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Google has renamed Eli Attia’s baby, Vennevar, because of Attia’s accusations against it.
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Vennevar Technology, founded by architect Eli Attia, has been renamed by Google Flux Factory Inc. The company, however, will continue to use technologies invented by Attia which lower the costs of planning and construction.
Notification to the Delaware Division of Corporations of the name change was made by Google on May 8th. At the same time the company informed the SEC that Flux had raised $8 million from private investors in its first round of fundraising.
The investors were told that the new company expects to unveil its product in 2015.
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Google claims that it made the decision to change the name of the firm in order to distance it from its founder, Attia. The desire to do so came in response to Attia’s having sent a demand to Google’s founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin to stop using his intellectual properties. In a letter, sent to all of Goggle’s board members, Attia charged that the company“had stolen my invention and my life’s work.”
The Vannevar web site has been shut down by Google.
Israeli-American architect Eli Attia, an expert in skyscrapers, who has designed some of Tel Aviv’s prominent office towers, and is the designer of the Shalom Center Towers (Azrieli) in Tel Aviv.
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In the past few years, Attia has been developing new designs and construction technology, which integrates architecture and engineering, for which he has filed for a patent. He named the technology Engineered Architecture (EA). It was necessary to turn the technology into software which dramatically improves all design and construction processes.
Attia first presented his designs to Google’s top executives in August 2010. Google adopted the program and called it genie, for the Genie in Aladdin’s lamp. It is said to be a revolutionary technology for the construction of sustainable and environmentally-friendly buildings. The team developing Genie estimated that Google could bring in as much as $120 billion a year from the project.
Attia’s problems with Google began when he felt that the company was cutting corners on the project to save money and he objected when they formed a new group called Vannevar, without telling Attia.
In an interview with Globes Attia said, “My objective has always been to provide humanity the desperately needed critical improvement in the way buildings are planned, built, and maintained. By stealing and vandalizing my technology, Google is keeping from humanity something it urgently needs, risking that the technology will be lost forever.”
Asked why he has not sued Google, Attia replied, “I do not have the means to take legal action against one of the biggest financial powers in the world.”
In response, Google told Globes about Flux, “One of our earliest project teams at Google[x] explored the area of building design to see if there were ways that technology could lead to improvements in things like speed, cost savings, or even encouraging environmentally friendly buildings. Ultimately a subset of this team left Google and set up a separate company dedicated to exploring this area further.”
Attia told Globes about Flux, “It is not important whether they call this Vannevar or Flux, the fact is that Google stole my invention and my life’s work.”
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