大家都知道Google是由史丹佛大學博士生Larry Page和Sergey Brin創建的，他們現在都成了百億富翁。其實，Google的歷史上還有不少鮮為人知的有趣事件呢，本文將為你列出十個。
1. 最開始，Google的前身是Backrub。
BackRub是Larry Page和Sergey Brin的研究項目，主要研究的是網路的連接結構。這個研究實際上成為後來谷歌「PageRank」算法的重要概念。
2. Google計算機最原始的儲存設備
Larry Page和Sergey Brin需要大量的儲存空間來測試他們的PageRank算法，但是那時最大的硬碟容量僅為4G。於是他們把10個這樣的硬碟組合在了一起，這便是1996年時Google的第一個計算機存儲設備。
3．Google的第一個投資者
這是Sun系統的共同創始人Andy Bechtolsheim。當他看見Google時就知道它很有前景。在和Larry Page和Sergey Brin就Google談了30分鐘後，他就寫了張投給 「Google，Inc.」的10萬美元的支票，事實上Google, Inc.這一名稱那時還不存在呢！
4．Google車庫
在1998年，Susan Wojcicki把她的車庫租給了Larry Page和Sergey Brin，用每月的1700美元租金用來支付房貸。Susan的這一舉動改變了她一生的命運。她隨後不久有了一個Google早期關鍵位置的工作，後來成 了頂級行政人員，並且還給她妹妹Ann介紹了一個未來的丈夫，還為她家庭的其他成員創立了一個小型房產企業。
在2006年，Google買下了那所房子，現在已經成了一個旅遊景點
5. Google的第一隻狗
在Google裡，狗是老大。在1999年，一條叫Yoshka的蘭伯格犬和Google的第一個工程副總裁Urs Hölzle一起來到Google上班，並且成為了Google的第一隻狗。
6．Google到底有多少伺服器？
Google公司外沒有人知道Google究竟有多少服務器，Google也從來不談論這個話題。公司最著名的秘密當屬數據中心，沒有人知道他們究竟有多少個數據中心。
近來，Google的員工Jeff Dean在討論叫做Spanner的新計算和儲存系統的技術細節時，透漏了這個系統是為1千萬個伺服器等級來設計的。
7. 「綠色」搜索
所有的硬體會用到大量的電力，但是你搜尋一次Google會用多少能源呢？
Google計算過，一次搜索所花費的電力大概在1KJ（0.0003K瓦）的能量。
Google在GooglePlex的屋頂上建立了一個1.6MW的太陽能面板發電設備，共有9212塊太陽能面板。每天能產生4475kWh的電力，相當於1000個加州家庭使用的電力。
8. Google三輪車
Google街景和頂部安有攝影機的Google小車對拍攝街景很方便的。
9. I’m Feeling Lucky一年花費Google一千一百萬美金
Google首頁上的「I’m Feeling Lucky」按鈕每年大約花費Google一千一百萬美元。保留它的原因是它會提醒人們，每個人都有自己個性的一面，有自己的興趣愛好並且這才是真正的人。
10. Google機器人（Googlebot）的最終披露
2005年，Googlebot向我們展示了人類未來的一瞥。它表達的是：互聯網就是一個世界，一個由網頁組成的世界。
1. 最開始，Google的前身是Backrub。
BackRub是Larry Page和Sergey Brin的研究項目，主要研究的是網路的連接結構。這個研究實際上成為後來谷歌「PageRank」算法的重要概念。
2. Google計算機最原始的儲存設備
Larry Page和Sergey Brin需要大量的儲存空間來測試他們的PageRank算法，但是那時最大的硬碟容量僅為4G。於是他們把10個這樣的硬碟組合在了一起，這便是1996年時Google的第一個計算機存儲設備。
3．Google的第一個投資者
這是Sun系統的共同創始人Andy Bechtolsheim。當他看見Google時就知道它很有前景。在和Larry Page和Sergey Brin就Google談了30分鐘後，他就寫了張投給 「Google，Inc.」的10萬美元的支票，事實上Google, Inc.這一名稱那時還不存在呢！
4．Google車庫
在1998年，Susan Wojcicki把她的車庫租給了Larry Page和Sergey Brin，用每月的1700美元租金用來支付房貸。Susan的這一舉動改變了她一生的命運。她隨後不久有了一個Google早期關鍵位置的工作，後來成 了頂級行政人員，並且還給她妹妹Ann介紹了一個未來的丈夫，還為她家庭的其他成員創立了一個小型房產企業。
在2006年，Google買下了那所房子，現在已經成了一個旅遊景點
5. Google的第一隻狗
在Google裡，狗是老大。在1999年，一條叫Yoshka的蘭伯格犬和Google的第一個工程副總裁Urs Hölzle一起來到Google上班，並且成為了Google的第一隻狗。
6．Google到底有多少伺服器？
Google公司外沒有人知道Google究竟有多少服務器，Google也從來不談論這個話題。公司最著名的秘密當屬數據中心，沒有人知道他們究竟有多少個數據中心。
近來，Google的員工Jeff Dean在討論叫做Spanner的新計算和儲存系統的技術細節時，透漏了這個系統是為1千萬個伺服器等級來設計的。
7. 「綠色」搜索
所有的硬體會用到大量的電力，但是你搜尋一次Google會用多少能源呢？
Google計算過，一次搜索所花費的電力大概在1KJ（0.0003K瓦）的能量。
Google在GooglePlex的屋頂上建立了一個1.6MW的太陽能面板發電設備，共有9212塊太陽能面板。每天能產生4475kWh的電力，相當於1000個加州家庭使用的電力。
8. Google三輪車
Google街景和頂部安有攝影機的Google小車對拍攝街景很方便的。
9. I’m Feeling Lucky一年花費Google一千一百萬美金
Google首頁上的「I’m Feeling Lucky」按鈕每年大約花費Google一千一百萬美元。保留它的原因是它會提醒人們，每個人都有自己個性的一面，有自己的興趣愛好並且這才是真正的人。
10. Google機器人（Googlebot）的最終披露
2005年，Googlebot向我們展示了人類未來的一瞥。它表達的是：互聯網就是一個世界，一個由網頁組成的世界。
10 Neat Facts About Google Posted by Alex in Blog & Internet, Neatorama Only on November 3, 2009 at 3:44 am
Sure, everybody knows that Google was created by Stanford Ph.D. students Larry Page and Sergey Brin who became gazillionaires. But did you know that Google’s first storage device was cobbled together with LEGO? Or that Google’s first investor wrote a $100,000 check even before the company officially existed? Or that it has its own 「official」 Google dog?
