Inside Google's Secret Lab
businessweek.com
Inside Google's Secret Lab
1–10 of 38 posts
Re: Inside Google's Secret Lab
#2The UAV or aerostat balloon broadband relay thing heavily hinted at in this article is one of the more amazing ideas. Totally feasible with current technology and highly beneficial; it seems like an obvious thing to do even now.
I guess I'd care about it more for disaster or conflict zone operations vs. ongoing operations in poor countries (since vastly more money is available in the short term in the first case), but it would probably make sense everywhere. At 50k feet, you can cover a pretty large area with spot beams, and probably do aerostat to aerostat relays. Combined with undersea fiber, you could do a good job of providing high speed communications services to some underserved markets.
I assume you'd use high altitude aerostats to provide low bandwidth coverage to large areas, and then local, lower altitude balloons or uavs, fed by the high altitude stuff, in areas of high user density.
Re: Inside Google's Secret Lab
#3The UAV or aerostat balloon broadband relay thing heavily hinted at in this article is one of the more amazing ideas. Totally feasible with current technology and highly beneficial; it seems like an obvious thing to do even now. I guess I'd care about it more for disaster or conflict zone operations vs. ongoing operations in poor countries (since vastly more money is available in the short term in the first case), bu…
Another use case I see is their potential use at sporting arenas for high profile events, cause you know people get bored/distracted at their football games and congest the network with massive traffic.
Re: Inside Google's Secret Lab
#4The UAV or aerostat balloon broadband relay thing heavily hinted at in this article is one of the more amazing ideas. Totally feasible with current technology and highly beneficial; it seems like an obvious thing to do even now. I guess I'd care about it more for disaster or conflict zone operations vs. ongoing operations in poor countries (since vastly more money is available in the short term in the first case), bu…
Another use case I see is their potential use at sporting arenas for high profile events, cause you know people get bored/distracted at their football games and congest the network with massive traffic.
Or even more usefully, in random places which have concerts/festivals only infrequently. You'd think a sports stadium could have permanent RF reinforcement gear installed (and just turned on sometimes).
Re: Inside Google's Secret Lab
#5The UAV or aerostat balloon broadband relay thing heavily hinted at in this article is one of the more amazing ideas. Totally feasible with current technology and highly beneficial; it seems like an obvious thing to do even now. I guess I'd care about it more for disaster or conflict zone operations vs. ongoing operations in poor countries (since vastly more money is available in the short term in the first case), bu…
Re: Inside Google's Secret Lab
#6Earlier quoted context omitted.
Another use case I see is their potential use at sporting arenas for high profile events, cause you know people get bored/distracted at their football games and congest the network with massive traffic.
Or even more usefully, in random places which have concerts/festivals only infrequently. You'd think a sports stadium could have permanent RF reinforcement gear installed (and just turned on sometimes).
Possibly, but maybe it would be cheaper for them to pay for the service from google or whomever (depending on how frequent their network is overly congested) and not have to worry about having special staff on hand to manage something themselves (maybe even the not having to worry about it is enough to shell out cash in itself).
Re: Inside Google's Secret Lab
#7Here's hoping the lab is NOT ONLINE. Because maybe it seems that China might possibly want to kind of hack it.
Re: Inside Google's Secret Lab
#8I got a time machine.
I forgot, God, how are the moral lessons of Charlie and the Chocolate factory?
God says...
18:17 He that is first in his own cause seemeth just; but his neighbour cometh and searcheth him.
18:18 The lot causeth contentions to cease, and parteth between the mighty.
18:19 A brother offended is harder to be won than a strong city: and their contentions are like the bars of a castle.
18:20 A man's belly shall be satisfied with the fruit of his mouth; and with the increase of his lips shall he be filled.
18:21 Death and life are in the power of the tongue: and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof.
18:22 Whoso findeth a wife findeth a good thing, and obtaineth favour of the LORD.
18:23 The poor useth intreaties; but the rich answereth roughly.
---
I wuv You, God. :-)
God says... awful do_you_like_it adjusted_for_inflation you_are_my_sunshine how_about_those_yankees one_small_step that's_no_fun threads fortitude I'm_done I'm_not_sure and_then_what no_more_tears
Re: Inside Google's Secret Lab
#9Perhaps it is just late and I'm cynical but this screamed "hey we're still cool, c'mon see?" There were a series of articles about Microsoft's research projects that had the same vibe. Perhaps it is the BusinessWeek lens. Hard to say.
I cringe though on that title, if its a "secret" lab then you wouldn't know about it, so it isn't secret, so what is it?
Re: Inside Google's Secret Lab
#10I am reminded of my former company's CTO who once told me that true and disruptive R&D can only be done by a company with a monopoly power, so they can hide their true margins in blue-sky work. I for one hope they can do this as long as possible, since I love Google and I love Google X and I worked for two great R&D departments that were cut short on all long-term projects by controllers looking to post higher margins in competitive environments.