Google Sells off Portland Barge and Scraps Floating Building

Remember those Google barges that had us all curious what Google was up to late last year? One of them was in San Francisco, and another was in Portland. The barge in Portland has reportedly been sold and will be moving across the ocean.

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Before the barge is shipped off overseas, Google is having the cool four-story structure made of shipping containers removed from the barge and scrapped. I wonder how much cash that fancy four-story structure cost.

There is no indication of why the barge project is being shut down. It always sounded rather farfetched to use these floating barges as places to show off tech, perhaps Google finally figured that out.

[via PressHerald]

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Google Barge Moored in San Francisco Harbor Has a Huge Party Deck and More

Over the last few weeks, a giant barge turned up in San Francisco Bay that was tipped to be owned by tech giant Google. Early on rumors indicated that it was a floating data center but a local San Francisco CBS affiliate KPIX 5 now claims that the giant barge isn’t a data center after all. The station reports that multiple sources have told it Google actually has luxury showrooms and a giant party deck on the barge.

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The Google barge was reportedly in the planning stages for over a year. The sources also tipped that the project was personally directed by Sergey Brin and is Google’s attempt to upstage Apple and the company’s high-end retail stores around the country.

The barge is stacked with interchangeable 40-foot-long shipping containers to create a sort of modular building that can be rearranged as needed. The individual containers can also be placed on other barges, trucks, or railcars and taken wherever they’re needed. The high-end showrooms will reportedly be used to show Google gadgets such as Google Glass to invitation only customers. The party deck is said to have multiple bars and other amenities for entertaining clients.

[via CBS Local]