secret research subsidiary of alphabet inc. . for the canadian television series see x company . for the online banking company x.com see paypal . for other uses see x disambiguation . x formerly called google x 2010 2015 type subsidiary of alphabet inc. industry research and development founded january 2010 ; 6 years ago 2010 01 as google x under google october 2 2015 ; 12 months ago 2015 10 02 as x under alphabet inc. founders sebastian thrun yoky matsuoka astro teller headquarters mountain view california united states key people astro teller ceo captain of moonshots products artificial intelligence computational neuroscience health care biotechnology parent google 2010 2015 alphabet inc. 2015 present subsidiaries subsidiaries makani power schaft industrial perception redwood robotics meka robotics holomni bot & dolly autofuss boston dynamics deepmind jetpac gecko design flutter dnnresearch website solveforx.com x an american semi secret research and development facility founded by google in january 2010 as google x 1 2 operates as a subsidiary of alphabet inc. 3 x has its headquarters about a half mile from google s corporate headquarters the googleplex in mountain view california . 4 5 work at x is overseen by entrepreneur scientist astro teller as ceo and captain of moonshots . 6 7 8 the lab started with the development of google s self driving car . 8 on 2 october 2015 after the complete restructuring of google into alphabet the company was renamed to x. contents 1 projects 1.1 self driving car 1.2 loon 1.3 wing 1.4 glass 1.5 barge 1.6 graduated projects 1.7 other projects 2 approach 3 subsidiaries 4 campus 5 see also 6 references 7 external links projects edit while x projects are often referred to as moonshots within the company not all so described moonshots are part of x. for example calico google s life extension project is considered a moonshot but is not a part of x. 9 10 in mid 2014 google said there were eight projects being developed at x. 11 as of late 2014 x projects that have been revealed include wing glass loon and the driverless car . self driving car edit main article google driverless car the google driverless car is a project by google that involves developing technology for driverless cars . the project was led by google engineer sebastian thrun director of the stanford artificial intelligence laboratory and co inventor of google street view . thrun s team at stanford created the robotic vehicle stanley which won the 2005 darpa grand challenge and its us 2 million prize from the united states department of defense . 12 the team developing the system consisted of 15 engineers working for google including chris urmson mike montemerlo and anthony levandowski who had worked on the darpa grand and urban challenges . 13 the u.s. state of nevada passed a law in june 2011 concerning the operation of driverless cars in nevada . google had been lobbying for driverless car laws . 14 15 16 the license was issued to a toyota prius modified with google s experimental driver less technology . 17 as of march 2016 update google had test driven their fleet of vehicles in autonomous mode a total of 1 498 214 mi 2 411 142 km . 18 loon edit main article project loon project loon is a project that aims to bring internet access to everyone by creating an internet network of balloons flying through the stratosphere . it uses wireless routers in balloons that are above weather and plans to give access to the internet to those who can t reach it or are in need of help . 19 wing edit project wing is a project that aims to rapidly deliver products across a city by using flying vehicles similar to the amazon prime air concept . 20 at the time of the announcement on august 28 2014 it had already been in development secretly at google for about two years with full scale testing being carried out in australia . the flying vehicles take off vertically then rotate to a horizontal position for flying around . for delivery it hovers and winches packages down to the ground . at the end of the tether is a small bundle of electronics which detects that the package has hit the ground detaches from the delivery and is pulled back up into the body of the vehicle . dropping the cargo or landing were found to be unfeasible as users compromised the safety . 21 glass edit main article google glass project glass is a research and development program by google to develop an augmented reality head mounted display hmd . 22 the intended purpose of project glass products would be the hands free displaying of information currently available to most smartphone users 23 and allowing for interaction with the internet via natural language voice commands . 24 barge edit in october 2013 the existence of four google barges was revealed with the vessels registered under the dummy corporation by and large . two of the barges have a superstructure whose construction has been kept under the utmost secrecy while speculations indicate they could be used as marketing for and stores for google glass . however it must be noted that these are merely speculations . others have suggested that it might be used as a floating data center . 25 graduated projects edit the google contact lens a smart contact lens that aims to assist people with diabetes by constantly measuring the glucose levels in their tears was announced by google on 16 january 2014 . 26 this project the nanodiagnostics project 27 to develop a cancer detecting pill and other life sciences efforts are now being carried out by verily . 