Is Google’s X Lab the Xerox PARC of Our Day?

on June 19, 2015

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, I had the distinct privilege of serving on the Xerox PARC Venture advisory board. This arm of Xerox PARC was created in the heyday of the early internet and was designed to look at technology inside Xerox PARC and mine the IP to either find ways to productize it or license it to bring new revenues into this hallowed research facility. High tech historians know some of the most important PC technology created were done so at Xerox PARC. Things like the mouse, ethernet, the Graphical User Interface, Object Oriented programming, laser printers and the original concept of the tablet/laptop, Alan Kay’s DynaBook, were all developed inside this lab. Historians will also know that, while these were developed at PARC, most were commercialized outside of the company and, in many cases, Xerox did not make much money from these inventions.

I have to admit that during this time I was like a kid in a candy store. The advisory board would meet at various Xerox locations around the world and researchers and scientists would show us what they were working on. We would then research the feasibility or marketability of the products put in front of us. A few would actually be sponsored by this Xerox Venture fund along with various VCs, while others would be licensed for use by big companies and start ups who could use the IP to build and grow their companies. My NDA from this project prohibits me from telling what was funded or licensed but, during the time I spent as an advisor, we saw a few technologies come out of the labs and make it to the market, mostly through licensing agreements.

But what I discovered during my time as an advisor to the Xerox Venture Group was that these PARC researchers pretty much had carte blanche to go off and create the things of their imagination. While there were many projects around strategic goals for Xerox, some things I was shown were just one-off interesting inventions. For example, one product I saw I can comment on was a two-handed mouse. The guys behind this were convinced it would revolutionize computer input. However, using it was impossible since both hands would be tied up using the mouse and neither could be used to type at the same time. As you can imagine, this one did not get out the door.

Of course, Xerox PARC is not the only important research lab in Silicon Valley. SRI, HP, Intel and many others continue to do ground-breaking research that impacts our tech world. However, one lab in the Valley has the feel of Xerox PARC in that they seem to be open to working on all types of technology ideas that go way beyond the strategic goals of the company. Google’s X Lab has emerged as one of the more interesting tech research labs on the planet and, given their financial means, they could have a great impact on the role technology plays in our lives in the future.

Some of the publicly known research projects include self-driving cars, space elevators, Project Loon (balloons that hover over areas without internet connection and give access), Project Wing (a drone delivery service), Google Contact Lenses that monitor glucose in tears, a wind power company called Makani Power, Lift Labs, makers of a tremor-canceling spoon for Parkinson patients, artificial neural networks for speech recognition, the Web of Things, Google Glasses, a hoverboard, and even experiments in teleportation.

These are publicly known projects but who knows what else Google X Labs is doing given a similar approach and what appears to be a strong commitment to broad research and a hefty budget to back it.

Of great personal interest to me are the contact lenses that can monitor blood sugar. As a diabetic, this particular research could make my life very different. Today, I have to test my blood at least four times a day to adjust my insulin doses. The idea behind these contact lenses is, when worn, they use tears and take a blood sugar measurement to give people accurate readings a diabetic patient can act on. Diabetes has become a huge problem all over the world and perfecting this technology could be a major breakthrough for diabetes care. However, this project underscores the idea that Google’s X Lab has the latitude to do research projects well beyond their strategic interests and do what are often referred to as “moonshots” or creating new technologies that could have major worldwide impact.

Over the years, I have advised various research labs in my work but most were highly focused on creating strategic technologies that would benefit their bottom line. That does not seem to be case with Google’s X Lab. From what I hear, they are also working on food projects dealing with world hunger, environmental projects for protecting the planet and many others that appear to stray well beyond their bottom line interests. I applaud Google’s Xerox PARC-like approach to research with X Labs and am intrigued that this lab has emerged as what might be called “the Xerox PARC of our age”.