X, the research arm of Google's parent company, Alphabet is working with Indian internet service provider AP State FiberNet to deliver internet service to millions of customers in the state of Andhra Pradesh, without cable.
Instead X is using Free Space Optical Communication (FSOC) links to deploy internet services, a solution that was used in Project Loon. For the unaware, X's Project Loon used hot air balloons to deliver internet access to remote areas in developing countries.
According to X, FSOC is just like "fiber optic cable, but without the cable" and uses light beams to deliver high speed, high capacity connectivity over long distance. And because there’s no cable, this will save time, cost, and hassle involved in digging trenches or stringing cable along poles. The FSOC boxes can simply be placed on roofs or towers, and beam signal between the boxes across rivers, roads and railways.
The FSOC links are said to provide connections of up to 20Gbps over long distances, which is enough bandwidth to connect major access points, like cell-towers and WiFi hotspots, that support thousands of people in rural and remote areas across the state, without spending much.
X says AP State Fibernet will roll out two thousand FSOC links to connect 12 million households and thousands of government organizations and businesses in Andhra Pradesh by 2019.
Source
Alphabet has announced financial results for Q2 2016 (April to June) that beats analysts' expectations. The parent company of Google reported $21.1 billion in revenue, up 21.3 percent YoY, compared to $17.6 billion during same quarter a year ago, beating Wall Street's $20.76 billion in revenue expectation.
The net income stood at $4.9 billion, up 24 percent, compared to $3.9 billion
during the same quarter last year.
Alphabet's "Other Bets" which includes project like Google Fiber, Nest Thermostats, science
initiatives Calico and Verily, and Self Driving cars and X research divsion reported revenue of $185 million for the quarter.
Alphabet's advertising revenue were up 19.5 percent to 19.14 billion. Aggregate paid clicks were up 29 percent from the same period last year, with paid clicks on Google website going up by 37 percent year-over-year.
Google's CEO Sundar Pichai during the quarterly conference call revealed that the company sold over 30 million units of Chromecast media casting devices. To recall, in May Google revealed that it sold 25 million Chromecasts, which means 5 million units more were sold in last two months.
Source 1 | 2
Alphabet, the parent company of Google has surpassed Apple as the most valuable company in the United States, ending Apple's four and a half year reign. Alphabet is now worth around $568 billion as compared with Apple, which has a value of $535 billion.
Alphabet also surpassed Wall Street expectations and recorded $21.3 billion of revenue with profits of $4.9 billion for Q4 ended December 31 2015. The change may signal the passing of technology baton to Alphabet from Apple which went pass Microsoft in 2010.
The reason is that, Alphabet has a bigger ecosystem as compared to Apple. Alphabet includes Google business which includes the search engine and YouTube, and than there are the 'Other Bets' which include self-driving cars, Google Capital, the secretive X research division, Google Fiber and Nest (offers smart home accessories).
On the other hand Apple relies heavily on sale of its iPhone, which accounts for two-third of revenue, but sales increased only 1 percent in the fiscal Q1 as compared to last year, while iPad and Mac revenue dropped. Analyst's believe that unless Apple changes course and decides to compete with low cost Android devices on price, iPhones the best days are in the past.
On an annual basis, Alphabet made $16.3 billion, but the figures show
that the 'Other Bets" (self-driving cars, Google Capital, X research
division and Nest) business lost $3.6 billion during the period, while
Google's operating income rose to $23.4 billion, due to increasing sales
of advertising on mobile devices. According to analyst
Google is poised to capture 32 percent of mobile ad market this year
and next, staying ahead of Facebook which is around 20 percent.
Meanwhile, during the sales call, Sundar Pichai, Google's CEO announced that Gmail now has more than 1 billion monthly active users, up from 900 million users in May 2015. This is the seventh-billion user service for Google which also includes, search, Chrome, Android, Google Play, Maps and YouTube.
Via
On October 2, Google completed the process of its transformation into a holding company called Alphabet. Google will now be solely responsible for search, ads, maps, apps,
YouTube, Android and related technical infrastructure.
The structural overhaul was announced back in August, is to separate the core businesses from ventures such as the driverless
cars, glucose-monitoring contact lenses and Internet-connected
high-altitude balloons. Google's Sidewalk Labs, which is dedicated to coming up technologies to improve urban city infrastructure such as WiFi program, will now also be part of Alphabet.
The core business will be Google, headed by Sundar Pichai and will be operated as a wholly-owned subsidiary of Alphabet which will be run by Google co-founder Larry Page, and each of its businesses will have its own Chief executive.
Starting from Q4 in January, Alphabet will have two reporting units- the first being Google and the the second Alphabet businesses taken as a whole. Alphabet's businesses will also include connected home products maker Nest, venture capital arm Google ventures and Google Capital, which invests in larger tech companies.
Now, with Google having transformed into Alphabet, a new code of conduct for its employees was posted by Alphabet on its website. Earlier it was Don't be evil' and the new code of conduct is “do
the right thing – follow the law, act honorably, and treat each other
with respect.”
Google's Old code of conduct, 'Don't be evil' was written for its 2004 IPO was much longer and included rules relating to co-worker relationships, pets and at-work alcohol consumption, while Alphabet's sticks to the basics like avoid conflict of interest, maintain integrity and obey law. Since the majority of Alphabet employees will still be Google employees, this change affects them also.
Source
Internet search giant, Google is now under a new parent company dubbed Alphabet which is a new technology holding headed by Google's founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin. Larry Page moves up to be CEO of Alphabet along with Sergey Brin functioning as the President. Eric Schmidt will be the executive chairman.
Alphabet is a collection of companies with Google being the largest
subsidiary. It will act as an umbrella corporation for ventures like
Nest, Google X , Google Fibre and other incubator projects (wings, drones) amongst other.
These will operate indiviaually and managed separately from Google.
Google will still be the umbrella company for sear, ads, maps, apps,
YouTube, Android and related technical infrastructure.
Under the new structure, "this newer Google is a bit slimmed down,
with the companies that are pretty far afield of our main Internet
products contained in Alphabet instead."
Alphabet will also replace Google as
publicly-traded entity and all shares of Google will automatically
convert into the same number of shares as Alphabet, with all the same rights. Google will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Alphabet. Google financials will be provided separately than
those for the rest of Alphabet businesses as a whole.
As a part of the restructure, Sundar Pichai, the man who has been the Senior VP of products like Chrome and Android will now be the CEO of Google.
via
