
Everything we know Google is working on for the new year - sciurus
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/12/google-tracker-2015-everything-google-is-working-on-for-the-new-year/
======
xasos
I'm especially excited for their Google X projects[1] - Google Glass 2, Google
X Display, and self-driving cars.

If reports[2] are true that the self-driving car will start testing next
month, I predict 2015 may be the year that autonomous vehicles go big. The
true goals of Lyft and Uber will finally be accomplished. I hope there won't
be much red tape getting these cars into action (although there probably will
be).

[1] [http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/12/google-
tracker-2015-e...](http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/12/google-
tracker-2015-everything-google-is-working-on-for-the-new-year/6/#h1)

[2] [http://www.wired.com/2014/12/google-self-driving-car-
prototy...](http://www.wired.com/2014/12/google-self-driving-car-prototype-2/)

~~~
nl
_I predict 2015 may be the year that autonomous vehicles go big._

I'd be interested to hear what you define "go big" as.

It's going to be years before driverless cars are seen at all regularly
outside the areas Google (and others) are testing them in, and at least a
decade before they are common enough to start having a real impact on the
road. The economics of car buying alone will show you that: eg, how many 5
year-old cars do you see on the road? And it'll be at least 5 years before you
can buy a driverless car, right?.

 _I hope there won 't be much red tape getting these cars into action_

Really?!?!?!

I had to pass a driving test to be allowed to drive. I hope something similar
happens for driverless car implementations. While I'd trust a Google-coded
car, I'm not at all sure I'd trust one coded by _< insert a company with less
experience at building high-reliability machine-learning software>_.

~~~
lozf
Self driving cars just have to be _safer_ than Humans -- probably not that
difficult.

The annoying part will be entering our destination in to Google Maps Car
Interface, and having the car tell us:

 _" Because we searched for Chairs the other day, we'll be making a quick stop
at our Sponsor: Furniture Warehouse to see their fantastic selection, with
free delivery... After all your appointment isn't for another 45 mins and
traffic is clear... (you may override this action at a cost of
${LostAdRevenue}"_

~~~
DanBC
> Self driving cars just have to be safer than Humans -- probably not that
> difficult.

Sadly, this probably is not true.

TERRORISTS are the reason we go through ridiculous security theatre at
airports - costig many millions of dollars - when the drive to the airport is
very much more risky that flying.

People are not rational about risk. They will drive a car because they
thinkthey are safe drivers. Giving up control is tricky.

~~~
corobo
Are terrorists driving old fashioned manual control cars into your child's
school?! More at 11

------
bra-ket
they missed Google Genomics:
[https://cloud.google.com/genomics/](https://cloud.google.com/genomics/)

------
laxatives
I've always thought that the Google Ideas projects page was a bit frightening
since many of projects are closely tied to defense.

[https://www.google.com/ideas/projects/](https://www.google.com/ideas/projects/)

~~~
navytank
It doesn't seem to be mentioned directly on the Google Ideas site, but it
seems to be Jared Cohen's own project [1], which could explain the defense-
themed sub-projects. Interestingly, their last public blog post was in late
January [2], and there hasn't seemed to be much public press on what they're
doing in a few years.

[1] [http://www.cfr.org/experts/cybersecurity-iran-technology-
and...](http://www.cfr.org/experts/cybersecurity-iran-technology-and-foreign-
policy/jared-cohen/b16451) [2]
[https://plus.google.com/+GoogleIdeas/posts](https://plus.google.com/+GoogleIdeas/posts)

~~~
patrickk
Julian Assange has some interesting things to say about Jared Cohen:

 _Later that year the two co-wrote a policy piece for the Council on Foreign
Relations’ journal Foreign Affairs, praising the reformative potential of
Silicon Valley technologies as an instrument of US foreign policy. Describing
what they called “coalitions of the connected,” Schmidt and Cohen claimed
that_

 _Democratic states that have built coalitions of their militaries have the
capacity to do the same with their connection technologies. . . . They offer a
new way to exercise the duty to protect citizens around the world._

 _In the same piece they argued that “this technology is overwhelmingly
provided by the private sector.” Shortly afterwards, Tunisia. then Egypt, and
then the rest of the Middle East, erupted in revolution._

Of course, you have to take Assange's word with a pinch of salt, but he does a
good job of explaining how Cohen links the State Department to Google senior
management. So much for "Don't be evil."

[https://wikileaks.org/google-is-not-what-it-
seems/](https://wikileaks.org/google-is-not-what-it-seems/)

------
acheron
I've got a crazy guess here: I bet they're working on more ways to show ads.

~~~
passfree
It is not about the ads any more. Information is far much more important and
they do a fine job at taking over every information stream they can get to. In
the long run this will play a huge role.

~~~
lnanek2
Yes, taking over information streams and injecting ads. Ads are where all
Google's money comes from to pay for the rest of it all.

~~~
passfree
After a certain point I don't think money matters even for Google. :)

~~~
TeMPOraL
I feel Randall Munroe summed it up the best:
[http://xkcd.com/792/](http://xkcd.com/792/) :).

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Zigurd
Ara will be a crappy phone. But it will be potentially important to making
Android, and perhaps the underlying Linux portable across a a range of
instruction sets and SoC architectures, and, of course, a wide range of
peripherals.

------
higherpurpose
If Google wants to offer "Whatsapp competition" in 2015, it should have 2
things, that Hangouts doesn't right now:

1) fast (instant) performance

2) end-to-end encryption (I wouldn't mind if they used the same Axolotl
protocol as TextSecure and Whatsapp)

If it doesn't have any of those, I won't be using it.

~~~
Pxtl
And one thing Whatsapp _does_ have right now:

Support _every_ platform. Not just Android 4 and iOS. You need to go right
down to Android 2.3, Windows Phone, Symbian, Blackberry, Nintendo DS, PSP,
etc. Even IE6.

~~~
stephenr
The precursor to hangouts (talk) had the best kind of cross platform support:
it was an open standard (xmpp) so you didn't need the official Google app to
use it.

The major im apps are all built on xmpp base anyway so what's missing is
support for any extensions they create and open access for third party clients
using standard xmpp protocols

------
amelius
I see no biotech projects. Kind of strange, because it is a hot field,
possibly the next big thing.

~~~
nostromo
There's a whole section on biotech:

[http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/12/google-
tracker-2015-e...](http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/12/google-
tracker-2015-everything-google-is-working-on-for-the-new-year/5/)

Most interesting to me is Calico:

[http://www.calicolabs.com/](http://www.calicolabs.com/)

