Google\'s Coolest Project? Broadband

According to Eric Schmidt, Google‘s executive chairman, the most interesting project going on at the search giant is its high-speed broadband trials in Kansas City. (Missouri and Kansas versions)

The business, called Google Fiber, promises speeds 100 times faster than conventional high-speed Internet services. Mr. Schmidt, who was speaking at a New York Times Dealbook conference in New York, said Google was delivering 760 megabits per second to the customer, and taking 720 megabits a second from customers.

“All of the distinctions, like HD, DVD, that we grew up with, go away,” he said. “You really imagine that your computer is really in a data cen ter.”

Google is considering introducing  the service to other select cities, Mr. Schmidt said, but would not specify which towns would get the fiber.

Google is likely not interested in being a service provider, like Verizon, but rather in fostering a competitive climate in which ultrafast broadband becomes the norm. “Teleconferences will become holographic,” he predicted. “People take advantage of this kind of increase.”

The more people are on the Internet, Google has found, the more they search for things, which is good for Google's core ad business. In addition, Google can tailor other services to people, like its videoconferencing Hangouts service, which it sells to corporations. Watching consumers use more Google products also makes Google's ads mo re profitable, because the company can personalize the pitches better.

Even away from that, Google Fiber has changed the landscape of cities where it is employed, Mr. Schmidt said. “There are all sorts of bizarre things. We started wiring one neighborhood, and a whole bunch of start-ups bought houses in the neighborhood so they could get faster bandwidth,” he said. He added, “good for real estate values, I'm not sure that's sustainable real estate strategy.”

Aside from Fiber, Mr. Schmidt said, “the most startling personally is the self-driving car,” Mr. Schmidt said. It takes 20 minutes to recover from the shock of being driven by a large computer, he said. The state of California recently legalized self-driving cars, but there is not yet a commercial market for the vehicles.

Senator Demands F.A.A. Relax Electronics Rules

The Federal Aviation Administration could be on the receiving end of legislation if it does not change its stance on the use of electronics during takeoff and landing.

Senator Claire McCaskill of Missouri sent a letter to Michael P. Huerta, acting administrator of the F.A.A., writing that airline customers were “growing increasingly skeptical of prohibitions on the use of many electronic devices during the full duration of a flight.”

She added, “I am prepared to pursue legislative solutions should progress be made too slowly.”

The F.A.A. did not respond to a request for comment.

Senator McCaskill, a Democrat, said she was urging the agency to embrace the use of electr onics, including laptop computers, e-readers, smartphones and other devices, “during the full duration of a flight.”

“The current rules are inconvenient to travelers, don't make sense and lack a scientific basis,” she said in the letter. “Airline employees have the incredibly important job of keeping us safe in the air. Their efforts are better spent worrying about rules that actually accomplish that goal.”

Last week, Julius Genachowski, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, also sent a letter to the F.A.A. in which he urged the agency to allow more electronics on airplanes. He said electronic devices “empower people to stay informed and connected with friends and family, and they enable both large and small businesses to be more productive and efficient, helping drive economic growth and boost U.S. competitiveness.”

This year, the F.A.A. approved iPads instead of paper flight manuals in the cockpit for pilots, but it does not allow passengers to use electronic devices during takeoff and landing. The agency has initiated a review of its policies about electronic devices in all phases of flight, including takeoff and landing.

Flickr Has the Opportunity to Become the Next Flickr

It's quite amazing to think that Flickr, once one of the best photocentric social sites, was purchased by Yahoo in 2005 for, wait for this, around $30 million. (No, that's not a typo, people used to buy start-ups for million of dollars, not billions.)

Back then, the passion around Flickr would make the the fervor of Instagram look like a 12-second flash mob in Boise, Idaho. People loved - I mean loved! â€" Flickr. But somewhere along the way, it lost its way. Now, after years of neglect by other Yahoo executives, Marissa Mayer, Yahoo's new chief executive, is finally giving Flickr the attention it deserves.

On Wednesday the company announced a major update to the Flickr mobile application. People can take pictures, apply filters and share on any number of social networks. The new app can be su mmed up with one word: beautiful.

