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Posted by Monty Solomon on November 5, 2007, 1:50 am
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I, Robot: The Man Behind the Google Phone
By JOHN MARKOFF
The New York Times
November 4, 2007
Mountain View, Calif.
A RETINAL scanner emitting a blue glow monitors the entrance to Andy
Rubin's home in the foothills overlooking Silicon Valley. If the
scanner recognizes you, the door unlocks automatically. (The system
makes it easier to deal with former girlfriends, Mr. Rubin likes to
joke. No messy scenes retrieving keys - it's just a simple database
update.)
Those forced to use the doorbell are greeted with another
technological marvel: a robotic arm inside the glass foyer grips a
mallet and then strikes a large gong. Although Mr. Rubin won't reveal
its cost, it may be one of the world's most expensive doorbells.
"It's not about the cost," said Zarko Draganic, a former colleague of
Mr. Rubin's at Apple Inc. "It's the classic Rubin thing: You do it
for the sake of doing it and because it's cool, and as a result
there's a childlike innocence about it."
Mr. Rubin is one of the primary architects behind another product
that also smacks of potential =FCber-coolness - the Google Phone. As
Google's "director of mobile platforms," Mr. Rubin oversees dozens of
engineers who are developing the software at the company's sprawling
campus here. The software embodies the promise of extending Google's
reach at a time when cellphones allow consumers to increasingly
untether themselves from their desktop computers, as well as the
threat that greater digital mobility poses to Google's domination of
Internet search.
The Google Phone - which, according to several reports, will be made
by Google partners and will be available by the middle of 2008 - is
likely to provide a stark contrast to the approaches of both Apple
and Microsoft to the growing market for smartphones. Google,
according to several people with direct knowledge of its efforts,
will give away its software to hand-set makers and then use the
Google Phone's openness as an invitation for software developers and
content distributors to design applications for it.
If the effort succeeds, it will be the most drastic challenge to date
of the assertion by Microsoft - the godfather of the desktop PC -
that Google and other members of the so-called open-source world can
imitate but not innovate.
=2E..
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/04/technology/04google.html?ex=3D1351828800&e=
n=3D972e4f34160a839e&ei=3D5090
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