Neatorama presents the Top 10 Neat Facts About Google:
1. Before Google, There Was BackRub
In 1996, graduate students Larry Page and Sergey Brin worked on a research project to understand the link structure of the World Wide Web. They’re particularly interested in determining the importance of a given web page based on its backlinks or how many other web pages link to it (which later became the concept behind Google’s 「PageRank」 algorithm).
The project was named BackRub (yes, a play on the word 「backlink」). You can see an archived page of BackRub in the Wayback Machine:
8) Your logo is upside down: Why is the light source obviously below the image? It looks quite unnatural…
The logo is simply a scan of my hand, from a flatbed scanner converted to black and white. The 「back」 in the picture is the scanner cover, and the shadows are from the scanner light.
2. The Original Google Computer Storage
Photo: Stanford Infolab’s Computer History Exhibits Photo
Larry and Sergey needed large amount of disk space to test their PageRank algo, but the largest hard disks available at the time were only 4 GB. So they assembled 10 of these drives together.
While he was an undergrad at Michigan University, Larry had built a programmable plotter out of LEGO, so it’s only natural that he used the colorful bricks to create Google’s first computer storage!
3. Google’s First Investor
Sun Microsystem co-founder Andy Bechtolsheim knew a good thing when he saw it. After talking to Larry and Sergey about Google for 30 minutes, he whipped out his checkbook and wrote a check for $100,000, made out to 「Google, Inc.」 Problem was, Google, Inc. hasn’t existed yet!
Oh, by the way, the Sun in Sun Microsystem stands for 「Stanford University Network.」
4. Google Garage
Talk about getting lucky tenants. In 1998, Susan Wojcicki rented her garage to two Stanford students – you know who they are – for $1,700 a month to help out with the mortgage. That turned out to be a life-changing decision for Susan – it got her a key early job at Google which translated to a top executive position later on, introduced a future husband to her younger sister Anne, and created a mini cottage industry for the rest of her family. (Photo: Jack Gruber/USA Today)
In 2006, Google bought the house which had become a tourist attraction (the busloads of people who show up to take pictures were so annoying that Google decided not to publish the address – though ironically, you can still Google Map it.)
5. Google’s First Dog
Despite the Internet’s obsession with cats, dogs rule Google. In 1999, a Leonberger breed named Yoshka came to work with Google’s first VP of Engineering Urs Hölzle and became the company’s 「first」 dog. (Photo: Google Timeline)
If you must know, Leonbergers are big dogs with lionesque mane that look really majestic. They are, however, useless as guard dogs because they’re much too kind and gentle.
6. Just How Many Servers Does Google Have?
A sign near the Googleville data center. Photo: ahockley [Flickr]
The real Googleville. Photo: Melanie Conner/NY Times
Good question. Nobody outside the company knows, and Google ain’t talkin’. The company’s famously secretive when it comes to its data centers (Heck, no one even knows for sure how many data centers the company has!)
