sergeybrin
Latest
Lawmakers want more tech companies to address privacy legislation
Though Facebook has been in a bright spotlight since the Cambridge Analytica fallout, it's obviously not the only company that has to deal with issues surrounding how best to protect its users' privacy. That responsibility falls on all tech companies with online platforms and Congress is now calling on them to step up and do their part. In interviews with CNET, two congressmen express the need for Silicon Valley cooperation and urge executives to accept that this is an issue that isn't going away.
Sergey Brin’s secret airship will deliver aid and schlep his family
Last month, news dropped that Google co-founder Sergey Brin is building an airship on the sly -- not a traditional airplane but an honest-to-god helium-filled dirigible. He insisted the project wasn't operating under the tech titan, even as his fellow co-founder backed a "flying car," it wasn't clear what Brin would be doing with the world's largest current aircraft. Now, details are starting to come out: Apparently, the zeppelin will split its time between delivering humanitarian supplies to remote locations and serving as a luxurious "air yacht" for Brin's friends and family.
Bloomberg: Google co-founder Sergey Brin has a 'secret airship'
A couple of days ago we got a good look at a "flying car" backed by Google's Larry Page, and now Bloomberg reports that Sergey Brin has a project too -- it's a zeppelin. The airship "which isn't an Alphabet project" is being built in a leased hangar at the NASA Ames Research Center, although it's unclear if there are any plans to make a business out of it. The report points to former NASA director Alan Weston as leader of the project, citing a radio interview where he described a helium-filled (it's actually flame-retardant) vehicle for cargo hauling and a LinkedIn profile that momentarily listed him as CEO of "Ltare."
Google gives $4 million to pro-immigrant causes
Google has revealed that it will donate up to $4 million to humanitarian causes in response to the president's latest executive order. The search engine will hand the cash to four bodies: the ACLU, Immigrant Legal Resource Center, International Rescue Committee and the UN Refugee Agency. According to TechCrunch, half of that cash is coming from the company itself, with the rest being donated by employees.
Breakthrough Prize awards $25 million to science luminaries
In a ceremony dubbed the "Oscars of Science," the Breakthrough Foundation handed out over $25 million in prizes to physicists, life sciences researchers and mathematicians. Hosted by Morgan Freeman, the event featured Mark Zuckerberg, Sergey Brin and other Silicon Valley notables, a performance by Alicia Keys, actors Vin Diesel and Sienna Miller, astronauts Mark and Scott Kelly and (yep) Will.i.am. The $3 million Breakthrough Prize awards are "the largest individual monetary prize[s] in science," the foundation says, and obviously life-changing. "I was totally stunned," says Lebanese-born Baylor scientist Huda Zoghbi.
Google's Fiber rollout isn't going as planned
Google Fiber may have just gone live in Salt Lake City, but the process of laying all that fiber optic cable is reportedly making Alphabet's homebrewed ISP the company's most expensive unit outside of the core Google business. According to a new report from The Information, those costs have prompted Larry Page and Sergey Brin to push Google Fiber away from its original plan and more towards a cheaper wireless standard.
Google is now Alphabet, the owner of Google
The paperwork is filed and it's official: Google has restructured itself into Alphabet. As of the close of business today shares of the old Google are now part of Alphabet, which counts Google as a subsidiary. On our end, this doesn't change much -- unless you're a big fan of Ingress or Pokemon -- but now Sergey Brin and Larry Page can chase innovations in seemingly unrelated areas. Sundar Pichai will keep running day-to-day operations at the new Google, except now with the title of CEO. Google now includes Android, Search, YouTube, Apps, Maps and Ads. Meanwhile, Alphabet can focus on Google Fiber (high speed internet), Calico and Life Sciences (health), Google Ventures and Google Capital (investments), Nest (home automation) and Google X (everything fun, like drone deliveries, self-driving cars and city-wide WiFi). [Image credit: Jeff Chiu/Associated Press]
Google's Sergey Brin opens up about self-driving car accidents
Accidents happen, but that hasn't stopped people being curious about the sort of scrapes that Google's self-driving cars have gotten into. Sergey Brin recently conceded that there had been a 12th incident involving the autonomous vehicles, one more than the 11 reported at the start of May. The revelation came at the outfit's annual shareholder meeting, where privacy advocate John Simpson needled the co-founder enough to get him to open up about the autonomous vehicle's crashes. It turns out, however, that the biggest cause for these incidents hasn't been hardware or software failure, but the general negligence of California's drivers.
