This latest round of Google layoffs are also impacting Alphabet’s X with a restructuring that sees the Moonshot Factory move to a new funding model.
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Amid the current economic environment, the first layoffs at Alphabet are impacting companies working on health (Verily) and robotics (Intrinsic), while the X Moonshot Factory is also curtailing spending.
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Over the past few months, the global supply chain has been heavily constrained resulting in long wait times and missing goods. Alphabet’s X moonshot factory wants to tackle that problem with Project Chorus.
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Alphabet’s Moonshot Factory detailed a project to build “Everyday Robots” two years ago. Today it gave an update on how it has progressed towards building autonomous machines and real-world office testing.
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The world of Star Trek featured a handheld device that was used to scan the health of patients. In 2014, it came to light that Alphabet’s “Moonshot Factory” was trying to create such a gadget, with that effort currently housed in Verily Life Sciences. It has now emerged that the X division was working on another tricorder project in 2019, but has since canceled “Maya.”
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Apart from the Fitbit acquisition, Google’s only in-house designed wearables are the second-generation Pixel Buds and Glass Enterprise Edition. A new report today says Alphabet’s X Moonshot Factory is working on wearable earbuds codenamed “Wolverine” that enhance your hearing.
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In addition to balloons, Alphabet’s X Moonshot Factory has investigated using beams of light to deliver internet connectivity. Project Taara is now getting its first commercial deployment in Kenya.
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Alphabet’s Moonshot Factory investigates a number of ideas before publicizing and later graduating them. For the past three years, X has been working on Project Amber to find a biomarker for depression. That ultimately did not come to fruition, but the team did create a portable, low-cost EEG that has been open-sourced.
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Back in 2018, Alphabet’s moonshot division revealed that it’s looking into how machine learning could be applied to crop production. X today officially announced that its computational agriculture project is called “Mineral.”
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Notable X projects include self-driving cars, delivery drones, and internet balloons. Alphabet’s Moonshot Factory is now taking another stab at helping the environment with Tidal — a “moonshot to protect the ocean and feed humanity sustainably.”
Last October, Google announced that its quantum computer performed a task that would take classical computers infinitely longer to complete. In addition to Google, Alphabet looks to have another team working on quantum computing.
In 2017, X quietly teased its robotics efforts as being heavily machine learning-focused. Alphabet’s moonshot factory is now finally detailing the project and its mission to build Everyday Robots.
For the past several years, Alphabet’s X has been working on Project Malta to create a new approach for grid-scale energy storage based on salt. Malta is now ready to graduate from the Moonshot Factory as an independent, non-Alphabet company.
Back in 2013, Google went on a robotics shopping spree with seven acquisitions that included Boston Dynamics and a company called Schaft. That effort has so far yet to materialize, with robotics currently under Alphabet’s X. After failing to find a buyer, Alphabet is shutting down the company focused on bipedal robots.
Following last week’s publication of a report that tied several high-ranking current and former Google executives to incidents of sexual misconduct, the company’s employees have been organizing in protest. Sundar Pichai today voiced support for the upcoming “women’s walk,” while one Googler named by the New York Times has left.
Two of X’s aerial projects are graduating from the Moonshot Factory today to become independent Alphabet companies like Waymo and Verily. Dropping the “project” status, Loon will continue to deliver internet via balloons, while Wing is focusing on a variety of drone-related efforts.
Google has long worked towards a future where its services improve the lives of users. This was evident at I/O 2018 with Google Duplex, Assistant, and Maps, while a new push into “responsibility” and digital wellbeing was aimed at making sure Google gets the approach “right.”
An internal concept video emerged today that imagines Google and technology taking more of an active role in your life in order to shape and — possibly — improve it.
The next moonshot for Alphabet’s X division might be in agriculture as it investigates how to apply artificial intelligence to food production. While in its early days, Astro Teller revealed that the research division is also interested how drones and robotics could be leveraged.
In 2017, Alphabet’s drone delivery program reemerged following financial tightening during the prior year. Project Wing has now added a former Amazon executive to head operations in a sign that it’s possibly nearing a commercial launch.
Alphabet’s X division has a number of ongoing projects, while recent years have seen more “graduations” into independent companies. The latest is called “Chronicle” and comes as “cybersecurity needs a moonshot,” according to X head Astro Teller.
Project Loon’s deployment of emergency cellular service to Puerto Rico in under a month is quite an impressive technological feat. By the end of October, AT&T and T-Mobile customers could connect to LTE from these miles-high balloons. Alphabet’s X division noted today that over 100,000 people have now benefited from this service.
Update 10/27: T-Mobile customers in Puerto Rico can now connect to Project Loon for emergency internet service. X also revealed that over the past week the balloons have provided connectivity to “tens of thousands.”
Earlier this month, Project Loon was granted authorization to provide emergency service to Puerto Rico using their balloons. Today, the Alphabet division announced that in partnership with AT&T it began providing LTE service to the hurricane-stricken island.
After Android but before leaving Google, Andy Rubin led the company’s robotics efforts and acquired several startups, including Boston Dynamics. As part of the Alphabet re-org in late 2015, a majority of the robots division was absorbed into X. That team has remained quiet until today.
Generating energy by flying a plane-like vehicle with propellers, one of X’s oldest clean energy projects is facing stiff competition from the falling price of existing green energy sources. As a result, Alphabet’s support of Project Makani has fallen since its 2013 acquisition, while the same fate befalls many of the research lab’s other climate change-fighting moonshots.
