Page 24 - aruba-today-20190622

A24 TECHNOLOGY
Saturday 22 June 2019
Google puts up $1B to ease housing headaches it helped cause

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — cisco sold for nearly $1.7
Google is pouring $1 billion million in April, according
into easing the high-priced to the realtors' group, qua-
housing headaches that it druple the price of 20 years
and its Silicon Valley peers ago. Google's next big
helped give the San Fran- project will be in the Bay
cisco Bay Area. Area's most populous city,
The pledge announced San Jose, where it plans to
Tuesday by Google CEO build a corporate campus
Sundar Pichai consists of consisting of offices and
a $250 million investment housing where 15,000 to
fund and $750 million of 20,000 of its employees will
company-owned land. work and live.
It will be used to build at The project faced resis-
least 15,000 homes that tance from community ac-
will include low- and mid- tivists worried about its ef-
income housing. fect on housing prices. Last
Google's commitment week, a report by Working
eclipsed a recent $500 Partnerships called upon
million pledge made by Google to build more than
Microsoft to combat hous- 17,000 homes in the area to
ing shortages in the Seattle In this May 1, 2019, file photo, a woman walks past a Google sign in San Francisco. help offset the anticipated
area and a $500 million Associated Press price increases caused
housing fund created by a by the new campus. The
consortium including Face- dozen workers to the more can yield multimillion-dollar of the economic spectrum report by the labor-union
book. Google is extending than 103,000 people now windfalls. to buy a home in the Bay backed labor group envi-
a helping hand as it draws working for it and its corpo- The high incomes have re- Area, where a mid-priced sions apartment rent in-
up plans to expand into rate parent, Alphabet Inc. sulted in bidding wars for house sold for $990,000 in creases of $235 million by
sprawling offices beyond Nearly half of those workers the limited supply of homes April, according to the Cal- 2030 if action isn't taken.
its headquarters in Moun- are based in the Bay Area. in the Bay Area that can ifornia Association of Real- "For several months, we
tain View, California. That While Google has been ex- only be afforded by the af- tors, a trade group. In 1999, have encouraged Google
suburban city of roughly panding, so have a wide fluent, a group increasingly a mid-priced home sold for to make a bold commit-
80,000 people has been variety of other technol- dominated by tech work- $308,000. ment to address our re-
swamped with affluent ogy companies, including ers, while people employed It's even worse in San Fran- gion's affordable hous-
tech workers since Google Apple, Facebook, Oracle, in other lines of work strug- cisco, a city from which ing challenge," San Jose
moved there shortly after its Salesforce and Netflix — all gle to make ends meet on many tech workers ride Mayor Sam Liccardo said
1998 inception. of whom also lavish their more modest incomes. company buses to the Sili- in a statement applauding
Since then, Google's pay- workers with six-figure sala- That is making it impossible con Valley suburbs. A mid- the company's $1 billion
roll has swelled from a few ries and stock options that for people on the lower end priced house in San Fran- pledge.q

Waymo teams up with Renault, Nissan on robotaxis outside U.S.

By MICHAEL LIEDTKE Although Waymo's self- working with France-based
AP Technology Writer driving technology is wide- Renault and Japan-based
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — ly considered to be the Nissan, household names in
Self-driving car pioneer world's most advanced, it their home countries.
Waymo is teaming up with still isn't adept enough to Waymo has previously
automakers Renault and be trusted without a hu- struck deals with two auto-
Nissan to make its first jour- man poised to take con- makers, Fiat Chrysler and
ney outside the U.S. with a trol in case something goes Jaguar, but those involved
ride-hailing service that will awry with the robot. ordering tens of thousands
dispatch a fleet of robotax- Waymo had hoped to of vehicles to be equipped
is in France and Japan. launch a fully autonomous with self-driving technology
The partnership an- ride-hailing service last year for services in the U.S. So far,
nounced late Wednesday in the Phoenix area, but in- Waymo is only using Fiat
underscores Waymo's am- This Tuesday, May 8, 2018, file photo shows a Waymo logo dis- stead is still keeping human Chrysler's minivans for its
bition to deploy its driver- played on the window of a car at the Google I/O conference in safety drivers in those ve- Phoenix service, but plans
less technology throughout Mountain View, Calif. hicles more than six months to add Jaguar's electric-
the world in an attempt Associated Press after it rolled out. That ser- powered I-Pace next year.
to revolutionize the way vice, known as Waymo The partnership with Re-
people get around. The After launching its ride-hail- Waymo, Renault and Nis- One, is still only offering nault and Nissan also in-
Mountain View, California, ing service in France and san didn't set a timetable rides to about 1,000 pas- volves a long-time alliance
company can afford to Japan, Waymo intends to for when their ride-hailing sengers that previously par- they formed with Mitsubishi.
try because it's backed by explore other European service will launch. They left ticipated in a test program. But the fate of that alliance
one of the world's richest and Asian markets with Re- most other details vague. Krafcik told the German has been in limbo since
companies, Google, which nault and Nissan. It seems likely it will still be newspaper Handelsblatt Carlos Ghosn, the former
secretly began working on "This is an ideal opportunity several years before Way- last year that Waymo will CEO of both Renault and
driverless technology a de- for Waymo to bring our au- mo will be in a position to likely use a different brand Nissan, was arrested late
cade ago before spinning tonomous technology to a pose a serious challenge for its ride-hailing services last year on charges that
off that project into what is global stage," Waymo CEO to Uber, the world's larg- outside the U.S. That could included falsifying financial
now known as Waymo. John Krafcik said. est ride-hailing service. be one reason Waymo is reports.q