28 google brain is now a deep learning research project at google which started as an x project . considered one of the biggest successes 29 astro teller has said this one project has produced enough value for google to more than cover the total costs of x. 30 other projects edit the web of things a way of connecting real world objects to the internet . 5 long lasting smartphone batteries . 31 projects that x has considered and rejected include a space elevator which was deemed to be currently infeasible ; 32 a hoverboard which was determined to be too costly relative to the societal benefits ; 33 a user safe jetpack which was thought to be too loud and energy wasting ; 34 and teleportation which was found to violate the laws of physics . 34 approach edit in february 2016 astro teller the x captain of moonshots gave a ted talk 35 in which he described the x approach to projects . unusual characteristics of the approach included constantly trying to find reasons to kill off projects by tackling the hardest parts first and both celebrating and rewarding staff when projects were killed off due to failure . subsidiaries edit a number of companies have been acquired and merged into x covering a diverse range of skills including wind turbines robotics artificial intelligence humanoid robots robotic arms and computer vision . in 2013 x acquired makani power a us company which develops tethered wings kites with mounted wind turbines for low cost renewable energy generation . 36 in 2014 it acquired product design and mechanical engineering firm gecko design whose previous products included the fitbit activity tracker and low cost computers . 37 as of 2015 x has acquired 14 companies among them are redwood robotics meka robotics boston dynamics and jetpac . 37 campus edit a reporter from bloomberg businessweek visited the site in 2013 and described it as ordinary two story red brick buildings about a half mile from google s main campus . there s a burbling fountain out front and rows of company issued bikes which employees use to shuttle to the main campus . 4 in 2015 x moved into the old mayfield mall site . see also edit alphabet portal google portal google labs skunkworks project references edit rowan david 31 october 2013 . astro teller of google x wants to improve the world s broken industries . retrieved 25 january 2014 . secret google lab rewards failure . newsnight . bbc . 24 january 2014 . retrieved 25 january 2014 . google to be publicly traded under alphabet inc. in planned restructuring . retrieved 2015 08 10 . a b stone b rad 2013 05 22 . inside google s secret lab . businessweek . retrieved 2013 05 26 . a b cain miller claire ; bilton nick november 13 2011 . google s lab of wildest dreams . the new york times . retrieved february 23 2012 . introduction to project glass . google project glass . 4 april 2012 . retrieved 5 may 2013 via google . a group of us from google x started project glass to build this kind of technology shontell alyson 18 september 2013 . meet the mastermind behind driverless cars glass and more google s chief of moonshots astro teller . business insider . retrieved 25 january 2014 . a b gertner jon 15 april 2014 . the truth about google x an exclusive look behind the secretive lab s closed doors . fast company . retrieved 17 april 2014 . harry mccracken ; lev grossman 18 september 2013 . google vs. death . time . retrieved 18 september 2013 . markoff john 4 december 2013 . google puts money on robots using the man behind android . the new york times . retrieved 4 december 2013 . douglas macmillan ; rolfe winkler 27 may 2014 . google s prototype for autonomous driving has no steering wheel . the wall street journal . retrieved 28 may 2014 . john markoff 2010 10 09 . google cars drive themselves in traffic . the new york times . retrieved 2010 10 11 . sebastian thrun 2010 10 09 . what we re driving at . the official google blog . retrieved 2010 10 11 . nevada enacts law authorizing autonomous driverless vehicles . green car congress . 2011 06 25 . retrieved 2011 06 25 . alex knapp 2011 06 22 . nevada passes law authorizing driverless cars . forbes . retrieved 2011 06 25 . john markoff 2011 05 10 . google lobbies nevada to allow self driving cars . the new york times . retrieved 2011 05 11 . mary slosson 2012 05 08 . google gets first self driven car license in nevada . reuters . retrieved 2012 05 09 . google self driving car project monthly report march 2016 pdf . google . retrieved 23 march 2016 . official website of project loon . droning on . aopa pilot 63 . april 2015 . warwick graham . google details project wing unmanned package delivery r & d aviation week & space technology 3 november 2014 . accessed 5 november 2014 . archived november 5 2014 at the wayback machine . on 5 november 2014 goldman david 4 april 2012 . google unveils project glass virtual reality glasses . money . cnn . albanesius chloe 4 april 2012 . google project glass replaces the smartphone with glasses . pc magazine . newman jared 4 april 2012 . google s project glass teases augmented reality glasses . pcworld . casey newton . google plans to dock mystery barge at former army post in san francisco . the verge . introducing our smart contact lens project . january 16 2014 . retrieved july 31 2016 . why google s cancer detecting pill is more than just hype . . november 5 2014 . retrieved july 31 2016 . official website of x . they promised us jet packs . . july 23 2016 . retrieved july 31 2016 . astro teller google s captain of moonshots on making profits at google x . february 6 2015 . retrieved july 31