Google Investments

In recent news, tech giant Google has just purchased an Israeli start-up who created the app SlickLogin. The amount of the agreed deal has not been disclosed as of yet, but it's interesting to think about how much a program like this may be worth...

With the demise of passwords and their security, professionals have been pondering what the next system for passwords will be.  Google already offers a Face Unlock program on the Android market, but could this start-up be the next big thing?

In a way this program acts like a two-step verification (first created and offered by Google, for free). This is how it works. Users must click the SlickLogin icon on a website to generate the unique "song". Note, the songs cannot be heard by the human ear. The song is played through the speakers, and the app will listen to the unique song and thus verify the user identity. Pretty simple.

It really seems like Google is setting the standard for internet security. I'm glad to see they are pushing for services like this, after all it does seem that hacking and internet security is becoming quite complicated. With the NSA watching over us, and Facebook allegedly releasing people's private information, it's nice to see a large corporation acting on this issue. 

In other news, Google has recently made a huge investment in clean energy. Another win for them in my book. The Google campus is already designed for minimum power usage, but they won't stop there. Google has spent over $2 billion in the last quarter to move to solar, wind, and other alternative energies to power their data centers located around the world. Google has been the most impressive and aggressive in their efforts to minimize their footprint. 15 wind and solar investments have been made recently, totaling over $1 billion. You may expect this from a future-oriented company like Google, but it really is impressive the way they are moving forward with their goals. Similar companies including Facebook, Apple, and Microsoft are incomparable in their efforts versus the efforts put forth by Google.

"According to Needham, about 34% of Google's operations are powered by renewable power." Their goal is to reach 100%, and I'll put my money on them achieving it.

Google's $3,200,000,000 Purchase

I had to include the entire number in the title just to show how significant this is. 3.2 BILLION dollar purchase of Nest! (Read more from TheVerge.com) This is on top of other recent purchases including Calico, Boston Dynamics, and Motorola. Google has seemingly become a giant in nearly every industry these days, and must be planning big things for the future. Also think -- driverless cars and robotics are industries they have planted stakes in recently.

As we all know, Google is all about data. Here's an example of the data Nest will now be providing to Google. Energy reports. Month to month, hours used, differences caused by temperature change, tips, interesting facts, and much much more.

 This leads to the idea that Google is closing the gap on creating "Smart Homes". Quite an exciting thought. With Google's networks and connections, it would be great if they could use Nest's products to dramatically decrease America (and the Worlds) energy usage. It's about time super companies begin sustainability practices.

For those of you who don't know much about Nest, they are company formed in 2011 by Tony Fadell and Matt Rogers, specializing in thermostats and smoke alarms. I've included images of their sleek and intelligent products with this post. Their products have raving reviews and are consistently best sellers. Furthermore, Google CEO Larry Page describes the team these men have created as "tremendous". Fadell, Philips Electronics developer and designer of the iPod, will continue to lead Nest separately from Google's operations. The deal with Google is set to close in the coming months.