Google goes to sea .. world wonders why

By Hiawatha Bray  /  Globe Staff /  November 1, 2013  

 

Shawn Patrick Ouellette/Portland Press Herald An unusual structure on a barge in Portland Harbor has had people buzzing.

 

Google Inc. and its wealthy founders are known in business circles for their fixation on fanciful vessels — from the self-driving car to hot air balloons that provide high-altitude Internet connections. The founders even have their own private air force.

And now it looks like Google is launching its own navy.

Bobbing in the harbor of Portland, Maine, is a barge stacked four stories high with shipping containers that are being converted into a single floating building of some kind, the work done under an extraordinary cloak of secrecy that is a hallmark of Google’s many research projects. And the Big Secret? High-end mobile showrooms that the company can tow to various ports to demonstrate new technologies being developed at Google(X), the company’s highly secretive laboratory devoted to advanced research projects.

http://www.boston.com/business/technology/2013/11/01/google-goes-sea-but-why/KIA2cYrelayg5CgPyEcs8N/story.html

 

Hiawatha Bray can be reached at bray@globe.com.  © Copyright 2013 Globe Newspaper Company.