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Paul Buchheit – Creator and Lead Developer of Gmail

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There is no denying in the fact that each of us has used Gmail at least once in our lives and, that fact is proved by the current number of Gmail users, i.e., more than 900 million users. Gmail was launched in 2004, and the lead developer, behind this widely used email platform, is Paul Buchheit. Paul Buchheit is the 23rd employee of Google but, has played a pivotal role in the development of many Google products, in his few years of career with Google.

Paul Buchheit
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Early Life

Paul Buchheit was born on 6 November 1976, in Webster, New York. He did his schooling from Webster Thomas High School. He was a brilliant student and always topped the class every year. Later, he entered Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio to pursue a degree in Science followed by a PhD (Honors) degree. During his college, he was in the rowing team of the college.

Career

As soon as Buchheit completed his education, he started his internship at Microsoft, in 1995. In 1998, he joined at Intel and after one year he became the 23rd employee at Google.

He worked with Google for nearly 7 years and, had become an influential part of Google’s numerous revolutionary programs, including Google Adsense. He also gave the suggestion of the motto, “Don’t Do Evil”, that was practised as the code of conduct within Google for many years.

In 2006, Paul Buchheit left the job at Google and launched a real-time social aggregator named FriendFeed which was a huge success. But later in 2009, it was acquired by Facebook through a private transaction. He also worked for Facebook for a few years and left the job in 2010, to start an investment company named Y Combinator.

Paul Buchheit always encourages startup companies saying that startups are more than simply a clever way to make money. Before Y Combinator, he had already invested in 83 startups through Angel Investment, and with Y Combinator he is supporting many budding companies with their startups.

Founding Gmail

Before Gmail was launched, the various email service providers, like Microsoft, had given a limited storage of 4 MB. According to Paul Buchheit, every email service was getting worse instead of getting better. And the lesser storage provided by every email platforms grabbed his attention. The planning of creating Gmail was started many years before it was announced. The development of Gmail started in 2001 and in 2004, Gmail was launched, with increased storage of 1000 MB of storage, fast dynamic interface, quick and accurate search including the concept of organised emails. Even Mr Doerr from Microsoft gave a statement that Gmail was like a wakeup call for them.

Personal Life

Paul married his girlfriend April Buchheit on 10 August 2002. Currently, he is living with his wife and two children in California.

Android 9 Pie – The Latest Version of Android Hitting the Market

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After Oreo, Google is back with its another desert, I mean the latest edition of Android – Android 9 Pie. It was launched on Tuesday and, is already rolling out on Google’s Pixel smartphones and will be available for most Android smartphones by the end of the year. This new version of Android is powered by artificial intelligence and, has come with many additional features that claim to help the users to reduce their smartphone addiction to an extent. Let’s see what Google has brought for us with its latest Android version:

1) App Dashboard: The new features of the Android 9, include an App Dashboard, showing various apps, that you have used, from most to least, the whole day long. The dashboard can also tell the number of times you have unlocked your phone, which can be an eye-opener for many, as people spent a lot of time on their smartphones these days.

2) Digital Well Being: The Digital Wellbeing, display a multicoloured circle, each colour representing a particular app, that you use on the daily basis, and between the circle, the total time, the phone screen is opened. You can tap on the colours, to further see the details about the app and set a limit for its usage.

Android Pie
Image Source: Image Source: Pcmag

3) App Timer: App Timer is another Android feature that will help to decrease your mobile usage. The timer is available on the App Dashboard, and you can set a time limit on a particular app so that when you have reached the limit, the app will grey out and you will not be able to start it again until the next set time.

4) Adaptive Battery: Android has come with another feature of saving the battery that works according to your app preferences. The earlier versions of Android also had a similar feature but in this one, with the aid of artificial intelligence, the phone will adapt your app usage practices and will divide the battery control according to the most to least used apps. This will ensure that the apps you need will use the battery.

5) App Actions: App Action also based on your daily app habits and creates shortcuts for your most used apps and activities you do on an app. It will result in the quick launch for even your daily activity inside a particular app.

