Fifth Blog: Google Puts Money on Robots, Using the Man behind Android

 

Summary

The article “Google Puts Money on Robots, Using the Man behind Android” was written by John Markoff and published on December 4, 2013. Markoff talks about Google inventing a robot that delivers packages to front doors off an automated Google car. Google executives believe that this job is nearly impossible but Amazon proposed a new drone delivery service that delivers books by a drone; which wasn't impossible to imagine so Google is positive about the invention of new robots.

Over the last half-year, Google has acquired seven technology companies that will put these new generations of robots into play. The engineer behind this effort is Andy Rubin, who built Google’s Android. Google is not aiming this new technology towards consumers, instead they are targeting in manufacturing, for example, electronics assembly. Andy Rubin says that we need at least 10 year’s worth of time and vision on our hands.

Google has already started making personal deliveries of the shopping service to places like Target, Walgreens, and American Eagle Outfitters. This service is available in some urban areas like San Francisco. Markoff talks about Google making home personal delivery system one day but that all depends on humans, he says.

Mr. Rubin is a 50-year-old executive that is in charge of the robotics project. He claims to have history in making his hobbies into careers. In the 1990s, Andy was a robotics engineer for the company Carl Zeiss. He is passionate for building intelligent machines. Andy has a vision of building something like the windshield wiper that has enough “intelligence” when it rains. The co-founder of Google, Larry Page, shares the same vision as Andy and feels that humans should be free from drudgery and repetitive tasks.

Mr. Rubin has stepped down as the head of the company’s Android smartphone division so that he and the co-founder of Google Mr. Page can venture into this idea. Mr. Rubin was comparing this project to the company’s self-driving project. He said the automated car project was science fictions and now it is coming within reach. The only problem that he claims he’s going to encounter is the need of having a breakthrough for areas like software and sensors.

Andy has acquired an array of robotics and artificial intelligence start-up companies in the United States and Japan. Among those companies is Schaft. It has a small team of Japanese robotics who left Tokyo University to develop a humanoid robot, and Industrial Perception, a project that includes the development of computer vision systems and robot arms for loading and unloading trucks. The makers of humanoid robots and robot arms in San Francisco called Meka and Redwood Robotics was also acquired. Bot & Dolly, a maker of robotic camera systems, used their invention in the movie Gravity; Andy also acquired Autofuss and Holomni.

Andy talks about acquiring more companies to build this robot but discusses how these previous seven companies has what it takes to partake in this creation of robots. Andy isn’t too sure about where he wants to begin this new project; within Google or somewhere else. The robotics groups, however, will initially be in Palo Alto. Andy has already started hiring robotics and bringing in other Google programmers that are going to be of help.

Opinion

In my opinion, I believe that this is a great new invention. Google is coming up with new ways of making life easier for humans. A lot of repetitive tasks that takes place in our daily lives are not going to be a factor in the future. Google isn’t too sure who they want their consumers to be for this invention but I feel that it going to be a breakthrough for mankind.

As great as this new invention is, I feel that machines are going to take over the roles of workers and a lot more people will be unemployed because of this. They are designing automated delivery systems through robots to complete repetitive tasks and replacing people with machines.

Questions/feedback

           1.      What do you think about Google’s new robotic invention?

           2.      Do you feel that unemployment rates are going to get higher?

Reference:

Picture and article retrieved from:

John Markoff. (2013, December 4). Google Puts Money on Robots, Using the Man behind Android.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/04/technology/google-puts-money-on-robots-using-the-man-behind-android.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

Fourth Blog: WORK-AT-HOME PROFILE: GOOGLE EMPLOYMENT

Summary

            According to the author the Google Company is based in Mountain View, CA with 60 offices around the world. This is the fabulous work place with perk. The employs get the best facilities at the work place for example; yoga, massage, doctor, dentist etc.

          

                 Google provides very less work-at-home opportunities to the employs. They can provide only the temporary positions through the temporary agencies not the permanent positions. Lot of employs wants to do work-at-home but unfortunately they don’t have too many positions. Even for work-at-home position hired through Workforce logic not through Google. They need people with fluent in English or other foreign language. Even these positions are for only 9 months with only 10-20 hours per week.  The temp employs have the responsibilities including the evaluating the accuracy of the web advertising and communicating of web layouts and the information about the online tools.