For example, The Dalles or 「Googleville」 data center in a small Washington Oregon town, was cloaked in secrecy:
「No one says the 『G’ word,」 said Diane Sherwood, executive director of the Port of Klickitat, Wash., directly across the river from The Dalles, who is not bound by such agreements. 「It’s a little bit like He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named in Harry Potter.」
Recently, Google Fellow Jeff Dean gave a revealing talk on large-scale computing systems in which he discussed technical details of a new storage and computation system called Spanner, which is designed for up to 10 million servers. Skynet, anyone?
7. 「Green」 Search
All those hardware must use a lot of electricity (indeed, Googleville data ce
nter is calculated to require about 103 megawatts of electricity – enough to power 82,000 homes or a city the size of Tacoma, Washington), but just how much energy do you use when you perform a Google search?
Google calculated that it uses about 1 kJ (0.0003 kWh) of energy to answer the average search query. It’s so efficient that your PC will likely use more energy in the time it takes to do a Google search.
Photo: Google Solar Panel Project
To offset its electricity consumption, Google even installed 1.6MW solar panels on the rooftops of the Googleplex. A total of 9,212 solar panels generate 4,475 kWh daily, the equivalent of about the amount of electricity used by 1,000 California homes.
8. Google Trike
[YouTube Clip]
I’m sure you’re all familiar with Google Street View and the camera-topped Google Car, but what about all of the interesting places inaccessible to cars? Enter the Google Trike, which started as a project by Daniel Ratner, a Senior Mechanical Engineer on the Street View team:
「I began thinking about building a bicycle-based Street View system after realizing how many interesting places around the world – ranging from historic landmarks to beautiful trails to shopping districts – aren’t accessible by car,」 says Dan. 「When I’m riding the trike, so many people come up to me and ask where it’s off to next or how they can get imagery of their favorite spot, so I can’t wait to see what our users come up with.」
Previously on Neatorama: Google Car Pulled Over by the Cops – Now in Google Street View!
9. I’m Feeling Lucky Costs Google $110 Million a Year
The 「I’m Feeling Lucky」 button on Google’s homepage takes you straight to the first web page result. Because it bypasses Google’s own search result page, where users are shown ads, the button actually costs Google around $110 million a year.
Why keep it? Google Vice President of Search Product and User Experience Marisa Mayer said:
You know Larry and Sergey had the view, and I certainly share it, that it’s possible just to become too dry, too corporate, too much about making money. And you know what I think is really delightful about Google and about the 「I’m Feeling Lucky,」 is that they remind you that the people here have personality and that they have interests and that there is real people.
10. Googlebot, Revealed At Last!
Image: Ben Rathbone
In 2005, Ben Rathbone (then at Google’s Hardware Operations) gave us a glimpse of humanity’s future. I, for one, welcome our new Googlebot overlord:
Then I pondered the question: what does Google do? The grossly simplified answer that I came up with is Google connects the world with the Internet.
It all snapped into place: the idea of a robot, connecting a world with the Internet, with wires, that connect to big cabinets of computers. It was not hard then to make the leap to representing the internet as a world, or globe, made up of pages.
Sure, everybody knows that Google was created by Stanford Ph.D. students Larry Page and Sergey Brin who became gazillionaires. But did you know that Google’s first storage device was cobbled together with LEGO? Or that Google’s first investor wrote a $100,000 check even before the company officially existed? Or that it has its own 「official」 Google dog?
Neatorama presents the Top 10 Neat Facts About Google:
1. Before Google, There Was BackRub
In 1996, graduate students Larry Page and Sergey Brin worked on a research project to understand the link structure of the World Wide Web. They’re particularly interested in determining the importance of a given web page based on its backlinks or how many other web pages link to it (which later became the concept behind Google’s 「PageRank」 algorithm).
The project was named BackRub (yes, a play on the word 「backlink」). You can see an archived page of BackRub in the Wayback Machine:
8) Your logo is upside down: Why is the light source obviously below the image? It looks quite unnatural…
The logo is simply a scan of my hand, from a flatbed scanner converted to black and white. The 「back」 in the picture is the scanner cover, and the shadows are from the scanner light.
2. The Original Google Computer Storage
Photo: Stanford Infolab’s Computer History Exhibits Photo
Larry and Sergey needed large amount of disk space to test their PageRank algo, but the largest hard disks available at the time were only 4 GB. So they assembled 10 of these drives together.
While he was an undergrad at Michigan University, Larry had built a programmable plotter out of LEGO, so it’s only natural that he used the colorful bricks to create Google’s first computer storage!
