Last year at Google I/O, Dugan showed us "a glimpse at a small band of pirates trying to do epic shit." This year, she’ll give us more than a glimpse: we’ll see several of those projects come to fruition and several more be announced. They include tech-infused fabrics, a new security paradigm for computers, and a computer small enough to fit inside a microSD card. ATAP is also premiering a 360-degree, live-action monster movie directed by Justin Lin called Help! shot with six Red EPIC Dragon cameras on a single rig.

Dugan describes everything ATAP does as "badass and beautiful," and after watching Help!, I’m inclined to agree.

There’s a scale for how to think about science. On one end there’s an attempt to solve deep, fundamental questions of nature; on the other is rote uninteresting procedure. There’s also a scale for creating products. On one end you find ambitious, important breakthroughs; on the other small, iterative updates. Plot those two things next to each other and you get a simple chart with four sections. Important science but no immediate practical use? That’s pure basic research — think Niels Bohr and his investigations into the nature of the atom. Not much science but huge practical implications? That’s pure applied research — think Thomas Edison grinding through thousands of materials before he lit upon the tungsten filament for the lightbulb.