Waymo is beginning completely driver-free testing of its autonomous cars, removing the safety human ahead of a new Waymo driverless service launching. The company announced the move today, after more than eight years of trials on public roads. Until now, those trials have always seen a backup driver ready to take over at the wheel, should something go awry.
Alphabet's own Sidewalk Labs responded to a request for proposals from Waterfront Toronto, Canada, for innovation and funding partners for Eastern Waterfront. After a "rigorous evaluation process," leadership at Waterfront Toronto selected Sidewalk Labs to develop the area known as Quayside. Now Alphabet's company will begin to create a neighborhood of their own.
Alphabet's Project Loon has brought basic communications back to parts of Puerto Rico for individuals who have LTE phones. The communications are being made possible by Project Loon's balloons; they're currently giving people access to the Internet and text messaging in parts of the island hit hardest by Hurricane Maria. The team has been working with a variety of groups to make this possible, including the FAA and FCC.
That Google parent company Alphabet has a ridiculous amount of money at its disposal isn't exactly a shocking realization for anyone. Today we're seeing Alphabet throw some of that money around by investing a truly eye-watering amount into ride-sharing service Lyft. Such a huge investment could give Lyft the leg-up it needs to really take the fight to Uber.
Waymo, the Alphabet business working on autonomous cars, has released its first safety report, a recap of 3.5m miles of on-road activity. Intended to reassure potential passengers - and wary regulators - that self-driving vehicles are "safer by design," the report covers everything from incidents through to backup systems. It also digs into what sort of interactions with a driverless vehicle passengers might expect.
Google has pledged a billion dollars in nonprofit grants over the next five years, part of a push to help reskill workforces around the world. The news, announced in Pittsburgh, PA today, sees Google roll out three initiatives as it tackles evolving job roles - prompted, in no small part, by its own developments and products.
This is what Project Loon was made for. Well, perhaps not exactly the dire situation facing Puerto Rico at the moment. But the balloon-powered Internet delivery dream was meant to bring connectivity to places where traditional lines can't reach. And that is more or less what the hurricane-battered Caribbean US territory is going through after Maria caused massive destruction, affecting both power and Internet services. Thankfully, the FCC just gave Alphabet's X an experimental license to help Puerto Rico repair its network grid.
Look out Uber. Sources claim Alphabet is currently in talks about making a major investment in ridesharing company Lyft, something that will be done through either Google or CapitalG. The news comes amidst Waymo's legal spat with Uber, something that resulted in a deal between Waymo and Lyft earlier this year. Sources claim Alphabet and Lyft haven't finalized a deal at this time.
Yes, that sounds strange ain’t it? But consider that the first and last thermostat to come from what was known back then as Nest Labs was the original Nest Learning Thermostat in 2011. Since then, the company has come a long way, released a smoke detector and security cameras, and as was acquired by Google and then under Alphabet in the great reshuffling. Now the company is going back to its roots with the Nest Thermostat E, bringing the lessons of the past 6 years to even more people and more houses.
Google CEO Sundar Pichai has joined the Alphabet Board of Directors, expanding the executive's responsibility. Pichai has been at the helm of Google since August 2015, when it was scythed off from the rest of the company's businesses and became one of several under the Alphabet umbrella brand. Alphabet announced its Q2 2017 financial results today.
Google's ill-fated wearable, Glass, has been reborn for factory drones as Glass Enterprise Edition, now part of Alphabet's developmental X division. The new version of the headset has already been used in trials with a number of business customers, the team announced today, with a revamped version of the hardware and a new focus on making manufacturing, project management, and other enterprise tasks more productive. It's been enough to catch the attention of big names like DHL, GE, Boeing, and Volkswagen.
Waymo has dropped all but one of the patent infringement claims it's challenging Uber over in court, as the two companies fight over self-driving car tech. The Alphabet-owned company had accused Uber of infringing on four different patents related to autonomous driving, filing a lawsuit back in February. According to Waymo, its former employee Anthony Levandowski had stolen a cache of technical documents about the company's developments and taken them to set up Otto, a self-driving vehicle startup later acquired by Uber.