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Google X tried to conquer space elevators, hoverboards and teleportation

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Over the years Google has produced some unbelievable products and the search giant shows no signs of slowing down. This has led to some heavy rumors claiming that the company’s super secret innovation lab, Google X has been working on a space elevator. As far-fetched as it may sound, guess what? It’s true! Well, sort of. Not only did Google kick around the idea of building a space elevator, it’s X lab also entertained the thought of building a hoverboard and the reality of teleportation. Recently, a group of members from Google’s hush-hush R&D group opened up to the folks at Fast Company about some the team’s wildest ideas.


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Google announces new smart contact lens to help track glucose levels

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Google published a blog post today detailing its newest project: a smart contact lens that can monitor glucose levels for diabetic users. The lens uses a small embedded sensor to measure the glucose in tears and a set of LED lights to signal when levels reach certain thresholds. Google says it has experimented with prototypes that can take readings up to an incredible once per second and completed several clinical trials.

Earlier this month, Google X employees met with the FDA staff responsible for biosensors and medical apps, and it was speculated that the company could be working on a smart contact lens. Google has said it is still discussing the future of such a product with the FDA, and that it will take time before a product like this is mature enough to release to the general public. When the time finally comes for this project to go to market, Google plans to work with unnamed partners to manufacture the devices and get them into the hands of patients and doctors.

And if you think Google is going to stop at glucose monitors, check out the Solve for (X) video below with one of the heads of Google Glass discussing putting the hardware in your contact lens…

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6g581tJ7bM]

Google X employees meet w/ FDA staff in charge of biosensors, mobile medical apps

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Bloomberg reports that a recent meeting between Google’s secretive Google X team and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration raises “the possibility of a new product that may involve biosensors.” While it’s not that surprising that the Google X team behind Glass would meet with FDA staff that regulate eye devices, it’s also said to have met with those in charge of diagnostics for heart conditions. Bloomberg adds that four of the Google employees in attendance “have done research on sensors, including contact lenses that help wearers monitor their biological data.”
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After self-driving cars, Google now working on flying ones?

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Zee Aero, a low-profile company based in Mountain View very close to Google X, the company’s research lab, has registered a patent for what appears to be a flying car, reports SFGate (via Gizmodo). And from two photos uncovered by the paper, it looks like the company has already got as far as either a prototype or large mockup.

The patent illustrations look all but identical to an aircraft spotted from a helicopter at an abandoned Naval base on Alameda just under a year ago. If the photo looks a little odd it’s because Greg Espiritu used a camcorder to zoom in and then took this photo of the LCD display.

Here’s one of the patent illustrations:


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Bloomberg goes inside Google’s X research lab

Bloomberg published a nice read this morning following a tour of Google’s secretive X lab and a chat with some of the employees that work there. In the story Bloomberg talks Google Glass development, driverless cars, and lesser known X projects, speaks with Mary Lou Jepsen who heads up the Google X Display Division, and provides some insight into how the whole thing got started.

Some of the real projects in Google X sound almost as outlandish. Makani Power’s newest airborne turbine prototype, called Wing 7, is a 26-foot-long carbon-fiber contraption with four electricity-generating propellers that flies in circles at altitudes of 800 to 2,000 feet, sending power down a lightweight tether to a base station. “If we’re successful, we can get rid of a huge part of the fossil fuels we use,” says Damon Vander Lind, the startup’s chief engineer. Vander Lind acknowledges it might not work, but: “If you don’t take that chance, and put a decade of your life trying to do it, no progress will get made.”

Then there’s X’s still-secret project to bring Internet access to undeveloped parts of the world. A decade ago, David Grace, a senior research fellow at the University of York, spearheaded a project to mount broadband transmitters on high-altitude balloons, as part of a multicountry initiative backed by the European Commission, called the Capanina Consortium. The initiative never progressed beyond the experimental stage. Grace now says that he has heard that Google is working on such balloon-based broadband technology.

Google reportedly spending $120M to beef up Googleplex, ‘Google/@home’ testing labs

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The “Googleplex” has been Google’s hallmark offices for years and rates as one of the top places to work by many magazines. According to a new report from the Mercury Times, Google is expanding on its already large Googleplex. The Mountain View, Calif.-based Company reportedly plans to spend $120 million to add new advancements to its sprawling headquarters, from a new museum to new testing labs for the secret Google X projects.

Google plans to open a new Experience Center as a museum not open to the public. The Experience Center would show Google’s history to special invited groups. Some of the products shown off could potentially be confidential. The focus here would be selling products to groups, such as school districts.