Along with all the above features it has got a few more features like Gesture, Wind Down, Do Not Disturb, Adaptive Brightness, New Navigation System, etc. Most of them are using the artificial intelligence for making the smartphones more intimate part of our lives so that it can work according to our habits and can help us reduce our Smartphone addiction. Also by the end of the year, Google is going to add a few more features to Android Pie and Android Pie will be available for most of the Android users by the fall.

Sundar Pichai – The CEO Of Google

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World’s biggest tech giants surprised people across the globe when they appointed an Indian to hold the highest position in their company. First Microsoft, and then Google chose the most qualified candidate for the role of CEO of their respective companies. To helm, the highest position in world’s biggest technology giants is a herculean task and needs a dedicated, calm, and experienced person. Google found its perfect candidate in India born Sundar Pichai, who was working in the company for many years and served on many important positions.

Early Life

Born on 12th July 1972, in a middle-class family in Madurai, Chennai, India, Sundararajan Pichai’s father Regunahta Pichai, worked as a Senior Electrical Engineer for British Conglomerate General Electric Company and his mother worked as a stenographer before she conceived any children. Belonging to a middle-class family Sundar never had the privilege to watch television or travel in a car. At the age of 12, he was introduced to a fascinating technology called a landline phone.

Sundar Pichai was naturally good at remembering, especially numbers. He completed his high school from Jawahar Vidyalaya, situated at Ashok Nagar, and then went to Vana Vani School in Chennai, to pursue his class 12 education. Further, Pichai advanced to one of the prominent engineering institutes in India – Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur. He graduated in Metallurgical Engineering and didn’t stop just there.

Sundar Pichai
Image Source: wikimedia.org

He further went abroad at Stanford University, to pursue his Masters in Material Sciences and Engineering. After completing his MS, Pichai thought of pursuing PhD in Material Sciences and Semiconductor physics, but instead, he joined a company called Applied Materials, based in Silicon Valley, as an Engineer and Product Manager.

Soon, he quit his job at Applied Materials to join MBA program, at the University of Pennsylvania in 2002. After successfully earning his MBA, he joined McKinsey & Company as a Management Consultant. This was the point where a single decision changed his life forever.

Pichai at Google

After quitting McKinsey & Company, Pichai joined Google in 2004. Initially, he worked on the product management for a range of products, including Toolbar. Pichai played a prominent role in the success of Google Drive. His phenomenal work on Google’s Toolbar, fast-paced his growth in the company. After its launch, Google noticed how Toolbar proved efficient and increased the user searches. This led Google to launch their own browser Google Chrome in 2008. He was also involved in the development of apps like Gmail and Google Maps.

The success of Google Chrome brought Pichai into the spotlight. Chrome quickly became a favourite browser and surpassed its competitors, Internet Explorer and Firefox. Chrome controls more than 45% market share today and has directed everyone’s attention on Sundar Pichai. Following the success of Chrome, Pichai was then promoted to Vice President of Product Development the same year.

Pichai announced a new video codec developed by Google, called VP8 and a new video format WebM, which consists of different video, audio streams, and text tracks. In 2012, he was promoted to Senior Vice President of Chrome and apps.

A year later, he replaced Andy Rubin, to manage all Android related products. He developed a new project called Android One, which aimed towards offering affordable smartphones all across the globe. They launched the Android mobile operating system, on which every smartphone works today.

In 2014, Pichai got promoted to Head of Products. With each promotion, his tasks at the company just got bigger and bigger. Under the Head of Products position, he was responsible to oversee day-to-day operations of Google’s every big product, and the upcoming ones, like Google Photos, and Google Now.

The Leap into the Big League

Sundar Pichai was becoming a well-known face not just in the company, but in the whole Silicon Valley. His leadership qualities and diplomatic nature helped him smoothly close huge deals with the competitors.

His excellent track record came into notice of several other giants in the valley. He was approached to become Vice President of Products at Twitter and was also being considered for the position of CEO of Twitter. Another tech giant Microsoft was also considering Pichai to fill in the shoes of Steve Ballmer, who was retiring from the CEO position.