Personal opinion:

            Google is the huge company with 60 offices in the whole world. They are providing the best facilities to their employs. They have very less opportunities for the employs who wants to work-at-home which is unfair according to me.

            If Google is providing the opportunity to the full time employs then they should proving at least half of the opportunity to the temp position employs. I personally don’t like the employment period of time with working for them. I believe some people are more efficient to work from home rather than at work place. I would say if they can create more work for temporary employs then it would be the great opportunity for temporary labor which they can do it.

Feedback:

                 1.      What is your opinion for the work-at-home jobs? Do you like to work from home or at work                place?

          2.      Do you have ideas to create the part time jobs or work-at-home positions?

Reference:

Written by Laureen Miles Brunellj. Work –at-home profile: Goggle Employment

http://workathomemoms.about.com/od/companieshiringwahms/p/google.htm

BLOG #3: GOOGLE PRODUCTS AND SERVICES

SUMMARY

The article “Google Products and Services” was written by Vangie Beal and posted on December 22, 2006. In his article he mentioned in 1996, Google started out as a research project by Larry Page a Sergey Brin, two college students. They made their own computer with the purchased Disk at the bargain price. In 1999, the Beta logo came off the website. Then after their success, Google expanded their business with Blogging, mapping, shopping, research and more.

Google is famous with the search, search services and applications; also it called “perfect search engine”. With the help of Google you can search so many things just by typing the few words; also it can provide you the further links for the explanations. You can access them by clicking “more” on the search page.

The major search criterion on Google is: Book Search, Catalogs, Calculator, Currency exchange in which you can get the value of the currency in other currency. Definitions is the very quick search engine where we can search for anything, you can easily get the explanation of the word or the meaning. You can do shopping on Google products, images will be easily found on the Google. You can do local search, watch movies, listen to music, you can easily get news headlines. Google provides you the facility to find the person information with the help of the phone number or you can easily get the full address just by typing few words for the address. Google can help you find the weather conditions in all countries; you can use the spelling checker or so many further features.

There are few features of online communications for example, bloggers is the main medium of the communication where people can update their daily blogs and it is very easy to use with free services. Another is Page creator, which is the free Web page, provided by Google. Gmail webmail is the software by an ISP that provides the user name and password where you can communicate via emails. Google talks and Google groups are other examples for Google communications.

           Other features that are available are free software and Google mobile services. Google calendar is one of the most recent additions. This service allows you to organize any event for any time of the year. If you own a Gmail account, you can set up events through your email. There are many features that are available through your phone. By going on the Google browser, you are able to search the web, images, etc. A great new feature that’s also available is the Internet Explorer 7 optimized for Google. It allows the person to personalize their Google homepage, the Google toolbar, and also sets Google as the default search engine.

          Along with the free software and Google mobile services, they have offered Google desktop, Picasa, Google pack, Google docs and spreadsheets, and Google mobile. Each of these new features allows you to use Google to a whole other level. All these new apps make using the internet faster and efficient.

PERSONAL OPINION

          After reading this article I found anyone could start business as a student; the only thing is hard work and intentions of being a good worker. As a student Larry Page and Sergey Brin started Google as researchers and they made Google so successful that today if anyone wants to search anything, Google will come in very handy. So many searching features made our life so comfortable and smooth we don’t need to ask for help while searching. With the help of Google we can make our full trip cost cheaper as they have full competitor feature. Now we don’t need to have calculator, books, phone numbers, and address notebooks handy we can use Google to have useful information. Google can help us to find best place for shopping with competitor rates.

          Google is coming in very handy with all the new features it’s coming out with. I find that I can get an answer for anything that I search for with the help of Google. Google has become the perfect search engine for me. No other search engine comes to mind when I need to browse the web. The most important feature for me other than the search engine is Google Maps. I use Google maps for any address/location that I need to find.

Questions/feedback:

1.    How helpful is Google for you?

2.    Do you use any Google apps through your phone?

3.    Would you prefer using Hotmail or Gmail?

Reference:

Vangie Beal. (2006, December 22). Google Products and Services

 Retrieved from: http://www.webopedia.com/quick_ref/Google_Services.asp