Google Manufacturing Optical Switches

Google has been quietly making their own optical switches. This is not a shocking development, as they already build their own servers, so you can really see this as just one more arena where Google is using in house technology to make hardware to their own specifications. The surprising thing to me is that Google’s innovation seems to be much broader than the average Googler sees on a daily basis. We all know that the system gobbles up content on the internet and then serves it back as search results, but now we are gaining some insight to the ‘how‘ part of the equation.

I doubt that Google is in a rush to produce the switches for the market, but is instead utilizing them internally to reduce power consumption, foot print and all the while increasing speed.  I don’t think this means that Cisco and the other leaders in networking hardware can relax, in fact, I think it means they better get serious about producing more energy efficient, small form factor, intuitive devices.

Delve deeper: Andrew Schmitt’s blog at Nyquist Capital where he follows the industry signs like a CSI detective to prove out what Google is up to.

The interesting Website of the day: Qik.com is a revolutionary site that allows users to upload video and photos directly from their phones to the web.  It is still in alpha release, which means you might find it buggy, but check out these videos: Dinner almost finished and this untitled one too.  OK, so these are tiny little videos with not so great resolution, but just think of the young Spielberg’s out there waiting to make content.  Also take a moment to play with the idea that the web is real time and that content if flowing 24 hours a day, all year round.