Google makes sure its founders will survive a Terminator assault
The Connor family may be doing a great job preventing Skynet from becoming self-aware and declaring war on humanity, but Google apparently isn't taking any chances. The internet giant has quietly uploaded a "killer-robots.txt" Easter egg file that tells Terminators to avoid hunting down the company's co-founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin. There's more to this joke text than stopping murderous automatons from the movies, of course. It's really there to mark the 20th anniversary of robots.txt, the document you put on a site to exclude pages from Google's search crawler. However, it does make us wonder why Google didn't see fit to save people like Andy Rubin or Sundar Pichai -- surely it would expect those behind Android to get some mercy from androids.
Lab-grown burger tasted at event in London, said to require ketchup
A couple of tasters, who claim they're unpaid and impartial, are currently chomping their way through some very expensive artificial flesh at a publicity event in London. According to the BBC's science correspondent Pallab Ghosh, who is also at the gathering, the main feedback so far is that the meat -- which is presented as a burger -- isn't as juicy or tasty as the real thing, mainly because it's totally lean. The substance was grown by a team at the University of Maastricht, with a spot of funding from none other than Google visionary Sergey Brin, who believes the technology is on the "cusp of viability" as a solution to animal welfare issues. Lead researcher Prof. Mark Post doesn't seem too disheartened by the tasters' comments, but says he's working to improve flavor. At a current cost of $325,000 per patty, people are going to expect something special regardless of the ethical or ecological arguments -- and some cajun spices probably won't cut it.
Project Glass pre-orderers welcomed as 'Explorers', promised super secret updates on progress
Google's Project Glass had a surprisingly large presence (skydivers) during its I/O event earlier this year, and now company co-founder Sergey Brin has checked in with the attendees who promised $1,500 for a set of the augmented reality eyepiece. In his message he shared a photo he took while cruising through Montana thanks to a mode it's testing that snaps a picture every 10 seconds, no intervention needed. Unfortunately, if you're not in that exclusive pre-ordering group you'll have to wait for details like these to leak out secondhand since private updates, special events, Google+ Hangouts, secret handshakes and Little Orphan Annie decoder rings (perhaps not the last two) are reserved for a "unique, trusted community." Hey, it's not like the rest of us wanted some silly visor or etched glass blocks anyway.
Sergey Brin hopes to bring Google Glass to market in 2014
If you're not one of the lucky few who met Google's requirements (be a U.S. citizen attending IO) and don't have $1,500 to drop on an early dev unit of an unproven technology, you might be wondering, "when can I get my hands on Glass?" The answer, straight from Sergey Brin's mouth, is 2014... hopefully. The Google big wig told Bloomberg that, if all goes according to plan, Google Glass will become available to consumers en masse sometime in 2014. Of course, how much cheaper they'll be two years from now is anyone's guess. But we wouldn't expect the first-gen to be an impulse purchase. When you check out the video after the break, you might notice that Sergey is wearing a new set of Glass glasses (how's that for awkward sounding), these ones with some snap in shades. If you're wondering if progress could be made any faster, we wouldn't count on it. Brin says he spends more than half his time on this project -- which means Google is putting a lot of stock in the future of wearable computers. Check out the complete interview after the break.
Google's Project Glass trackpad gets swaddled in patent protection
Remember when Sergey Brin was on The Gavin Newsom Show showing off Project Glass' right-sided physical trackpad? Today, that element of the tech was given the official thumbs-up by the US patent and trademark office. Legally-trained minds in the audience concerned about the appearance forming prior art, take it easy -- the patent was filed five days before the Google chief took to basic cable to demonstrate his pet project to the current Lt. Governor of California.
Project Glass revealed to have physical trackpad along right arm (video)
Sergey Brin has appeared on The Gavin Newsom Show on Current TV to drop a few more enticing hints about Project Glass. While showing the presenter a picture he'd taken with the AR glasses, he revealed that the prototype is controlled with a trackpad running down the right* arm. He also talked about the device's genesis in Goggle's (pun intended) X Lab, which he described as an "advanced skunkworks" where "far-out projects" are developed -- it's also the department that occupies most of his time. While the units he and his colleagues have been wearing are very rough prototypes, the Google co-founder shared his private hope that the tech will make its way to general release next year. You can catch the extract in full in the video after the break. *Right for the wearer, left for the observer. It depends entirely on your perspective.
