The New York Times ran an interesting piece last Sunday about a secretive location in the Bay Area. Turns out to be the mysterious X Lab run by Google. It’s so secret, that irony of ironies, the very story that introduced it to the public imagination merely hinted at what goes on inside. It’s a cool read though. According to the collaborative duo Clair Cain Miller and Nick Bilton, the Google X Lab does stuff so far out it’s almost hard to believe. Plus: Robots!

So maybe the robot part will further convince the paranoiacs out there that Google is a real life Sky Net. Relax…it’s just a harmless search engine. (Not.)

Here’s a teaser from the two page scoop:

A Google spokeswoman, Jill Hazelbaker, declined to comment on the lab, but said that investing in speculative projects was an important part of Google’s DNA. "While the possibilities are incredibly exciting, please do keep in mind that the sums involved are very small by comparison to the investments we make in our core businesses,” she said.

Okay, that didn’t reveal much. For best results, go read the source link below. It’s worth at least a few minutes of excited consumption.