novox77
Leeeroy Jennnkinnns!
I was recently in the bay area for a family wedding, and my cousin who works for Google invited me to tour some of the Googleplex. I was able to see the inside of a few of the Android buildings (she works in the Android marketing dept). Here are some photos:
Entrance to one of the Android buildings (45)
At each entrance are communal bike helmets, a bike pump, and umbrellas. Biking is heavily encouraged as the primary means of transportation within the Googleplex. They even have communal bikes (pictured further below).
The reception desk for each building has these four lava lamps, each on representing Google's official colors. Notice how they match the order of the colors in the Google logo in the background.
My cousin's desk. OMG she uses an Apple product as her main computer! And the phone next to it is a Nexus. Actually a quick glance around the office and you'll see a lot of Apple devices here and there. Fanboyism apparently is non-existent amongst Google employees. Let that be a lesson to us consumers.
Visitor parking signs have the Android logo on them. In the foreground is a symbol of the wealth that the tech industry has generated in the last couple of decades.
In many areas, you'll see that red sign, preventing visitors like me from proceeding deeper into the Googleplex and stealing their top secret plans. In this case, their secret appears to be an arcade room.
While touring the building, I saw no less than 10 employees wearing Google Glass eyewear. Most of them were staring at random things. According to my cousin, they were testing some new feature. She doesn't have much visibility into the Glass project. If I were to guess, they're testing the glass's ability to return some description of what they were scanning with the glasses. I'm thinking some more advanced version of Google Goggles, kinda like the red screen we see from a Terminator's first person perspective. Wouldn't that be badass... Anyhow, it was a bit awkward to take a picture of someone, but fortunately for me, this gal was looking at the Jelly Bean statue, and I used that as an excuse to take a shot. When she saw me focusing in her general direction, she started to walk away, but I was able to take the shot with her still in it.
This was a showcase of a bunch of Android phones. I did not discern which phones were selected to be showcased; I can't imagine this is every Android phone in existence. Next to each phone is one of those Android collectible figurines.
There was an upstairs lounge where the floor was made from glass panes. Note the sign warning people of the potential for people downstairs to look upwards.
A badass sculpture of something that looks like an Alien and Predator hybrid. It was made out of coils, chains, and other mechanical-looking parts.
A large-scale replica of the HTC Nexus One. AFAIK, the screen was not touch-reactive. It's just a monitor that showed off a demo of an earlier version of Android.
Now I'm in the dessert garden. Note the Space Invaders alien in the background.
A wide shot of all the desserts on display. For those who don't know, they represent various Android OS versions. Jelly Bean, the most current version, was not represented when I was there. Although I've read many reasons online why the JB sculpture was removed, my cousin said the official reason was that the original version had loose jelly beans, and someone stole them. So they were working on a new sculpture where the Jelly Beans would be non-removable. Apparently, the new one is up now.
A Google employee zips by on a communal Google Bike as I'm taking shots of the dessert garden. Note Google's official colors on the bikes. Quite ugly. And that ensures that theft of the bikes are kept to a minimum.
Lastly, I got a sneak peak at Google's flagship cloud-based product: Google Restrooms. I was unable to determine when it would be released.
Lastly, I visited the Google Store (gift shop). They didn't allow me to take photos in there for whatever reason (but people testing Google Glass was ok??? go figure), but basically the store sold the stuff that's also available in the online version of the store:
Google Online Store
You can get cute stuff like Gmail logo pillows, Chrome pillows, clothing, and tons of other Google stuff. I ended up getting an Android bike jersey:
Men's Bike Jersey - Android
My cousin also let me have one of these from Google I/O:
Apparently they don't sell them anywhere, so it may become a collectible.
Saw a lot of nerdy T-shirts being worn by employees, both male and female. Lunch on the Googleplex campus is free for employees. And the food was pretty good at the cafeteria I went to.
Was pretty cool to get an inside look at where Android is being developed. Incidentally, I also got a tour of Apple's complex through a family friend. Didn't get to see too much, as the lockdown was much tighter there. And no photos allowed anywhere indoors. Needless to say I enjoyed the Google/Android tour a lot more.
