X (company)

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X
Formerly called
 Google X
Subsidiary of Alphabet Inc.
Industry <templatestyles src="Plainlist/styles.css"/>
Founded January 2010; 14 years ago (2010-01)
(as a division of Google Inc.)
Founders Sebastian Thrun
Yoky Matsuoka
Headquarters Mountain View, California, United States
Key people
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Parent Alphabet
Subsidiaries
Subsidiaries
Website SolveForX.com
Former logo

X, previously Google X, is a semi-secret research and development facility created by Google[1][2] and (since October 2015) operated as a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc.[3] Verily, a former Google X subsidiary, also became a direct independent subsidiary of Alphabet at this time. X is located about a half mile from Google's corporate headquarters, the Googleplex, in Mountain View, California.[4][5] Work at the lab is overseen by Sergey Brin, one of Google's co-founders and President of Alphabet, while scientist and entrepreneur Astro Teller (Captain of Moonshots) directs day-to-day activities.[6][7][8] The lab started up in 2010 with the development of a self-driving car.[8]

    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.

    Self-driving car

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    Main article: Google driverless car

    The Google driverless car is a project by Google that involves developing technology for driverless cars. 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] In August 2012, the team announced that they had completed over 300,000 autonomous-driving miles accident-free, typically had about a dozen cars on the road at any given time, and were starting to test them with single drivers instead of in pairs.[18]

    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.[19] 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 little 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.[20]

    Glass

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    Main article: Google Glass

    Project Glass is a research and development program by Google to develop an augmented reality head-mounted display (HMD).[21] The intended purpose of Project Glass products would be the hands-free displaying of information currently available to most smartphone users,[22] and allowing for interaction with the Internet via natural language voice commands.[23]

    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.[24]

    Loon

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    Main article: Project Loon

    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 planes to give access to the internet to those who can't reach it or are in need of help.[25]

    Other projects

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    Projects that X has considered and rejected include a space elevator, which was deemed to be currently infeasible;[28] a hoverboard, which was determined to be too costly relative to the societal benefits;[29] a user-safe jetpack, which was thought to be too loud and energy-wasting;[30] and teleportation, which was found to violate the laws of physics.[30]

    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.[31] In 2013, X acquired Makani Power, a US company which develops tethered wings/kites with mounted wind turbines for low cost renewable energy generation.[32] In 2014, they acquired product design and mechanical engineering firm Gecko Design whose previous products include the Fitbit activity tracker and low-cost computers.[33] As of 2015, X has acquired 14 companies, which also include Redwood Robotics, Meka Robotics, Boston Dynamics, and Jetpac.[31][33]

    Campus

    A reporter from Bloomberg Businessweek visited the site in 2013 and described it as an "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]

    In 2015, X moved into the old Mayfield Mall site.

    See also

    References

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    18. ↑ Official Blog: The self-driving car logs more miles on new wheels Posted: Tuesday, August 07, 2012 by Chris Urmson, Engineering Lead
    19. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
    20. ↑ Warwick, Graham. "Google Details 'Project Wing' Unmanned Package-Delivery R&D" Aviation Week & Space Technology, 3 November 2014. Accessed: 5 November 2014. Archived on 5 November 2014
    21. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
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    33. ↑ 33.0 33.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.

    External links

    • Official website
    • X on TwitterLua error in Module:WikidataCheck at line 28: attempt to index field 'wikibase' (a nil value).
    1. REDIRECT Template:Google LLC
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