Google CEO Reveals His Vision Of Autonomous Search, Chrome OS’ Future, and More at IFA

At his closing keynote to this year’s IFA in Berlin, Google CEO Eric Schmidt revealed a frankly terrifying vision of the future. He sees mobile devices doing automatic and constant searches as users walk down the street and popping up information tailored specifically to said user. While this ‘augmented humanity’ is meant to serve the increase in me-centric searches people are performing, I really don’t see myself wanting my phone to alert me every few seconds with ‘did you know?’, ‘did you know?’, ‘did you know?’, ‘did you know?’

The idea of “autonomous search” — which Schmidt defines as search that tells me things I’m probably interested in based on what the search engine knows about me — is both intriguing and worrisome. There was a bone thrown to those of us worried about privacy, but my fears run a little deeper than that. It comes down to this: I don’t think I want any corporation to know enough about me to show me search results for things I didn’t even know I wanted. Doesn’t that strike anyone else as creepy? Sure, it takes the work out of the equation for the user — right now I have to type in words for Google to know what I need — but there’s a line between ease of use and laziness.

The other interesting tidbit from the keynote had to do with tablets, operating systems, and the future of Chrome OS and Android. Schmidt says that though Chrome OS tablets have been rumored, Google is sticking to their original plan to put it on netbooks and similar devices, not slates. Given that Google is now finally allowing tablets to have certification for Google apps and the roadmap for Android 3.0 includes tablet support, we’re glad that the uncertainty around this issue appears to be cleared up, for the moment, anyway.

Still, as the CEO points out, Chrome OS is open source, so companies could put it on a tablet just as companies put Android on them even without Google’s support. “…it’s too early to say exactly how it’ll play out,” says Schmidt. Watch the keynote on IFA’s website.

Via PCMag, PaidContent