Some of the most recent and significant areas where Google is improving technology are in 3D imagery implemented into their mapping service, pushing the innovation and adoption of IPv6, treating Google search results as thoughts, and the introduction of Google Glass.
3D imagery
With the world's most popular digital mapping service, Google has recently included auto-generated three-dimensional images into their service visible in applications such as Google Earth. They are using military grade spy planes to take photos of major cities and communities and integrating them in a 3D manner using their new mesh technology. These 3D mesh buildings have now replaced user submitted 3D buildings from the Geo-modeler community and have a much greater level of detail.
This improvement will now allow for greater uniformity in order to compete with other platforms and fend off competitors such as Nokia maps and more specifically Apple, who has cancelled their contract with Google and started using similar technology towards their own mapping service.
With every technology that pushes the boundaries come certain challenges. In the case of 3D imagery it is the resistance from citizens and government. The new technology is so precise it can recognize an individual’s face from 10,000 feet up. As a result, Senator Schumer has called upon companies using this technology to make some concessions. They include notification of communities before they are mapped, blurring out individuals, letting property owners opt out of mapping, and blurring out sensitive infrastructure details.
IPv6
Just as phones use a system of phone numbers to place calls, every Internet-connected device gets assigned a unique number known as an "IP address". With the proliferation of Internet connected devices the current architecture built on IPv4 (32 bit) has now run out of IP address space.
We have been using workarounds such as special hardware like Network address translation (NAT) devices and accompanying software to extend our ability to use IPv4 and accommodate the decreasing availability of IP addresses. This however has not been ideal as there is a large layer of complexity for the network engineers and the data packets to accommodate for in reaching their destinations.
Google is encouraging adoption the IPv4 sequel through an Internet Society event called the World IPv6 Launch. IPv6 was standardized in 1996 and allows for a lot more IP address space (128 bit). Last month IPv6 was turned however it remains able to work in parallel with IPv4. Vint Cerf, the current Chief Internet Evangelist at Google, and considered as a founding father of the Internet, discussed the next version of the Internet, IPv6, and why we need it.
“World IPv6 Launch marks a watershed moment in Internet history. It breaks the limits of the original address space to open a vast new territory, trillions upon trillions of times larger, and reinforces the end-to-end architecture that made the Internet so powerful at the beginning. Google strongly supports this upgrade. We’re happy to see that everyone is moving to the 21st-century Internet!”
This new capability allows for an 'internet of things', a term coined by Vint, would include appliances, devices, and even light bulbs to the internet world.
Knowledge Graph
You may have noticed recently when doing a Google search that a panel on the right hand side now displays next to the search results. This is referred to them as a Google Knowledge graph.
The Panel results are a composition of collecting information on objects in the real world and forming connections between them with combining information that others find useful from previous positive search results.
These are the first enhancements towards moving from an information engine to a knowledge engine. The results presented will more and more resemble human thoughts as Google will continue to grow the graph and make it richer.
With so much information out there and with so many queries used towards understanding this information Google will better understand the user queries and understand what information is out there on the web. Through time they will connect these queries with the understanding of the information in an intellectual comprehensible manner.
Google Glass
Project Glass is a research and development program by Google. It is focused on the development of an augmented reality head-mounted display that is hands free allowing for displaying of information currently available to most Smartphone users, and allowing for interaction with the Internet via natural language voice commands.
Although head-worn displays for augmented reality is not a new concept, this is backed by Google, running on an Android OS and using their voice search technologies. The first Project Glass demo resembles a pair of normal eyeglasses where the lens is replaced by a heads-up display. In the future, new designs may allow integration of the display into people's normal eye wear or even their contact lenses.
Summary
Google may seem like they are at the forefront of many of the latest internet-based evolutionary technologies, but we can see that this is because these technologies are complementary and reliant on each other.
IPv6 will allow for better ability towards pushing their ever increasing bandwidth intensive service, such as 3D maps, introduction of Google Glass device, and the more elaborate search results. The connection between 3D maps and Google Glass are obvious in that they enhance each other's experiences; Google Earth having more up-to-date imagery submitted via Google Glass while Google Glass viewers having access Street View in a 3D manner due to their 3d mesh technology. People will be conducting searches more frequently and in new manners with the new Google Glass device. They will be submitting voice searches and express their searches as thoughts that will include images and sounds. The results will be these knowledge graphs that are more graphical and more intuitive to those using this device.
There is a symbiotic relationship between all these innovations that drive the others, in which Google seems to be on an upward spiral heading to the future ensuring their place as a leader and an innovator, pushing boundaries and creating markets.
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