3. Google’s First Investor
Sun Microsystem co-founder Andy Bechtolsheim knew a good thing when he saw it. After talking to Larry and Sergey about Google for 30 minutes, he whipped out his checkbook and wrote a check for $100,000, made out to 「Google, Inc.」 Problem was, Google, Inc. hasn’t existed yet!
Oh, by the way, the Sun in Sun Microsystem stands for 「Stanford University Network.」
4. Google Garage
Talk about getting lucky tenants. In 1998, Susan Wojcicki rented her garage to two Stanford students – you know who they are – for $1,700 a month to help out with the mortgage. That turned out to be a life-changing decision for Susan – it got her a key early job at Google which translated to a top executive position later on, introduced a future husband to her younger sister Anne, and created a mini cottage industry for the rest of her family. (Photo: Jack Gruber/USA Today)
In 2006, Google bought the house which had become a tourist attraction (the busloads of people who show up to take pictures were so annoying that Google decided not to publish the address – though ironically, you can still Google Map it.)
5. Google’s First Dog
Despite the Internet’s obsession with cats, dogs rule Google. In 1999, a Leonberger breed named Yoshka came to work with Google’s first VP of Engineering Urs Hölzle and became the company’s 「first」 dog. (Photo: Google Timeline)
If you must know, Leonbergers are big dogs with lionesque mane that look really majestic. They are, however, useless as guard dogs because they’re much too kind and gentle.
6. Just How Many Servers Does Google Have?
A sign near the Googleville data center. Photo: ahockley [Flickr]
The real Googleville. Photo: Melanie Conner/NY Times
Good question. Nobody outside the company knows, and Google ain’t talkin’. The company’s famously secretive when it comes to its data centers (Heck, no one even knows for sure how many data centers the company has!)
For example, The Dalles or 「Googleville」 data center in a small Washington Oregon town, was cloaked in secrecy:
「No one says the 『G’ word,」 said Diane Sherwood, executive director of the Port of Klickitat, Wash., directly across the river from The Dalles, who is not bound by such agreements. 「It’s a little bit like He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named in Harry Potter.」
Recently, Google Fellow Jeff Dean gave a revealing talk on large-scale computing systems in which he discussed technical details of a new storage and computation system called Spanner, which is designed for up to 10 million servers. Skynet, anyone?
7. 「Green」 Search
All those hardware must use a lot of electricity (indeed, Googleville data ce
nter is calculated to require about 103 megawatts of electricity – enough to power 82,000 homes or a city the size of Tacoma, Washington), but just how much energy do you use when you perform a Google search?
Google calculated that it uses about 1 kJ (0.0003 kWh) of energy to answer the average search query. It’s so efficient that your PC will likely use more energy in the time it takes to do a Google search.
Photo: Google Solar Panel Project
To offset its electricity consumption, Google even installed 1.6MW solar panels on the rooftops of the Googleplex. A total of 9,212 solar panels generate 4,475 kWh daily, the equivalent of about the amount of electricity used by 1,000 California homes.
8. Google Trike
[YouTube Clip]
I’m sure you’re all familiar with Google Street View and the camera-topped Google Car, but what about all of the interesting places inaccessible to cars? Enter the Google Trike, which started as a project by Daniel Ratner, a Senior Mechanical Engineer on the Street View team:
「I began thinking about building a bicycle-based Street View system after realizing how many interesting places around the world – ranging from historic landmarks to beautiful trails to shopping districts – aren’t accessible by car,」 says Dan. 「When I’m riding the trike, so many people come up to me and ask where it’s off to next or how they can get imagery of their favorite spot, so I can’t wait to see what our users come up with.」
Previously on Neatorama: Google Car Pulled Over by the Cops – Now in Google Street View!
9. I’m Feeling Lucky Costs Google $110 Million a Year
The 「I’m Feeling Lucky」 button on Google’s homepage takes you straight to the first web page result. Because it bypasses Google’s own search result page, where users are shown ads, the button actually costs Google around $110 million a year.
Why keep it? Google Vice President of Search Product and User Experience Marisa Mayer said:
You know Larry and Sergey had the view, and I certainly share it, that it’s possible just to become too dry, too corporate, too much about making money. And you know what I think is really delightful about Google and about the 「I’m Feeling Lucky,」 is that they remind you that the people here have personality and that they have interests and that there is real people.
10. Googlebot, Revealed At Last!
Image: Ben Rathbone
In 2005, Ben Rathbone (then at Google’s Hardware Operations) gave us a glimpse of humanity’s future. I, for one, welcome our new Googlebot overlord:
Then I pondered the question: what does Google do? The grossly simplified answer that I came up with is Google connects the world with the Internet.
It all snapped into place: the idea of a robot, connecting a world with the Internet, with wires, that connect to big cabinets of computers. It was not hard then to make the leap to representing the internet as a world, or globe, made up of pages.
