Co-Founder and President Larry Page used his platform as final keynote speaker at the 2006 Consumer Electronics Show on Friday to speak out in favor of a variety of his pet scientific projects and to address issues concerning his company. He made the following comments during the speech, the audience question-and-answer session that followed and a subsequent news conference with Google CEO Eric Schmidt.
“TWENTY PERCENT TIME:” FREEDOM FROM MANAGERS
Page was asked by reporters to further define the company’s so-called “20 percent time” project rule, under which Google engineers have the option to spend one-fifth of their work week on side projects of their own choosing.
“The important thing is that it really let’s you say ‘No’ to your manager if you are bright and passionate” about your work,” Page said from an employees perspective. “Nobody can tell you that you can’t experiment” under the rule, he said.
“I don’t think the percentage (matters) at all,” Page said of whether a Google employee spends 10 percent, 20 percent or 80 percent of their workweek on side projects. “Other people don’t do it at all. And it balances out.”
These side projects must still have business justification in order to receive company resources, he noted. “It doesn’t mean it (a 20 percent time project) gets a lot of resources. This is where we have issues in the company.”
GOOGLE PC
CEO Eric Schmidt strongly denied months of rumors that the Web search leader was preparing to offer its own, low cost personal computer for around $100.
“We have tremendous partners in the PC space and there is no need for us to do this,” CEO Eric Schmidt said in response to reporters’ repeated questions.
“We will do whatever it takes to get that (information) in peoples’ hands,” Schmidt later said. “What we tried to say is we don’t need to do that (build or market our own PC),” he said.
UNIVERSAL CONNECTORS
In his talk, Page spent the most time decrying the lack of standards in the hardware industry, specifically, the proliferation of incompatible plugs and cables, network “ports,” adapters, audio and video protocols, displays, indicators, storage, keyboards and input/output devices.
“I am just going to plea to you: Let’s get all these devices talking to each other and I think you will have just amazing innovation,” Page said, directing his comments to the electronics industry at large.>
“Why not instead just standardize the power supply?” Page asked. “Why (are) there no standards for those keyboards and little devices? One wire should be able to do everything possible,” Page argued.
“I don’t think there is much of anything that is needed besides standards. I think standards are best done by universities,” said Page, who was a Stanford University graduate student and the son of a Michigan State computer science professor.
“I am amazed we don’t have devices like this and the reason for this is that we lack standards to do it,” he said. “If one in a thousand power adapters start to catch fire and you have one of them, it starts to become an issue,” Page joked. “It is just silly,” he added.
VIDEO PIRACY
Page announced several new products, including the Google Video Store, which allows video owners to charge whatever they decide for individual episodes or segments. Shows ranging from professional basketball games to “Star Trek” to “Rocky and Bullwinkle” cartoons to Charlie Rose interviews are available to rent or own.
“A lot of the way to deal with these issues (of potential piracy) is to have legitimate ways for people to buy things that make sense like Apple iTunes,” Page said. “(We need to) get a positive economic system going,” he said.
Speaking of Google’s new video player and copyright protection system, Page said that, “We are going to make it hard enough for people to pirate (videos for sale)” — in part through the ability to constantly upgrade the video player because it must be connected to the Internet to operate.
GOOGLE PACK
Google Pack is a new assortment of software designed to give users a variety of basic software applications while also providing essential computer maintenance functions. Google Pack is available for free.
“There has been no software package that has been organized around user needs,” Page said. Instead, most software is developed to meet the business priorities of software companies, he argued.
Google executives responded to several questions over whether Google’s move to introduce a broad package of software was designed as a replacement for Microsoft products. A reporter also asked whether the world’s largest software company could use its market dominance of the desktop to retaliate against Google.
Schmidt argued that the structure of the industry had changed and that these questions may no longer be relevant.
“A lot of this has to do with defining the competitive structure in terms of past battles,” Schmidt said in downplaying comparisons to past computer industry battles involving Microsoft.
“(Competitively) there is going to be a lot more than the three (which) everyone always talks about,” he said, apparently referring to the rivalry between Google, Microsoft and Yahoo.
“This is a very, very large space. It is so much larger than that,” he said in downplaying the rivalry with Microsoft.
“The Pack is a tactic to solve a problem that is an ‘end user’ problem,” Schmidt said, referring to the computer wonk jargon the industry uses to refer to customers. He contrasted this to Google’s continuing strategy, which remains “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.”
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Subplot to watch during the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) next week: Sony Corp.’s plan to use the PlayStation 3 to get its Blu-ray high-definition DVD standard into homes, 
Gadget industry giants came out swinging this week at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, unveiling sleek designs and tiny portable digital music players in hopes of ending the dominance of Apple Computer Inc.’s iPods.
definition DVD players and discs, offering greater capacity and interactive features. A single-layer Blu-ray disc has a capacity of 25 gigabytes of data, which is enough to hold a two-hour high-definition movie, or 13 hours of standard television programming. Rival HD DVD has a single-layer capacity of 15 gigabytes, but its backers argue it is cheaper to manufacture.
Following Google’s founder 