But the app goes beyond just a few filters and a spruced-up design. The updated mobile experience now feels like a social network that focuses on photography, not a photography Web site that happens to have a social network.

As Flickr moves forward, it has to be careful it doesn't try to be something that it is not. Instagram is trying to be like Twitter, while Twitter is trying to be like Instagram. Facebook is trying to be like, well, who knows what it's trying to be? Either way, there is currently a gaping void on the Web for people to share higher-resolution beautiful photos. Flickr should be that place, as it once was. We don't need another Web site or service to see pictures of someone's lunch or their soy latte, or another teenager making a duck face.< /p>

A focus on the iPad could be a boon for the company. Although a lot of people don't take photos on their iPad, they sure do like to look at images on it. Could Flickr create a beautiful magazinelike iPad application that allows people to skim through high-resolution images on the service? (When they are done with that, the Web site could use a bit of a revamp.)

Yahoo has the opportunity to make Flickr the photo-sharing site on the Web. And if it continues to innovate and update the service, Flickr could even become the next Flickr.

Video: Marc Andreessen on the Triumph of Software

Marc Andreessen, a partner in the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz and a co-founder of the first major Web browser, Netscape Navigator, discussed software, unions, the fiscal negotiations in Washington and the notion of a tech bubble with Andrew Ross Sorkin at DealBook's post-election conference.

TimesCast Media+Tech: The Best Tablets for Children

Super Bowl marketing gets an early start. Warren Buckleitner reviews children's tablets.

Eric Schmidt: How We Outrace the Robots

At the Deal Book conference today in Manhattan, I asked the executive chairman of Google, Eric Schmidt, where in the world the jobs for a great many people will be. His advice: We have to learn how to “outrace the robots.”

“Given the trends of globalization, automation and demographics, there will definitely be a small number of people who will be very prosperous,” said Mr. Schmidt. The challenge is to let as many people into that class as possible, and even more important, get masses of people educated to a level where they can qualify for work in the new businesses these people create.

Mr. Schmidt was speaking in an interview after appearing onstage at the New York Times DealBook conference. Earlier he, along with Mike Moritz, a partner in the Sequoia Capital venture capital firm, and Clara Shih, the founder of Hearsay Social, discussed how cloud comput ing's access to a nearly limitless amount of knowledge and a borderless consumer base would create great fortunes.

Throw in robotics, 3-D printing, and faster telecommunications, and things get tougher for the average worker. Robots may hollow out the factories in China, which count on cheap human labor, and bring manufacturing back to the United States. Those machines will need people to service them, and those people will need to be reasonably skilled.

Jobs like that are likely to be well worth having. But who says those robot operators have to be United States-based, just because the machines are? In a world like that, I asked Mr. Schmidt, what are the chances that the United States can expect to have unemployment of 6 percent or even lower?

“I don't think anyone can say the answer, but we can state the risks,” Mr. Schmidt said. “The way to combat it is education, which has to work for everyone, regardless of race or gender. You'll have global comp etition for all kinds of jobs.”

Understanding this, he said, should be America's “Sputnik moment,” which like that 1957 Russian satellite launch gives the nation a new urgency about education in math and science. “The president could say that in five years he wants the level of analytic education in this country â€" STEM education in science, technology, engineering and math, or economics and statistics â€" has to be at a level of the best Asian countries.”

Asian nations, Mr. Schmidt said, are probably going to proceed with their own increases in analytic education. “Employment is going to be a global problem, not a U.S. one,” he said.

Can we really outrun the robots, though? Mr. Schmidt cited the so-called “Flynn effect,” which notes that human intelligence appears to have risen on a sustained basis for several decades, possibly because people now live in more stimulating environments.< /p>

“The issue is, can you get the Flynn effect, plus education, to outrun the robots?” said Mr. Schmidt, who because of Google is a billionaire, and confessed his own self-interest in the matter.

“I am acutely aware that my economic and personal success depends on having a great number of customers and educated employees,” he said. It also matters that he has a stable world, without too many economic and political dislocations caused by our technology revolution.

