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So will Apple’s version of street-based imagery simply be a direct copy of Street View? Possibly not. A patent filed back in 2013 mentions “3D Position Tracking for Panoramic Imagery Navigation,” and the filing is disparaging of existing imaging software, calling it a “tedious experience,” though it doesn’t mention Google Street View by name. — venturebeat.com
Google already had building rights for a fifth site overlooking Charleston Park, just east of the current Googleplex [...]
A 2007 lease agreement allows Google to build up to 595,000 square feet of office and commercial space there. [...]
The new plans feature the same futuristic designs by European architects Bjarke Ingels and Thomas Heatherwick that were part of the larger plan debated by the city this year.
— mercurynews.com
For some background on the Googleplex expansion plans: Google loses to LinkedIn in Silicon Valley HQ pitchCritical response to Googleplex expansion focuses on suburban development, not architectureGoogle Unveils BIG + Heatherwick Studios Collaboration for New Campus Master Plan View full entry
In a blow to Google’s expansion plans, on Tuesday the Mountain View City Council voted to give the search giant roughly a quarter of the office space it had requested for the project, and instead awarded the lion’s share of the city’s future office development –- 1.5 million square feet –- to LinkedIn.
Google received about 500,000 square feet, or about enough to build one of the four buildings it had proposed.
— bits.blogs.nytimes.com
How this news will affect BIG and Heatherwick's design for the Googleplex expansion is as of yet undetermined. Earlier today, we learned that Google planned on constructing its new HQ using "crabots", so clearly sights were set on the Mountain View City Council giving the go-ahead. David... View full entry
Mock-ups of the so-called ‘crabots’ are featured in lengthy planning documents submitted to the City of Mountain View Council in Silicon Valley [...]
‘Our objective is to create a solution that can be assembled efficiently and economically within pre-erected canopy structures by means of small, easily manoeuvrable cranes.’
‘Through the life of the buildings this [will] allow reconfiguration and maintenance…of the canopy envelope from within.’
— architectsjournal.co.uk
The new Googleplex campus expansion, designed by BIG and Heatherwick Studios in collaboration to accommodate 20,000 new Mountain View employees, will be constructed by "an army of robot-crane hybrids", the Architect's Journal reports. Citing planning documents Google submitted to Mountain View... View full entry
Can a high-profile company led by a celebrity CEO come within two weeks of bankruptcy without anyone noticing? In early 2013, ...Tesla Motors came so close to running out of cash that its brash leader, Elon Musk, approached Google about buying the company, according to a new Musk biography. A surge in sales of the company’s pricey Model S sedan staved off disaster. Musk broke off the Google talks, no longer needing a white knight. And no one outside the two companies knew about it. — SF Gate
The Eiffel Tower, one of Paris's most visited attractions, welcoming almost seven million visitors per year, was completed 126 years ago today - and there's a Google Doodle to mark the anniversary. — telegraph.co.uk
Contrary to the Telegraph quote above, the Eiffel Tower was actually completed on March 15. Today's anniversary honors the public opening on March 31, 1889.Joyeux anniversaire, old friend! View full entry
Google’s choice of BIG and Heatherwick Studios to design their Mountain View campus expansion is true to form: big, brash, debatably realistic, with a dash of techno-utopianism. The critical response to the proposal – a series of webbed glass shells covering reconfigurable utility spaces... View full entry
“Silicon Valley has been the cradle of a series of innovations that, over the last decades, have propelled technology and [the] world economy, but all of the resources, all of the intelligence, has been invested into the immaterial, the digital realm, the internet,” asserts Bjarke Ingels of... View full entry
This week, [Google] is expected to propose new headquarters — a series of canopylike buildings from Heatherwick Studio, a London design firm known for works like the fiery caldron at the 2012 Olympics, and Bjarke Ingels [...]
The project in Mountain View, which Google has not made public but has discussed with members of the City Council, is likely to aggravate an increasingly testy relationship between the company and community leaders who fear the company is overrunning their small city.
— nytimes.com
Both Heatherwick Studio and BIG have gained global success working on an impressive variety of scales, from the infrastructural to the sculptural, and also happen to both have relatively young founders (Heatherwick is 45, Ingels is 40). While details aren't expected until later this week, it feels... View full entry
The smart city is, to many urban thinkers, just a buzzphrase that has outlived its usefulness: ‘the wrong idea pitched in the wrong way to the wrong people’. So why did that happen – and what’s coming in its place? — theguardian.com
The suit charges that Google and senior executives stole Eli Attia's invention, which is a technology that shortens and makes significantly cheaper the design and construction process, mainly for high-rise and large buildings. Google estimates that the invention has potential revenue of $120 billion annually. — globes.co.il
Google announced today it’s making a platform available to museums that enables them to build mobile applications that take advantage of Google technology, including Street View and YouTube, to bring their exhibits to anyone with a smartphone. Through partnerships between museums worldwide and the Google Cultural Institute, there are now 11 museums and cultural institutions that have participated in this pilot project to date; their apps are live now on Google Play. — techcrunch.com
Friday, October 3:Eisenhower Memorial clears key hurdle on Gehry design: In a positive step for the Memorial's Approving Process Odyssey, the National Capital Planning Commission has OK'd the Commission on Fine Arts (the other federal body that must approve the design) to vote on the... View full entry
The Information reports that Page started up a Google 2.0 project inside the company a year ago to look at the big challenges facing humanity and the ways Google can overcome them. Among the grand-scale plans discussed were Page's desire to build a more efficient airport as well as a model city. To progress these ideas to fruition, the Google chief has also apparently proposed a second research and development lab, called Google Y... — theverge.com
Friday, August 29:MIT's MindRider helmet draws mental maps as you bike: The prototype is currently being used to create a mental-map and guidebook for NYC, and an upcoming Kickstarter campaign will attempt to fund the project for commercial sale.In Beirut, a grassroots push for more grass... View full entry