Sergey Brin clarifies Apple, Facebook critique
Earlier this week, an interview with Google co-founder Sergey Brin appeared on the Guardian. In his dialogue, Brin talked about threats to the public internet and mentioned government censorship, Apple and Facebook as "very powerful forces" working against internet freedom. Brin responded today on Google + to clarify these statements. Brin claims his comments were "distorted" in secondary coverage. He says, "the primary threat by far to internet freedom is government filtering of political dissent." He adds that he has "much admiration for two of the companies we discussed -- Apple and Facebook." He owns several Apple's products and even used an "Imac" to write his Google + post. [Via Engadget]
Sergey Brin clarifies Apple and Facebook critique, says statement was 'distorted'
Sergey Brin wasn't too happy with how his critique of Apple and Facebook was represented in the media following an interview he gave to the Guardian. In a post on Google+ (hey, if he won't use it, who will?) Brin lamented that, "my thoughts got particularly distorted... in a way that distracts from my central tenets." The founder believes that undue attention was given to his complaints about Facebook and Apple's "restrictive" walled gardens, when he sees oppressive governments and state-sanctioned censorship as much larger issues. Of course, while Brin does say he admires his competitors, he never truly backpedals from his criticism or says that it was taken out of context. To let Sergey explain himself, hit up the source link.
Sergey Brin says the internet is under attack by governments, Apple and Facebook
One of the qualifications for scoring a CE-Oh no 'round here is actually being a CEO -- so Sergey Brin does not receive that honor. We will, however, draw attention to what some might call his hyperbolic ramblings. In an interview with the Guardian, Google's cool uncle said he was worried about the state of the internet and that his company could not have flourished in an online ecosystem like today's. According to Brin, the threats are coming from all sides -- most notably governments. While oppressive regimes like those in China and Iran get top billing, the US doesn't escape without criticism thanks to SOPA and PIPA which seemed perilously close to passing with support from the media industry. The co-founder also took shots at Apple and Facebook, which he said have built "really restrictive" walled gardens. For more smack talk from one of the most influential men in the tech industry, hit up the source link. [Image via Thomas Hawk]
Google co-founder Sergey Brin spotted wearing Project Glass prototype IRL
Wondering what it might be like to sport Google's Project Glass augmented reality HUD in your daily life? It would appear company co-founder Sergey Brin already knows, as he was spotted by tech pundits Robert Scoble and Thomas Hawk rocking a prototype at a Dining in the Dark charity event for the Foundation Fighting Blindness. Scoble has already posted a couple of pictures with Brin on Google+, mentioning more photos would be forthcoming from Hawk after the event concluded and that he'd heard other people, including Google exec Vic Gundotra, have the devices already. For now he mentions the glasses appeared to be "self contained" and that he could see a blueish light flashing on Brin's eyes. Hit the source link for more pics and details, we'll let you know if we find out more later -- details on where to snag a set may remain confidential until we've had a chance to try them on first, of course.
NYT: Google to sell Android-based heads-up display glasses this year
It's not the first time that rumors have surfaced of Google working on some heads-up display glasses (9 to 5 Google first raised the possibility late last year), but The New York Times is now reporting that the company is not only working on them, but that it's set to release them by the end of this year. Citing "several Google employees familiar with the project," the paper's Nick Bilton reports that the glasses will be based on Android, pack 3G or 4G connectivity, plus GPS and a range of sensors, and cost "around the price of current smartphones," or somewhere between $250 and $600. They're also said to include a low-resolution camera that can monitor your surroundings in real time and overlay relevant information, although Google is said to be paying attention to potential privacy concerns, and "wants to ensure that people know if they are being recorded by someone wearing a pair of glasses with a built-in camera."What's more, the Times says that none other than Sergey Brin is a "key leader" on the project, with another being Google engineer Steve Lee, the creator of Latitude. Notably, Bilton also says that Google sees the project as an "experiment that anyone will be able to join," and that the company is not currently thinking about potential business models for the glasses, which could suggest that they may be more of a small-scale hobby than part of a major push into consumer hardware.
Report: Google hires Apple exec to work on 'secret project'
Google appears to have scored another coup in its ongoing rivalry with Apple, having reportedly lured one of the company's senior directors to its Mountain View headquarters. Simon Prakash, pictured above, has worked at Apple for more than eight years, most recently serving as the firm's senior director of product integrity. According to VentureBeat, however, that tenure has come to a close, now that Google has hired Prakesh to work on a "secret project." The report speculates that this project could be helmed by co-founder Sergey Brin, and that it may be mobile-related, though declarative statements were few and far between. Prior to arriving at Apple, Prakash served as director of engineering design validation at Cielo Communications, and held managerial positions at 3Com. VentureBeat claims he'll be starting work at Google today, though the company has yet to issue any statement on the matter. Once finalized, though, the hiring could help dispel some of those "no poach" accusations flying around federal courts.