But, it was the time when Google’s new company Alphabet Inc. was on the way to be launched. As Larry Page resigned as the CEO of Google to take the responsibility of Alphabet, Pichai was the best option as Page’s successor.

And, in 2015, Sundar Pichai was announced as the new CEO of Google.

Personal Life

Pichai married Anjali, his college time girlfriend, and lives in Brooklyn, New York. He is the citizen of US and stays there with his wife and two children.

Amazon’s CEO Jeff Bezos- How A Bookish Kid Became World’s Richest Person

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Jeff Bezos is an entrepreneur, computer scientist, an e-commerce pioneer and has a passion for space exploration. He is the founder of Blue Origin, Amazon and is an investor in many other businesses. Jeff Bezos was born to a teenage mother, Jackie and Ted Jorgenson, a circus performer his biological father on January 12th 1964. He however grew up knowing that his father was Mike Bezos, a Cuban immigrant who married his mother when Jeff was still young. He only found out about his real father when he was 10. He cared less and his father has never really looked for him.

Jeff’s mechanical talent was seen from early in his life. When he was a toddle, he dismantled his crib with a screw driver so he could sleep in a regular bed. In his teen years, Jeff made an electric alarm with the aim of keeping his siblings from his room. His parents even had to let him use the garage for his science projects. Growing up, Jeff spent his summer vacations at his grandfather’s ranch. The maternal grandfather has been a role model to Jeff and taught his the farm work and piqued his interest in science even more.

Jeff Bezos schooled at the River Oaks Elementary School, Miami Palmetto Senior High School and finally at the Princeton University. He excelled throughout his school life and crowned it with two degrees in Computer Science and Electrical Engineering from Princeton.

After school, Bezos joined the startup company named Fitel where he applied his skills in computer science. He later quit Fitel and later joined the D.E Shaw where he rose to the position of Vice President in four years. At this hedge fund he met the love of his life, MacKenzie Tuttle who was a research associate there. She is currently the wife to Jeff and a novelist. It was also while working as VP at the D.E Shaw that the idea of starting Amazon came to him. While he was looking for new ventures for the company he worked for then, he saw a statistic that made him interested in internet. It was shown that the World Wide Web was growing by 2300% a month. He immediately saw the potential prospects of selling online and quit his job.

Jeff Bezos began his first business while in school. It was an educational summer camp called the Dream Institute. He charged $600 per person and was able to enroll 6 people. Not bad for a school going child!

Amazon did not begin as what it is now. When it was born in 1994, Jeff wanted it to be an online book store. He thought of the details of the business and called up friend and family who would invest in the business while his wife was driving them to Seattle. He raised $1 million in capital and set up the business in his new home’s garage. The company was initially called Cadabra then it changed to MakeItSo.com, aard.com, awake.com, Bookmall.com, Relentless.com and Browse.com before finally settling for Amazon.com named after the largest river in the world.

Amazon was set up in July 1995 and within a month there were sales in all the 50 states and in 45 foreign countries. Within three years, the company grew to 3,000 employees making over $610 million in sales. However, the company was not making money yet. In 1997, they actually has a $30 million loss and $1,23 million loss in 1998. According to Jeff the company’s aim was to be customer centric company, not making profit. This strategy helped the company survive the dot com burst that killed many startups. In 1998 Jeff Bezos invested $250,000 in Google.

2001 was the first time the company recorded a profit of $5million on $1 billion revenues. Since then Amazon has grown more and more selling everything and with current revenues of $107 billion as of 2016. Jeff owns 18% of Amazon.  Amazon today owns Amazon cloud and web services. Amazon launched its cloud services years before Google Cloud or Microsoft Azure. Jeff Bezos also founded aerospace company called the Blue Origin in 2014. This has been quite a success with many achievements including the launch of a reusable rocket recently. The company is working towards making space travel possible for the general public.

In 2013, Jeff Bezos bought the Washington Post for $250 million. This has since grown surpassing the New York Times as the leader in daily unique visits. Jeff Bezos is currently the third richest man in the world with a value of $65.3 billion with only Bill Gates and Amanda Ortega worth more than him.

