Inside Kansas City’s Google Fiber Space

This past Saturday, I was fortunate enough to tour Kansas City’s newly-established Google Fiber Space. Located at 1814 Westport Road, right in between KC’s Wesport and Plaza areas, the Fiber Space is a ridiculously awesome, nerd drool-educing neat, techy place that allows Kansas Citians to experience Google Fiber before it becomes commercially available.  The space is open to the public by reservation, which can be made here. I highly recommend checking it out.  The technologies on display are remarkable and exciting to say the least. If you can’t make it however, I took plenty of pictures and some video for your enjoyment.  Take a look: 

"Let's do this for..." is the rallying cry to encourage visitors to pre-register.

The stage doubles as a waiting room and event speaker space.

Inside the Fiber Space, glass walls carry the theme of "100 times the..." to get patrons to think of all possibilities. 

Speed test shows just how fast Google Fiber really is.

This small toy car world serves as an analogy to show how the internet has evolved and where it is going. 

(Top) The 2 terabyte storage box. (Bottom Left) The network box that provides fiber to the home. (Bottom Right) The TV box that will provide endless hours of entertainment.

This was the “Nerd Bot” art piece—an ode to Google’s Android platform. 

This live map keeps track of how many people have pre-registerd per Fiberhood.

A fiber space rep shows how you are able to mimic a laptop screen via in-home wireless.

The OnLive cloud gaming system's full potential can finally be exploited finally (thanks to Fiber!).

This cool mosaic is comprised of Chiefs and Royals player cards. 

A display from Sporting KC shows how Kansas City's soccer team will use Fiber when it becomes available.

Nerding out on so much tech can make a person hungry!  Refreshments and treats are provided by Mud Pie Vegan Bakery. 

Watch the video above for even more Fiber sneak peeks!

A Break Down of the Google Fiber Announcement

The announcement Kansas City has been waiting for finally arrived yesterday. Google has answered all of the questions Kansas City has asked for the past year including what Google Fiber is, what comes with the fiber and, perhaps most importantly, when it will be available. 

I’ll apologize for my geekiness now and if it seems like I’m salivating...it’s because I am.  Bring on the fiber!

Let’s start with the most basic question that Kansas City has been asking: What is Google Fiber? Generally speaking, fiber is a 1 gigabyte (1000 megabyte) per second symmetrical connection (which means 1 gigabyte per second upload and download speed). Current broadband speeds average around 5 megabytes per second. That means that a fiber connection is roughly 100 times faster than our current Internet speeds.  Yes, I am drooling.