Sebastian Thrun

Two 'Sebastian Thrun' stories August 2011 - September 2014

Founder Sebastian Thrun left Google X in August, now serves solely as an advisor

Google X founder and Google VP Sebastian Thrun decided to leave his position last month, according to a change on his LinkedIn page picked up by TechCrunch. As confirmed by Google earlier today, Thrun will remain in an advisory role only at Google.

Thrun was a driving force behind the company’s efforts to build an automated car and also previously headed up the Google Glass project. However, both projects have since been passed to other leaders. The Google X division has also been the source of a variety of sometimes-outlandish technology, including smart contact lenses and balloon-powered Internet access.

Google Automated car gets in its first accident? (Update: Human Error)

You knew this was going to happen at some point. A Google automated car with that spinny thing at the top was in what looks like a minor rear ending incident near Google HQ in Mountainview. While it doesn’t appear that anyone was hurt (even the two Prii above), it isn’t exactly a vote of confidence for the fledgling product that Google hopes will materialize into a useful product within a decade.

Before we pass judgement based on a tipster’s photo – we’ll wait for Google’s post mortem.

Update: As we thought – human was at the wheel for this fender-bender. Google sent over this statement:

“Safety is our top priority. One of our goals is to prevent fender-benders like this one, which occurred while a person was manually driving the car.”

Via Jalopnik

Expand
Expanding
Close