'Google to become more personalised in future'

Google CEO Eric Schmidt has said that in the future, the search engine will increasingly become a more personalised tool. Google will also use artificial intelligence to provide customers with more solutions. The company has also identified telemetry as another key area of growth and plans to develop basic medical diagnostics to help check one’s blood pressure on smartphones or other devices.

Delivering his keynote address at the GSMA summit in Barcelona, he said, “Google search will become more and more personalised, but that will also depend on the amount of information the customer is ready to share about himself.” As an example, Schmidt said when one asks what the weather would be, the answer doesn’t lie only in the temperature of the city. Google can provide answers to whether one would require one’s raincoat or would it be necessary to water one’s flower pots, provided it has information about the person.

Another coming change he mentioned was that individuals would not, for instance, have to search for historical places on Google while traveling. This data would be available automatically as he moved around, provided Google knew historical places were the area of interest.

Schdmit said with the help of artificial intelligence software, Google would also help decisions — and this could hold immense scope in the future. The interest in this area stems from the fact that about four per cent of all search queries are related to health, thus making telemetry the next big thing.

He also outlined a few key developments such as Google Instant, which can answer search queries three to five seconds faster. It would also be possible to not only find the direction between two places, but to talk to friends who have used the same routes, and find the shortest or cheapest to travel, all through the search engine.

Schmidt added that in the area of financial services, the NEC SIM card chip, with 18 digits, is a secured ID, and various nations are contemplating using it for financial transactions. Google could provide those who want to make a transaction with alternative offers from stores close to one’s location. “When you get into the store, they are already ready to make the transaction. What we offer is alternative offer prices for a product around the locality from where you want to buy,” he said.

Talking about the challenges faced by Android from the new tie-up between Microsoft and Nokia, through which Microsoft operating systems will be used on Nokia phones, Schmidt said, “We also tried, but Nokia chose our competitors. We hope that some day they will choose Android.”

Schmidt said new applications are possible because high-speed broadband wireless is now a reality, thanks to 3G and now, LTE 4G networks. With speeds of 12-14 Mbps already possible, this offers new applications beyond one’s imagination. These will be ushered in through mobile devices, whose numbers are already exploding. “A year ago, I had predicted that smartphone sales will overtake PC sales in two years, but this has already happened in the last quarter, and PCs are not growing,” Schmidt said. Speeds of telecom networks have gone up by 60 per cent since 2009.

Talking about Facebook, Schmidt acknowledged the social networking site, together with Twitter, played a great role in the revolution in Egypt. He, however, said, “Facebook is additive for Google, and Microsoft, which has a good advertising model, remains our main competitor. We have not seen any shift in our advertising due to Facebook.”