Google surely comes from humble roots affirms Jeff Atwood on his blog where he posted a picture of some of Google’s first servers, when Google was housed in a Palo Alto garage. These must have been the servers when I first used Google in about 1997/98 (About the same time I started my first Geocities site. )

Google hardware circa 1999.

Via Coding Horror.

Update: A more complete Google time line can be found here.

Andy had reported on a new device developed by Callum Peden.

G-vision is a prototype of a device that will allow the user to compare a digital image of where they are with a Google database that, along with some GPS trickery should be able to tell them exactly where they are along with lots of other information available in the Google index that relates to that area.

Google Vision is a conceptual product developed by Callum Peden, for the worlds favorite search engine. The product provides the user with a truly unique information hub by combining GPS, OLED technology and advanced image recognition in the form of a retractable screen device.
As well as this, advanced image recognition will mean Google Vision can target well known landmarks. Then using the increased coverage of wireless internet, provide the user with information on their surroundings wherever they may be.

Several news sources have reported that the Gdrive is really going to happen. Note that this is not a hack to use your Gmail account as a harddrive, which has been available for some time. This would be a real network share, or universally accesible harddrive. Data Docket (apparently with some connection to Google) has registered the domainname gdrive.com
Hacks to use Gmail as a storage device here and here.
Read more: here, here & here.

It looks like Google might get into the hardware business. According to Robert Cringely, they might be doing just that. Have a look at his article, Taking over the world four ounces at a time, where he explains that using a cheap personal computer- “The Google Cube”, Google could immediately jump into the IPTV, VoIP and home entertainment fields, among others. The previous sentence really has a lot of commas doesn’t it? Don’t worry, I won’t change it. Anyways, the article is pretty long- it has lots of text to slog through, but near the bottom you can read about the GCube.