Solve For X Event Tied To Google X, Google’s “Secret Robot Lab”

Google’s Richard DeVaul, who goes by the title, “Rapid Evaluator (mad scientist)” posted on Google+:

The “solve for x” conference continues to be really interesting. Today we have had talks on transforming education, 5x improvements in agriculture through better decision support, synthetic biology and carbon-negative biofuels.

The “solve for x” YouTube channel and web site with all presentations will be up by Monday.

Hat tip to 9to5Google, who provides a more detailed bio for DeVaul, which says he is a member of the “Google [x] Rapid Evaluation Team” and that “he works in a secret Google lab that may or may not be filled with roving robots, space elevators, and talking refrigerators.”

You may recall back in November when reports came out about Google operating such a lab called “Google X”.

In an earlier post, DeVaul, who used to work at Apple, described the event as a “fascinating, invite-only gathering of global innovators” driven by “short, technology rich presentations on topics ranging from low-energy, low-cost water desalinization to stretchable silicon biosensors.”

The description on the Solve for X site says:

Solve for X is a place where the curious can go to hear and discuss radical technology ideas for solving global problems. Radical in the sense that the solutions could help billions of people. Radical in the sense that the audaciousness of the proposals makes them sound like science fiction. And radical in the sense that there is some real technology breakthrough on the horizon to give us all hope that these ideas could really be brought to life.

This combination of things – a huge problem to solve, a radical solution for solving it, and the breakthrough technology to make it happen – is the essence of a moonshot.

Solve for X is intended to be a forum to encourage and amplify technology-based moonshot thinking and teamwork.

We can’t wait to share what we discover.

The site is not actually open to the public yet, though you can give them your email address to be notified when it opens up.

There’s a YouTube channel, but there’s only one video up so far:

DeVaul says more videos will be up this afternoon.

Following are some tweets from DeVaul:

Given all the talk about Google X and robots, this might be the most interesting one:

Stretchable silicon sensor on skin. #solveforx twitter.com/headcrash/stat…

— Dr. Headcrash (@headcrash) February 2, 2012