Confirmed: Google Goes Wi-Fi

[wrmineo]

The leader of the search engine world, Google, confirmed yesterday that they have begun a limited test of a free wireless Internet service. Always on the cutting edge of expansion, but not always in creativity, you'll be able to find it under the predictable name, Google WiFi.

According to Google spokesperson, Nate Taylor, the current test is limited to Google's backyard, in Mountain View, California, where the company is headquarted. The two public areas currently enjoying Google's attention in Silicon Valley, are a gym and pizza parlor.

“Google WiFi is a community outreach program to offer free wireless access in areas near our headquarters,” Tyler said.

“At this stage in development, we’re focused on collecting feedback from users. We’ll determine next steps as the product evolves,” he said.

Tyler said the project was started as part of a Google engineer’s “20 percent time project.”

Google engineers are encouraged to spend 20 percent of their work time developing independent projects. This has helped keep Google employees active, committed, and energized. It hasn't hurt Google either, many of their new toys and tools have been born out of these concepts, to include Orkut, Google News, and their contextual advertising program, AdSense.

The ability to offer free wireless communications would propel Google even further from its Internet search roots and launch it into the turbulent and competitive world of Internet access providers and telecommunications companies.

The existence of the Wi-Fi service, which offers high-speed connections to the Internet over short distances, is confirmed by public pages on the Google's Web site and was first reported in a Silicon Valley newspaper in July.