Google to the power of Googol for fainboiz

Note: Some or all of this article may be parody...

It’s been an incredible year for the world’s coolest company.

Consistently ranked as the best place to work for as long as I can remember, the last 12 months has seen some pretty ground-breaking steps forward for the Mountain View company: driverless cars, balloon powered internet, the world’s most popular mobile operating system and of course, Google Glass.

driverless cars, balloon powered internet, the world’s most popular mobile operating system and of course, Google Glass.

It’s not hard to see why Google keep topping Fortune’s best company to work for list. In addition to the standard: free healthcare, every insurance you can name, time off for kids, reimbursed education, free legal advice etc, Google goes over and beyond for its employees: free massages/haircuts/gourmet food, sleeping pods and even an ice hockey rink and horseshoe pit in the workplace. Oh, and if you ever have the urge to do an Oscar Pistorius, make sure they work at Google – if a Google employee dies their spouse gets half their salary for a decade. Basically, I wouldn’t be surprised if the company went to the extent to pay for free escorts so employees could look like they have hot girlfriends and would have a petting zoo every day of the year (rather than one day to distress exam ridden students).

It’s no surprise that their employees are happy. But combine this with a policy that all engineers must spend 20% of their time on a personal project, with 100% full autonomy, and you get a crazy range of fascinating, useful and sometimes pointless innovations. These include: GoogleAds, Gmail, Plus, Maps, Streetview, Translate, Goggles etc.

So what have Google actually done over the last 12 months and what about their future? Well, basically, it’ll get a whole lot more evasive into your personal space, but that’s most definitely a good thing. It just means we’ll be able to do more and at the same time be lazier. Google’s driverless carsfor example are completely legal and in use all over California. With a rollout predicted by the end of the year, Google employees (and many others) will soon be safely working in the back of their car on their way to work without a chauffeur!

Google’s recently announced “Loon” aims to give balloon-powered the internet to the entire world with the slogan “Loon for all”. By sending balloons up into the sky Google claim they can help to better education, healthcare, business and, well, just about everything. In the launch video they say “1 in three children can’t get to a secondary school, but with the internet, school can come to them” and “where there aren’t enough doctors, doctors can help you from other places” etc. Thus everyone in the world will be able to enjoy access to the anarchist cookbook and 4chan, not bad.

But Google Glass is by far the coolest innovation that has taken serious steps forward. Currently out to a few thousand people, it won’t be long before their out for the public and will replace our phones. No doubt with a load of custom apps, being socially awkward will never been easier.

have you ever wanted to film random people on the tube – I know I have – Google Glass makes this happen super subtly

For example, have you ever wanted to film random people on the tube – I know I have – Google Glass makes this happen super subtly. No longer do we have to be sneaky with our phone, we can just look at people…perfect! Another add-on that’ll no doubt will come out could be a novelty x-ray, so that when people say “just relax and imagine the audience naked” when you speak, you don’t really have to imagine, Google will put a pretty accurate overlay on there for you (although I’m not sure that’ll really help you if you’re a man standing on a stage).

Continuing on the rollercoaster of privacy, Google streetview has massively expanded in the last 12 month. At release Streetview aided thousands of couples around the world spot their partner ‘cheating’ (as well as helping us get to places). But not only has streetview expanded across countries and the Amazon rainforest, but now Google is going into shops and venues to give you an even more complete experience! If expanded one day into homes maybe you’ll be able to catch more than just your partner holding hands with someone else on the street.