Inside Google's Secret Lab

Google is stepping out of its search engine outfit by diversifying its business into various fields including Operating Systems to patenting automobile technologies. But apparently, two people at the company, Sergey Brin and Larry Page are determined to do something more- change the future of human kind- at company’s secret lab Google X.

The secret laboratory which reportedly runs "as mysteriously as the C.I.A.," has two facilities one in California and other in an undisclosed location within the U.S. runs Google’s secret projects ranging from humanoid robots to space elevators. The lab is filled with robotic engineers and the research conducted for the sci-fi future or even the existence of lab is unknown to most of the company’s employees.

Sergey Brin is reportedly “deeply involved” with the project and the lab is headed by robotics and artificial intelligence expert Sebastian Thrun from Stanford, best known for his work on the world’s first driverless car and Andrew Ng, a Stanford professor and an esteemed A.I. expert. Other people working in the lab include hires from Nokia, Microsoft, Stanford, M.I.T., New York University and Carnegie Mellon.

Here are some of the secret futuristic projects conducted inside the lab.

Space Elevators

The concept, which is common in science fiction movies, is one of the ambitious project of Google. The idea is simple, a long cable anchored at both ends. One to the ground and other to outer space. You can transport materials from earth to the outer orbits or just attach an elevator car, hit the button, and you could climb easily into the sky. The concept seems to be just an “idea”, but there are confident predictions from various parts of the world like the Irish Times predicted last year that space elevator may well replace the rockets within next 50 years. Also according to reports, Japan aims to build a space elevator by 2050.

"Google is collecting the world's data, so now it could be collecting the solar system's data," said Rodney Brooks, a professor at MIT's computer science and artificial intelligence lab and founder of Heartland Robotics.

Humanoid Robots

  Robots are the prominent figures in many Google X ideas. Apparently Sergey Brin had a conference through his representative robot, which moved around, talked and collected information from a group 40 people gathered in the NASA campus last year. The lab is experimenting on developing robots which can replace the human beings and can be destined to offices and homes for assisting in tasks or help people to work remotely.