Shipshape or dead weight? Google’s secret project sets sail

I bet you thought Apple building a $5 billion headquarters that looks like something out of “Battlestar Galactica” was over the top. Well, the Cupertino clan and their spaceship HQ have nothing on Google.

Apparently the advertising giant is erecting a mystery structure in the middle of San Francisco Bay, next to Treasure Island, in the shadow of the newly refurbished Bay Bridge. CNET’s Daniel Terdiman reported late last week that whatever the structure is — based on photos, it looks like a four-story stack of cargo containers partially obscured with scaffolding — it is a secret Google project.

[ For a humorous take on the tech industry’s shenanigans, subscribe to Robert X. Cringely’s Notes from the Underground newsletter and follow Cringely on Twitter. | Check out InfoWorld TechBrief, your source for quick, smart views on the news you’ll be talking about — subscribe today. ]

There are two competing theories as to what that thing is, and I can’t decide which is stranger.

Highly illogical

Theory no. 1: Google is building a floating data center … maybe? San Francisco real estate has always been insanely expensive, more so now than ever, thanks in part to hordes of 22-year-old Google, Facebook, and Twitter engineers pulling down $100,000-plus salaries and driving up the prices. Building a structure on the water might actually be cheaper than doing it on dirt.

Per the presumably sober Terdiman:

Could the structure be a sea-faring data center? One expert who was shown pictures of the structure thinks so, especially because being on a barge provides easy access to a source of cooling, as well as an inexpensive source of power — the sea. And even more tellingly, Google was granted a patent in 2009 for a floating data center, and putting data centers inside shipping containers is already a well-established practice.

Adding more mystery to the story is the fact that there’s apparently an identical structure, owned by the same shell company (By and Large LLC), on a barge outside of Portland, Maine.

Theory no. 2: The company is building a Google Glass store — again, one with certain vague nautical properties. That news comes via Bay Area CBS affiliate KPIX 5. Per KPIX reporter Allen Martin:

KPIX 5 has learned that Google is actually building a floating marketing center, a kind of giant Apple store, if you will — but for Google Glass, the cutting-edge wearable computer the company has under development.

Although Google wouldn’t respond to requests for comment for this story, sources close to the project told KPIX 5 that Google hopes to tow the completed structure from Treasure Island across the Bay to San Francisco’s Fort Mason, where it would be anchored and open to the public.

If the Big One finally hits and San Francisco sinks to the bottom of the Pacific, at least the G-Store will still be there, allowing overly entitled pasty white guys to get their consumer electronics fix. They might have to swim for it, though.

Terdiman added to the KPIX report today:

After our story ran on Friday, I was contacted by someone who said he had knowledge that the project in the works is a Google store of some kind. The tipster, who is well-connected in Silicon Valley but asked to remain anonymous, told me that he had heard from multiple sources at Google that the company plans to float the Glass stores from city to city by rivers, and that the idea for the project came straight from either Larry Page or Sergey Brin, Google’s founders. Finally, he said, the idea is in part that Google wants to launch stores without looking like they are trying to chase Apple.

Because there’s nothing better than shopping for consumer electronics inside a series of interconnected windowless metal boxes, rocking back and forth in San Francisco’s notoriously intemperate weather. That’ll show Apple.

I keep checking the calendar to see whether it’s April 1 already. No word yet whether Terdiman or Martin was asked to pee into a jar after filing their reports.

Start your conspiracy theories now

Still, I don’t think these guys have really given it their best shot, speculation wise. I see at least three other distinct possibilities:

• Aliens. We have been contacted by a force of highly advanced extraterrestrials, who naturally approached Google — being the most powerful and enlightened bipeds on earth — to start building them condos, so they’ll have a place to stay when they get here. Given the decidedly cubelike nature of the structures, my money is on the Borg.
• The NSA. You really think that ginormous data center in the middle of Nowhere, Utah, is going to be where the spooks keep their yottabytes of spy data? I can’t believe you fell for that. The real data centers will be dozens of these floating cargo stacks, bristling with computing power and built to order by Google. (That “Don’t be evil” thing? It only counts if you’re on land.)
• Zombies. By analyzing Google search patterns, Larry and Sergey have determined that a zombie outbreak is imminent. They’re building these bunkers to wait out the apocalypse until the undead have run out of brains to eat.

Then again, these mystery barges might just be floating data recovery centers, for use if/when all hell breaks loose. But I hope not. Because that would just be boring.

What do you think Google is building in the bay? Post your theories below or email me: cringe@infoworld.com.

This article, “Shipshape or dead weight? Google’s secret project sets sail,” was originally published at InfoWorld.com. Follow the crazy twists and turns of the tech industry with Robert X. Cringely’s Notes from the Field blog, follow Cringely on Twitter, and subscribe to Cringely’s Notes from the Underground newsletter.