User:Samuel Wiki/Google

History

In 2001, Google received a patent for its PageRank mechanism. The patent was officially assigned to Stanford University and lists Lawrence Page as the inventor.

In January 2008, all the data that passed through Google's MapReduce software component had an aggregated size of 20 petabytes per day. In 2009, a CNN report about top political searches of 2009 noted that "more than a billion searches" are being typed into Google on a daily basis.

Products - Search engine

In competition with Amazon.com, Google sells digital versions of new books.

Products - Hardware

In April 2016, Recode reported that Google had hired Rick Osterloh, Motorola Mobility's former President, to head Google's new hardware division. In October 2016, Osterloh stated that "a lot of the innovation that we want to do now ends up requiring controlling the end-to-end user experience", and Google announced several hardware platforms:


 * The Pixel and Pixel XL smartphones with the Google Assistant, a next-generation contextual voice assistant, built-in.

In October 2018, Google announced the Pixel 3. The phone was released initially in the United States on October 18, 2018 and other parts of the world on November 1, 2018. They are the successors to the Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL.

In May 2019, Google unveiled the Pixel 3a at Google I/O, seven months after the announcement of the original Pixel 3 lineup. The new phones served as midrange variants of the Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL with a 12.2 megapixel rear camera, which is the same unit found on the Pixel 3, and a single 8 megapixel front-facing camera. The base model came with a Snapdragon 670 chip and 4GB of RAM, along with 64GB of non-expandable internal storage.

In October 2019, Google announced the Pixel 4, the first Pixel phone to be offered for sale by all major wireless carriers at launch. The company also announced the second generation of its Pixel Buds, a line of wireless earbuds with the Google Assistant built-in that also support Google Translate.

In November 2019, Google released a controller for Stadia.

In August 2020, Google launched the Pixel 4a, months later than expected as the COVID-19 pandemic led to the cancellation of its annual I/O developer conference.

In September 2020, Google launched the Pixel 4a 5G and the Pixel 5 at their live-streamed Launch Night In event. The phones were released alongside the new Nest Audio as well as Chromecast with Google TV.

Products - Enterprise

Google Search Appliance was launched in February 2002, targeted toward providing search technology for larger organizations. Google launched the Mini three years later, which was targeted at smaller organizations. Late in 2006, Google began to sell Custom Search Business Edition, providing customers with an advertising-free window into Google.com's index. The service was renamed Google Site Search in 2008. Site Search customers were notified by email in late March 2017 that no new licenses for Site Search would be sold after April 1, 2017, but that customer and technical support would be provided for the duration of existing license agreements.

Products - Other products

Google Alerts is a content change detection and notification service, offered by the search engine company Google. The service sends emails to the user when it finds new results—such as web pages, newspaper articles, or blogs—that match the user's search term.

In July 2015 Google released DeepDream, an image recognition software capable of creating psychedelic images using a convolutional neural network.

Google introduced its Family Link service in March 2017, letting parents buy Android Nougat-based Android devices for kids under 13 years of age and create a Google account through the app, with the parents controlling the apps installed, monitor the time spent using the device, and setting a "Bedtime" feature that remotely locks the device.

In April 2017, Google launched AutoDraw, a web-based tool using artificial intelligence and machine learning to recognize users' drawings and replace scribbles with related stock images that have been created by professional artists. The tool is built using the same technology as QuickDraw, an experimental game from Google's Creative Lab where users were tasked with drawing objects that algorithms would recognize within 20 seconds.

In May 2017, Google added "Family Groups" to several of its services. The feature, which lets users create a group consisting of their family members' individual Google accounts, lets users add their "Family Group" as a collaborator to shared albums in Google Photos, shared notes in Google Keep, and common events in Google Calendar. At announcement, the feature is limited to Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Russia, Spain, United Kingdom and United States.

Products - Other websites

Google Developers is Google's site for software development tools, APIs, and technical resources. The site contains documentation on using Google developer tools and APIs—including discussion groups and blogs for developers using Google's developer products.

Google Labs was a page created by Google to demonstrate and test new projects.

