 31, 2016.
  27. ↑ "Why Google's Cancer-Detecting Pill Is More Than Just Hype.". November 5, 2014. Retrieved July 31, 2016.
  28. ↑ "Official website of X".
  29. ↑ "They Promised Us Jet Packs.". July 23, 2016. Retrieved July 31, 2016.
  30. ↑ "Astro Teller, Google's 'Captain of Moonshots,' on Making Profits at Google X". February 6, 2015. Retrieved July 31, 2016.
  31. ↑ Dandelion official site
  32. ↑ Google's parent company spun out a new business that heats your home with geothermal energy
  33. ↑ "Google's X lab is working on batteries that last longer". WSJ. April 11, 2015. Retrieved November 11, 2015.
  34. ↑ Gayomali, Chris (April 15, 2014). "Google X Confirms The Rumors: It Really Did Try To Design A Space Elevator". Fast Company. Retrieved April 17, 2014.
  35. ↑ Gayomali, Chris (April 15, 2014). "This Is Why We Don't Have Google X Hoverboards Yet". Fast Company. Retrieved April 17, 2014.
  36. 1 2 Mack, Eric (May 6, 2014). "Four Crazy Google X Projects That Failed". Forbes. Retrieved May 9, 2014.
  37. ↑ "The unexpected benefit of celebrating failure". TED. Feb 2016. Retrieved June 3, 2016.
  38. ↑ "Google acquires kite-power generator". BBC News. Retrieved May 23, 2013.
  39. 1 2 Miners, Zach (August 22, 2014). "Google acquires Gecko Design for next-generation products". Retrieved August 22, 2014.
  40. ↑ D'Angelo, Alexa (June 9, 2017). "Why Google wanted to sell – and Softbank wanted to buy – Boston Dynamics, which makes crazy robots". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved June 9, 2017.
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