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How Google’s Chief Innovator Sergey Brin Is Making Science Fiction Real

Who says innovation is dead in Silicon Valley? At a time when some pundits are questioning whether the region’s innovation engine is tapped out, Web-search titan Google offered a powerful display last week of why that’s not the case. In a stunt that set a high-water mark for high-tech demonstrations, Google co-founder Sergey Brin blew away the crowd of developers at the company’s I/O conference with Project Glass, one of Google’s high-profile secret ventures. And Brin’s work leading Google X, a top-secret research lab, shows how the Silicon Valley giant is at the cutting edge of next-generation technology.

In the demo, a team of skydivers wearing augmented-reality glasses jumped out of a plane above San Francisco, proceeded to conduct a live Google hangout session in midair and then landed on the roof of the Moscone Center, the fabled venue that has been the site of so many historic tech keynotes over the years. The divers were carrying precious cargo — a box containing the high-tech glasses — which they handed over to a team of mountain bikers, who jumped a gap in the roof and delivered the unit to climbers who rappelled down the side of the building. Another group of bikers raced through the lobby and into the auditorium, handing the device to a beaming Brim onstage.

Was it a publicity stunt? Of course, but the spectacle highlights how Google is so much more than a search advertising company. The Mountain View, Calif.-based tech giant is pushing the limits of technology, from wearable computing like Project Glass to self-driving cars to projects we don’t even know about because they remain locked away inside Google X, the R&D lab that Brin leads. Asked about Project Glass by Bloomberg TV after the demo, Brin explained, “It’s the notion of taking computing, which has moved from giant mainframes to laptops to phones, to perhaps an even lighter and more free-form factor. Something you can have with you when you’re falling through the sky at 120 miles an hour.”

“It’s freedom,” Brin said. Later in the interview, the Google co-founder elaborated on Google X. It’s “about doing brand-new, risky technological things — making science fiction real,” he said. “We’re not thinking about other, existing products on the market today. We’re trying to do risky things that may or may not work out, but it’s got to be something really bold.” http://business.time.com/2012/07/03/how-googles-chief-innovator-sergey
-brin-is-making-science-fiction-real/?hpt=hp_t2

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