Entrance to one of the Android buildings (45)
At each entrance are communal bike helmets, a bike pump, and umbrellas. Biking is heavily encouraged as the primary means of transportation within the Googleplex. They even have communal bikes (pictured further below).
The reception desk for each building has these four lava lamps, each on representing Google's official colors. Notice how they match the order of the colors in the Google logo in the background.
My cousin's desk. OMG she uses an Apple product as her main computer! And the phone next to it is a Nexus. Actually a quick glance around the office and you'll see a lot of Apple devices here and there. Fanboyism apparently is non-existent amongst Google employees. Let that be a lesson to us consumers.
Visitor parking signs have the Android logo on them. In the foreground is a symbol of the wealth that the tech industry has generated in the last couple of decades.
In many areas, you'll see that red sign, preventing visitors like me from proceeding deeper into the Googleplex and stealing their top secret plans. In this case, their secret appears to be an arcade room.
While touring the building, I saw no less than 10 employees wearing Google Glass eyewear. Most of them were staring at random things. According to my cousin, they were testing some new feature. She doesn't have much visibility into the Glass project. If I were to guess, they're testing the glass's ability to return some description of what they were scanning with the glasses. I'm thinking some more advanced version of Google Goggles, kinda like the red screen we see from a Terminator's first person perspective. Wouldn't that be badass... Anyhow, it was a bit awkward to take a picture of someone, but fortunately for me, this gal was looking at the Jelly Bean statue, and I used that as an excuse to take a shot. When she saw me focusing in her general direction, she started to walk away, but I was able to take the shot with her still in it.
This was a showcase of a bunch of Android phones. I did not discern which phones were selected to be showcased; I can't imagine this is every Android phone in existence. Next to each phone is one of those Android collectible figurines.
There was an upstairs lounge where the floor was made from glass panes. Note the sign warning people of the potential for people downstairs to look upwards.
A badass sculpture of something that looks like an Alien and Predator hybrid. It was made out of coils, chains, and other mechanical-looking parts.
A large-scale replica of the HTC Nexus One. AFAIK, the screen was not touch-reactive. It's just a monitor that showed off a demo of an earlier version of Android.
Now I'm in the dessert garden. Note the Space Invaders alien in the background.
A wide shot of all the desserts on display. For those who don't know, they represent various Android OS versions. Jelly Bean, the most current version, was not represented when I was there. Although I've read many reasons online why the JB sculpture was removed, my cousin said the official reason was that the original version had loose jelly beans, and someone stole them. So they were working on a new sculpture where the Jelly Beans would be non-removable. Apparently, the new one is up now.
A Google employee zips by on a communal Google Bike as I'm taking shots of the dessert garden. Note Google's official colors on the bikes. Quite ugly. And that ensures that theft of the bikes are kept to a minimum.
Lastly, I got a sneak peak at Google's flagship cloud-based product: Google Restrooms. I was unable to determine when it would be released.
Lastly, I visited the Google Store (gift shop). They didn't allow me to take photos in there for whatever reason (but people testing Google Glass was ok??? go figure), but basically the store sold the stuff that's also available in the online version of the store:
Google Online Store
You can get cute stuff like Gmail logo pillows, Chrome pillows, clothing, and tons of other Google stuff. I ended up getting an Android bike jersey:
Men's Bike Jersey - Android
My cousin also let me have one of these from Google I/O:
Apparently they don't sell them anywhere, so it may become a collectible.
Saw a lot of nerdy T-shirts being worn by employees, both male and female. Lunch on the Googleplex campus is free for employees. And the food was pretty good at the cafeteria I went to.
Was pretty cool to get an inside look at where Android is being developed. Incidentally, I also got a tour of Apple's complex through a family friend. Didn't get to see too much, as the lockdown was much tighter there. And no photos allowed anywhere indoors. Needless to say I enjoyed the Google/Android tour a lot more.
