In short: Moonshot company X Develpment LLC., formerly known as Google X, is still dabbling in cybersecurity even after it already established a separate firm solely dedicated to such efforts, AndroidHeadlines has learned. While Chronicle — the spinoff in question — has yet to announce any clients, partners, or full-fledged solutions, its former parent still appears to be focused on protecting intellectual property pertaining to the cybersecurity field. One such IP was awarded to X in the form of a patent just last week, describing a solution dedicated to detecting data breaches in a timely manner using cryptographically secured representative data samples that allow the main platform to determine whether a given system has been tampered with even without having full access to it.
Background: Chronicle was spun off from X Development in January, with the technology giant providing little concrete details about its efforts. Chronicle Chief Executive Officer Stephen Gillett was similarly reserved on the matter, with his prepared statements dedicated to the establishment of the firm mostly revolving around long-term ambitions to enhance contemporary cybersecurity standards by a factor of ten, which was more of an embellished illustration of its endgame than an actual strategy reveal. Chronicle started as an X-funded project in 2016 but its activity during that period is equally mysterious. The cybersecurity company has yet to respond to a request for comment on the matter sent by AndroidHeadlines.
Impact: The fact that X is still working on building its cybersecurity portfolio independently of Chronicle may suggest more similar spinoffs or services will be launched by the moonshot factory in the future. Alternatively, Google’s former division could end up transferring the newly patented solutions to Chronicle as some of its recently protected technologies have been envisioned before Chronicle was spun off this January and possibly before the spinoff plans for the thereof even started materializing. Regardless, between its increased activity in both tech R&D and hiring for positions revolving around commercial-grade goods, X likely has a busy year ahead of it.