Europe Reaches Agreement on System for Patents

The bickering that has plagued the development of a uniform patent system in Europe foreshadows the problems that another crucial effort, the creation of a banking union, could face.

Daily Report: Wallflowers of Silicon Valley Get Asked to Dance

After years of being wallflowers at Silicon Valley's hottest tech conferences and Sean Parker's after-parties, enterprise technology firms are now part of the “in” crowd.

The flameouts of social media stocks over the last year have left venture capital firms searching for a more measured approach to investing, writes Nicole Perlroth of The New York Times.

That means technology sectors - including mobile security, data analytics and storage companies and mobile payment systems - which previously elicited a shrug or a snooze, are suddenly finding millions of dollars of investments coming at them.

Some of the hottest innovations are in large-scale data mining. With the right analytical tools, big data can be used to solve complex problems quickly.

New storage methods will be critical to harnessing the gigabytes of data now pouring i n from those mobile devices, as well as the Web, social networks and video.

Increasingly, employees are taking sensitive corporate data home with them, frustrated with the limits of corporate technology and using their personal phones and tablets to work. That has created huge security and compliance headaches for chief information officers struggling to regain control over corporate data.

It may not be the end of paper money just yet, but more and more commercial products are making mobile payments a huge business.

Apps, with the proverbial “touch of a button,” have converted phones into urban remote controls, allowing customers to order meals, errands, car rides, concert tickets and even cocktails.

DealBook Conference Hosts Tech Guests

The fiscal cliff in the United States, the European debt crisis and the slowdown in China's economy have all weighed on deal-making. The 2012 election results were supposed to provide some clarity to our fiscal future, but the outcome of the much-debated tax increases and budget cuts remains uncertain. Our inaugural conference, “DealBook: Opportunities for Tomorrow,” will explore the challenges and the possibilities in this environment.

Writers and editors at The New York Times will interview leaders and chief executives from Wall Street to Silicon Valley in a day-long conference at the Times Center in New York. Whether you're attending in person or watching our video feed above, you can read up-to-minute analysis from our live blog of the day's events and take part in the conversation on Twitter with the hash tag #DBconf.

The official conference web site includes biographies of the speakers and an agenda for the day's events.

For the best viewing experience, readers who want to watch the embedded video below should turn off auto-refresh.

Facebook Changes Privacy Settings, Again

Stop me if you've heard this one before: Facebook is making changes to its privacy settings.

First, it is improving some privacy protections. The company is adding a new top-level control, called Privacy Shortcuts, that will allow people to quickly change who can see their “stuff” (as Facebook calls it) and who can contact them through the Web site. The shortcut will also feature a one-button link to block someone on Facebook.

In a phone interview, Sam Lessin, Facebook's director of product, said these shortcuts will always be visible to people on Facebook as they navigate the site. He added that highlighting the ability to block someone is an increasingly useful feature.

“There are a billion users and blocking is the ultimate way of saying I don't want to interact with this person,” Mr. Lessin said. “We think blocking is really positive.”

The company is also introducing a higher level of control on the site's Activity Log, a feature that allows people to hide or remove things that appear on their Facebook timeline. People will now be able to quickly view and control comments, photos and posts that have been tagged by others.

But when Facebook giveth, Facebook taketh away.

The company is eliminating the ability for people to hide themselves on Facebook's search, a control, that until now, has existed in the privacy settings on the company's Web site.

Mr. Lessin said the ability to hide from the site's search would be “retired” as only ”a single-digit percentage of users” actually hide themselves from Facebook search. But keep in mind that Facebook has a billion people on the site; a single-digit percentage of users could mean tens of millions of people.

But we should have seen this coming. During the TechCrunch Disrupt conference earlier this year, Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's chief executive, talked about the company's potential moves into search, highlighting how people use the feature.

“Search is interesting. We do on the order of 1 billion queries a day and we're basically not even trying,” Mr. Zuckerberg said. “Today with search the vast majority of it is people trying to find people.”

Now you won't have a choice but to be featured in search. At least you can easily block someone who finds you.