Before beginning this new post regarding the third day, I must comment some aspects that I find important and that weren’t present in my last post.
If you decide to settle in Silicon Valley with all your team of engineers, you must know that it is possible that they end in another company soon after.
Another thing that I didn’t comment and that caught my attention is that the famous cable cars, which appear in so many Hollywood movies and that you’ve seen in previous pictures, is guided by a mechanical cable under the asphalt and two persons are in charge of guiding the cable car in each of the street’s intersections. Therefore, when you cross the street where a cable car circulates, you hear the cable under your feet.
… and the day to visit Google in Mountan View has arrived, in the company of Qbo and people from StepOne. As it could not have been otherwise, we first made a welcoming picture and then we went to the meeting room previous to the DNA signature and personal identification with an important warning that it was totally prohibited to take pictures inside the facilities and in the afterward meetings. For that reason, you won’t see any pictures of the inside of the facilities.
Know user
Know the magic
Connect the two
These were the first sentences that appear in the presentation of the company of Mountain View, accompanied by multiple videos identifying in some way each one of the sentences previously presented. Regarding this, I must say that Google must have one of the best marketing and advertising teams because they really impressed me in the videos, despite using an easy technique to reach to people’s heart through the employment of images of small children and elderly people.
After finishing the presentation, we started to walk around to the heart of Google, where a lot of expectations rose when Qbo arrived. Imagine the scene: hundred of young engineers that love technology were passing from one side to the other while a robot walk around nearby. At this point, it is likely that hundred of pictures of Qbo are in the picture’s folder of these engineers in Facebook or in another social network.
Google is huge, very very big, thus you can find anything there, from a swimming pool to a small beach where young fellows in swim shorts play volleyball. Incredible but true. It was always said that Google is another world and I can assure you that.
Eating in Google is another show. I’ve never have seen a place so big to eat nor so many people eating at the same time. Imagine the kitchen, the number of cooks and the structure that they must have in Google so that every day, thousands of workers may chose Mexican, Mediterranean, American, Italian, Asian or Indian food. And of course, all is free. My menu for that day was a delicious Mexican burrito. a brownie and a Pepsi.
The activity in Google is frenetic, hundred of the famous Google’s color bicycles moved in every direction. We could even see the famous car of Google earth.
As it could not have been otherwise, we could not miss visiting the Google Store where I bought some things to remember.
After the “tourist” visit to Google, Qbo and I headed to Intel in Santa Clara where 3 people and a video-conference system connected to Arizona were waiting for a meeting which, for obvious reasons, I will not talk in this post, although I will mention some curious details of it.
Intel breathes in another setting, not better nor worse than Google but completely different. You could feel a quiet and friendly environment as well as a direct treatment and a lot of professionalism. I do not know if it was because my visit to Intel wasn’t of a tourist kind, but I found a very human and close treatment, something that in Google I didn’t feel at any time. I had the chance to walk for about two hours in Santa Clara and I think that this mood is also strongly influenced by the quietly and peaceful area where Intel is located.
In the meeting with Intel, we spoke of general technical details, of the infra structure, of the technology that is yet to arrive, but above all of the security. Intel gives a huge importance to security issues, both regarding the cloud computing as the possibility to hack the systems, and after the meeting, my perspective was that Intel had a clear idea that the future and the developments of the robotic systems or any other type must resolve some issues regarding the security and access to the systems. I was pleasantly surprised on this topic that I didn’t expect at all.
During the meeting, we spoke of some specific aspects of the robot, my vision of living-room robots, of the technology it uses inside and of future plans for Qbo. For me, it was very important that Intel (though it was known by its engineers in Intel’s event of New York held a few months ago) had the opportunity of seeing the robot in action in Intel’s headquarters so that they could touch it and see it physically. And, in spite of knowing the project from Qbo’s blog, they were pleasantly surprised of the appearance of Qbo and the closeness feeling that Qbo emitted. Some videos and new aspects, of which you are going to be witnesses very soon, were also presented in this meeting.
Well yes, the famous search engine was very near to Intel, so, despite not having anything scheduled with them, I tried to show them the robot to see if someone could meet me to show me that at one time they were the best search engine in the world.
Unfortunately, and though it seems weird, there were nobody in Yahoo. Where were the people? 15 minutes waiting and no one appeared at the entrance or around Yahoo, so Qbo and I were in a building incredibly big but quite eerie. And if you don’t believe me here are some pictures.