Google owns the top-level domain 1e100.net which is used for some servers within Google's network. The name is a reference to the scientific E notation representation for 1 googol, $1E100 = 1 × 10^{100}$.

In March 2017, Google launched a new website, opensource.google.com, to publish its internal documentation for Google Open Source projects.

In June 2017, Google launched "We Wear Culture", a searchable archive of 3,000 years of global fashion. The archive, a result of collaboration between Google and over 180 museums, schools, fashion institutes, and other organizations, also offers curated exhibits of specific fashion topics and their impact on society.

Employees

The report also announced that Intel's former vice-president, CDO, and CHRO Danielle Brown would be joining Google as its new Vice-President of Diversity.

In March 2008, Sheryl Sandberg, then vice-president of global online sales and operations, began her position as chief operating officer of Facebook. In 2009, early employee Tim Armstrong left to become CEO of AOL. In July 2012, Google's first female engineer, Marissa Mayer, left Google to become Yahoo!'s CEO.

In January 2017, Google employees donated over $2 million to a crisis fund in support of refugees; the company matched the donation with an additional $2 million. Employees then organized a global workplace walk-out, aided by the hashtag #GooglersUnite, to protest U.S. President Donald Trump's Muslim travel ban.

In late 2017, former Intel executive Diane Bryant became Chief Operating Officer of Google Cloud.

Offices - Googleplex

The lobby is decorated with a piano, lava lamps, old server clusters, and a projection of search queries on the wall. The hallways are full of exercise balls and bicycles. Many employees have access to the corporate recreation center. Recreational amenities are scattered throughout the campus and include a workout room with weights and rowing machines, locker rooms, washers and dryers, a massage room, assorted video games, table football, a baby grand piano, a billiard table, and ping pong. In addition to the recreation room, there are snack rooms stocked with various foods and drinks, with special emphasis placed on nutrition. Free food is available to employees 24/7, with the offerings provided by paid vending machines prorated based on and favoring those of better nutritional value.

Google's extensive amenities are not available to all of its workers. Temporary workers such as book scanners do not have access to shuttles, Google cafes, or other perks.

Offices

The New York headquarters includes a game room, micro-kitchens, and a video game area.

In February 2012, Google moved additional employees to the New York City campus, with a total of around 2,750 employees.

Environment

In addition, Google announced in 2009 that it was deploying herds of goats to keep grassland around the Googleplex short, helping to prevent the threat from seasonal bush fires while also reducing the carbon footprint of mowing the extensive grounds. The idea of trimming lawns using goats originated from Bob Widlar, an engineer who worked for National Semiconductor. In 2008, Google faced accusations in Harper's Magazine of being an "energy glutton". The company was accused of employing its "Don't be evil" motto and its public energy-saving campaigns to cover up or make up for the massive amounts of energy its servers require.

In 2007, Google launched a project centered on developing renewable energy, titled the "Renewable Energy Cheaper than Coal (RE<C)" project. However, the project was canceled in 2014, after engineers Ross Koningstein and David Fork understood, after years of study, that "best-case scenario, which was based on our most optimistic forecasts for renewable energy, would still result in severe climate change", writing that they "came to the conclusion that even if Google and others had led the way toward a wholesale adoption of renewable energy, that switch would not have resulted in significant reductions in carbon dioxide emissions".

The farms, which were developed by NextEra Energy Resources, will reduce fossil fuel use in the region and return profits. NextEra Energy Resources sold Google a twenty-percent stake in the project to get funding for its development.

The order specifically states that Google Energy—a subsidiary of Google—holds the rights "for the sale of energy, capacity, and ancillary services at market-based rates", but acknowledges that neither Google Energy nor its affiliates "own or control any generation or transmission" facilities.

In June 2013, The Washington Post reported that Google had donated $50,000 to the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a libertarian think tank that calls human carbon emissions a positive factor in the environment and argues that global warming is not a concern.

In July 2013, it was reported that Google had hosted a fundraising event for Oklahoma Senator Jim Inhofe, who has called climate change a "hoax". In 2014 Google cut ties with the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) after pressure from the Sierra Club, major unions and Google's own scientists because of ALEC's stance on climate change and opposition to renewable energy.