There has been much in the news lately regarding Google’s “Project X.” In Project X, the team is reportedly working on new HUD glasses, which we exclusively told you last month. As part of its new $120 million addition, Google is attaching new additions to that sector. Google is also adding to its “Google/@home” initiative. As part of @home, Google is reportedly developing a new streaming home-entertainment device. This break through into consumer electronics could be announced tomorrow, according to a teaser from the Google TV team.


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Google poaches Apple’s Senior Director of Product Integrity for secret project, maybe to work on Google X?

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Google reportedly poached an Apple employee to hire on its own staff. VentureBeat reported that Google hired Apple’s (now former) Senior Director of Product Integrity Simon Prakash for a secret project, where he would work perhaps alongside Google’s cofounder Sergey Brin. Prakash could even work under Motorola Mobility, whom Google is working to acquire, to head hardware projects.

Prakash worked at Apple for over eight years, and was responsible for the product quality across Apple’s products—from iPhones to Macs. To boost his reputation, you may recall that Apple was voted top among product quality in a recent JD Power and Associates Award for the sixth consecutive last year. It is obvious why Google would go after such an employee.

Prakash could be joining Google to work on Google X’s wearable heads up display glasses we showed you in December. Former Apple employee Richard DeVaul, a PhD. scientist from MIT with a focus on building wearable technologies, also left Apple to join Google X’s team. Is Google building up a huge and talented team for such a large product?

We have more iOS device executive departure news forthcoming, so stay tuned.


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Google X’s wearable technology isn’t an iPod Nano, but rather a heads up display (glasses)

Google Goggles gets a new meaning

The New York Times today relayed an open secret among some in the Google community: the company is working on wearable technology in its secret off-campus Google X lair.  However, the technology we have heard about is not the watch-type variety as described (although, we would be surprised if Google was not working on that technology, too):

Over the last year, Apple and Google have secretly begun working on projects that will become wearable computers. Their main goal: to sell more smartphones. (In Google’s case, more smartphones sold means more advertising viewed.)

In Google’s secret Google X labs, researchers are working on peripherals that — when attached to your clothing or body — would communicate information back to an Android smartphone.

People familiar with the work in the lab say Google has hired electronic engineers from Nokia Labs, Apple and engineering universities who specialize in tiny wearable computers.

While Apple may be focusing on iPod nano-like watches, Google seems to be pushing ahead in heads-up displays. We first brought news that prominent wearables PhD Richard DuVaul moved from Apple to Google in June.  His research is focused on wearable heads up displays (HUDs).

His dissertation was on “The Memory Glasses“, a heads-up display  focused on the problems associated with wearable memory support technology. This included hardware and software architectures, and low-attention human-computer interaction for wearable computing, including the use of subliminal visual cues for just-in-time memory support.

Our source tells us that this is what Google is building.  They are in late prototype stages of wearable glasses that look similar to thick-rimmed glasses that “normal people” wear.  However, these provide a display with a heads up computer interface.  There are a few buttons on the arms of the glasses, but otherwise, they could be mistaken for normal glasses.  Additionally, we are not sure of the technology being employed here, but it is likely a transparent LCD or AMOLED display such as the one demonstrated below:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6YQiKmDWpI]

In addition, we have heard that this device is not an “Android peripheral” as the NYT stated.  According to our source, it communicates directly with the Cloud over IP. Although, the “Google Goggles”  could use a phone’s Internet connection, through Wi-Fi or a low power Bluetooth 4.0.

The use-case is augmented reality that would tie into Google’s location services.  A user can walk around with information popping up and into display -Terminator-style- based on preferences, location and Google’s information.

Therefore, these things likely connect to the Internet and have GPS.  They also likely run a version of Android.

Google VP Marisa Mayer recently talked to Jason Kincaid about serendipity and location back in May:

[vodpod id=Video.9929744&w=650&h=400&fv=%26amp%3BembedCode%3DUzNDJoMjpzR4v5RcbxsAczC071d3QOq1]

This would be a great tie in to this system.  Instead of actual inputs, this system could just pull information as it becomes available and shoot it to the screen when the information was desired.

We do not have a release date for this new device, but we know that Google Co-founder Sergey Brin is closely associated with the project and it will be Google-branded hardware.

Google representatives couldn’t comment on rumors and speculation.

Sergey Brin is working on a list of 100 Secret projects at clandestine “Google X”

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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ka9IwHNvkfU]
Fascinating story from the New York Times:

Sergey Brin, Google’s co-founder, is deeply involved in the lab, said several people with knowledge of it, and came up with the list of ideas along with Larry Page, Google’s other founder, who worked on Google X before becoming chief executive in April; Eric E. Schmidt, its chairman; and other top executives. “Where I spend my time is farther afield projects, which we hope will graduate to important key businesses in the future,” Mr. Brin said recently, though he did not mention Google X.
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