Google X

New York Times has an interesting article concerning Google X, a secret lab where Sergey Brin and other Google employees undertake important projects that aren't yet ready for primetime.

In a top-secret lab in an undisclosed Bay Area location where robots run free, the future is being imagined. It's a place where your refrigerator might be connected to the Internet, so it could order groceries when they ran low. Your dinner plate could post to a social network what you’re eating. Your robot might go to the office while you stay home in your pajamas. And you could, perhaps, take an elevator to outer space.

Google X is the place where Google works on the driver less car and New York Times reports that Google is allowing for manufacturing the cars in the US. Many projects are connected to Android @ Home, an initiative announced this year that tries to make everyday objects smarter. "We want to think of every application in your home as a potential I/O device," said Google's Joe Britt. Google tries to construct the "Web of things" by connecting home accessories, wearable objects to the Internet.

Most of the ideas tackled at Google X involve robots. "Fleets of robots could assist Google with collecting information, replacing the humans that photograph streets for Google Maps, say people with information of Google X. Robots born in the lab could be intended for homes and offices, where they could assist with mundane tasks or allow people to work remotely".

It's interesting to note that one of the Google X projects might be released by the end of the year, although it's not clear what it does. At the I/O conference, Google announced that it will introduce "a Web-connected light bulb that might communicate wire lessly with Android devices," so this might be the product that will be released.

Google has always tried to resolve big problems, even if many people think that it should focus on improving search results and ad quality. "Larry and Sergey founded Google because they required to help solve really big problems using technology," said Sebastian Thrun, a robotics expert who invented the first self-driving car and now works at Google.

Google X might be the next Xerox PARC or it could fail, but it's important to think big and take risks. "I just feel like people aren't working sufficient on impactful things. People are really afraid of failure on things, and so it's hard for them to do ambitious stuff. And also, they don't understand the power of technological solutions to things, especially computers," complained Larry Page in Steven Levy's "In the Plex".

Hopefully, MG Siegler is right when he says that "whatever is going on inside of Google X, I'm fairly certain it's filled to the brim with the type of stuff that made us all fall in love with Google in the first place".