What is Google?
Google is the world’s most popular search engine and provides many other Internet services. These include email with Gmail, navigation with Google Maps, and video sharing with YouTube. It also offers Google Earth, which uses satellite imagery to show you locations on the planet. In addition, the company has created and marketed several hardware products like Chromebooks and Pixel smartphones. Google has even branched out into technology areas that have nothing to do with searching the Web such as self-driving cars through its subsidiary Waymo and robotics through its research division, X.
Google has offices all over the globe with most of them in the United States including its corporate headquarters, the Googleplex. It also has offices in Europe, Asia and Australia. The company has a huge commercial side, creating and placing the adverts you see on other websites. It also has its own web browser, Google Chrome, and provides an analytics service for website owners. Its iGoogle product allows you to create a personalized homepage with links, RSS feeds and other features.
The company was founded in 1996 by students Larry Page and Sergey Brin. The name of the company was taken from the mathematical term googol (one followed by 100 zeroes) which was the idea for their search algorithm. The first outside funding came from Sun cofounder Andy Bechtolsheim. The company went public in 2004 and became one of the largest American companies not included in the Dow Jones Industrial Average. This made Page and Brin instant billionaires.
Some people have criticized Google for its data collection and use of private information. They also have concerns about how energy is used by servers that run Google’s products. Others have criticized the company for monopoly practices and other traditional business issues. Some users have started a grassroots movement to boycott Google’s products, and this has coalesced in the Reddit online community /r/degoogle.
In 2015, Google reorganized its interests as Alphabet Inc. Google is the most well-known of its subsidiaries, but it also includes Internet services such as DoubleClick and the social network Google+, which was shut down in 2017. Alphabet’s other companies include health venture Calico, tech industry private equity firm CapitalG, robotics firm Intrinsic and “moonshot” technology developer X Development.
Some of the most famous Google products and projects are the self-driving cars developed by its subsidiary Waymo, which have already started to become publicly available. The company has also scanned millions of books and put them online. This project faced legal challenges from authors and publishers who worried about copyright infringement, but in the end they settled and Google allowed the books to be read online for free. The company has also rolled out fiber optic Internet through its Google Fiber service. It also has a hand in Internet TV with its Google Chromecast device. Other innovations are being developed in its research division, Google X. The group wants to realize Internet connections with balloons, and has bought a manufacturer of UAVs.