Get Your Dream Job With AI Driven Job Search Engine From GOOGLE

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Finding a suitable job which does justice to your skill set and work experience is what everyone desires. And believe me, it’s getting harder with every passing day. Few vacancies and so many qualified candidates, you got to act fast, else, another opportunity will slip through your fingers. Although, we have so many job portals to apparently make our hunt for jobs easier, but even checking all the listings on every such site is in itself quite tedious. Not anymore! Google, as always, has something which will surely bring us all some relief.

On 20th June 2017, Google launched an AI (Artificial Intelligence) driven job search aid, integrated within the search engine itself, which is going to virtually combine together the results from major job search boards like LinkedIn, WayUp, Direct Employers, Monster, CareerBuilder, Facebook for your ease. With this all new feature, you no more need to look into all the sites separately. Just a simple Google search and you got the most relevant job postings within a second or less. Not just the results from other sites, Google is also going to show you the jobs posted on a company’s official wall.

You just need to type a simple query like “jobs near me,” “writing jobs”, “jobs in ABC company” etc. into the search bar and you will be redirected to the widget showing the most relevant postings matching your keywords. It is AI’s job to identify that you are looking for jobs and thus, need the help of Google’s job search feature and it won’t stop there. Within the widget you will be provided with different categories and choices like title, date of posting, location etc. in order to get a better idea of what you are actually looking for. Once that’s done, you can even save that final query and Google will make sure to remind you if there is something new matching your description of job requirement.

Zakrasek, Google’s product manager for this project, told TechCrunch “Finding a job is like dating, each person has a unique set of preferences and it only takes one person to fill this job.”

In order to be completely reliable, Google has to filter through duplicate results and show only those which provide complete and true job bio. And that’s what they are working on. Moreover, Google showed no interest in becoming a sort of job portal in itself. They are an add company and that’s what this feature will be doing without getting in way of other job portals.

“We want the players in the ecosystem to be more successful. Anything beyond that is not in Google’s wheelhouse” Zakrasek added

For now, the feature is only available in US  and most likely will be rolled out to other countries in phases.

 

 

VR Studio Owlchemy’s Acquisition By Google

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Virtrual Reality is the next big thing which is going to change (to some extent, it already has) the way we consume media; especially videos and games. Nearly 7 years ago, the grand success of Avatar did ‘the thing’ for 3D technology after which every big movie releases in 3D. Fast forward to 2017, we have Virtual Reality taking the same road and it’s becoming popular with every passing day. Talking about development in this field, every major technology firm is involved; Microsoft, Google, Facebook- you name it!

Coming to Google, the company has already contributed a lot towards VR tech with their Daydream headset, which claims to give the best virtual reality experience at present. Google is not stopping there and aims to provide best VR content as well. They made it clear with the recent acquisition of Owlchemy Labs, the developer behind a number of acclaimed PC and console VR games like Job Simulator and Rick and Morty: Virtual Rick-ality.

In a blog sharing his enthusiasm, Owlchemy co-founder Alex Schwartz said “We are continuing to do all of this with even more support and focus on building awesome stuff. It’s incredibly exciting that Google and Owlchemy are so well aligned on our goals and vision for the future of VR.”

Established in 2010, Owlchemy Labs specializes in creating interactive VR games and simulators using hand gestures as controls, eliminating the need of remote whatsoever. Probably, that’s what Google is interested in given the Daydream Project uses a remote as well. Daydream is an amazing device to experience quality VR, there is no doubt in that. But, using a remote is not very intuitive when it comes to complete immersive experience. And that’s where Owlchemy comes into play.

Relja Markovic, Engineering director VR and AR, Google said “Together, we’ll be working to create engaging, immersive games and developing new interaction models across many different platforms to continue bringing the best VR experiences to life.”

In the official press release, there is barely any info regarding future plans with Owlchemy, but the speculations are they will be working together on Daydream VR Project. There’s a I/O developer conference next week and we hope Google is going to reveal, if not all, some important details. Till then, we can assume VR has a bright future in Google’s hand.