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Google CEO Schmidt Speaks To Penn Grads At Computer's Birthplace
  
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Returning To His Roots
By Bradley Vasoli, The Bulletin
Philadelphia — For Google CEO Eric Schmidt, giving a commencement address to University of Pennsylvania graduates yesterday was a return to roots in more ways than one.
Mr. Schmidt grew to know the Philadelphia area while attending Princeton University, just north of here across the Delaware River in New Jersey, in the mid-1970s. But he was also paying a visit to the birthplace of the first complex machine we know today as simply “the computer.” In 1947, a military project created ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer) at Penn.
And while Philadelphia is not known for generating loads of high-tech products, U Penn has made this city the (at least briefly) home of many optimally skilled engineers, with its engineering program achieving nationwide repute, particularly in the past decade.
“It’s the buzz school,” the search engine company chief said.
But, he said, in addition to quality training, the city will need to retain the youth culture that stops here for a few bright college years if it wants to create a “tech renaissance” the likes of which could bring back the excitement surrounding ENIAC.
(For more information on the computer breakthrough, see Dr. Rocco Martino’s series on Tuesdays.)
But as much as Mr. Schmidt said he wanted to see computer technology continue to flourish, he gave the Penn students a piece of advice many of them did not expect: Don’t keep yourself in front of the monitor for too long.
“I would say it’s important to know where the ‘off’ button is,” he said, going so far as to say that too intense a focus on electronic gadgetry is “destroying life.”
Not that Mr. Schmidt doubts that those across the globe won’t continue to use his company’s service more and more to do conventional things they always used to do manually – like reading newspapers.
Ultimately, he told reporters after the commencement address, those who expect ‘micropayments’ to become the new funding stream for the news business are probably correct. As Craigslist and other sites have decimated the moneymaking potential of classified sections and big-name advertisers continue to pour more money into online advertising – not to mention as publications put more of their content online for free – newspapers have looked feverishly for the new big source of revenue.
Walter Isaacson, a former Time magazine editor, recently wrote that newspapers could likely secure their survival through a system of micropayments whereby users would pay small fees to view their content. Mr. Schmidt said that will probably happen although, just as with hard-copy publications, some papers will likely continue to publish for free and rely solely on advertising to keep afloat.
And much as Atlantic Monthly contributor Nicholas Carr and other technology critics have lamented that online reading possibly shortens computer-users attention spans, many will experience the frequent reading of books online in the not-too-distant future.
Google set about its book-scanning project in 2004 “understanding that there would be complaints” from copyright holders, Mr. Schmidt said. Litigation has led many authors and Google, Inc. to tentatively reach a deal that may be finalized this fall. It entails a complex process of identifying the owners of copyrights and paying them for the right to scan and publish their material online.
“We think that’s a pretty good outcome,” he said.
Bradley Vasoli can be reached at bvasoli@thebulletin.us
Mr. Schmidt grew to know the Philadelphia area while attending Princeton University, just north of here across the Delaware River in New Jersey, in the mid-1970s. But he was also paying a visit to the birthplace of the first complex machine we know today as simply “the computer.” In 1947, a military project created ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer) at Penn.
And while Philadelphia is not known for generating loads of high-tech products, U Penn has made this city the (at least briefly) home of many optimally skilled engineers, with its engineering program achieving nationwide repute, particularly in the past decade.
“It’s the buzz school,” the search engine company chief said.
But, he said, in addition to quality training, the city will need to retain the youth culture that stops here for a few bright college years if it wants to create a “tech renaissance” the likes of which could bring back the excitement surrounding ENIAC.
(For more information on the computer breakthrough, see Dr. Rocco Martino’s series on Tuesdays.)
But as much as Mr. Schmidt said he wanted to see computer technology continue to flourish, he gave the Penn students a piece of advice many of them did not expect: Don’t keep yourself in front of the monitor for too long.
“I would say it’s important to know where the ‘off’ button is,” he said, going so far as to say that too intense a focus on electronic gadgetry is “destroying life.”
Not that Mr. Schmidt doubts that those across the globe won’t continue to use his company’s service more and more to do conventional things they always used to do manually – like reading newspapers.
Ultimately, he told reporters after the commencement address, those who expect ‘micropayments’ to become the new funding stream for the news business are probably correct. As Craigslist and other sites have decimated the moneymaking potential of classified sections and big-name advertisers continue to pour more money into online advertising – not to mention as publications put more of their content online for free – newspapers have looked feverishly for the new big source of revenue.
Walter Isaacson, a former Time magazine editor, recently wrote that newspapers could likely secure their survival through a system of micropayments whereby users would pay small fees to view their content. Mr. Schmidt said that will probably happen although, just as with hard-copy publications, some papers will likely continue to publish for free and rely solely on advertising to keep afloat.
And much as Atlantic Monthly contributor Nicholas Carr and other technology critics have lamented that online reading possibly shortens computer-users attention spans, many will experience the frequent reading of books online in the not-too-distant future.
Google set about its book-scanning project in 2004 “understanding that there would be complaints” from copyright holders, Mr. Schmidt said. Litigation has led many authors and Google, Inc. to tentatively reach a deal that may be finalized this fall. It entails a complex process of identifying the owners of copyrights and paying them for the right to scan and publish their material online.
“We think that’s a pretty good outcome,” he said.
Bradley Vasoli can be reached at bvasoli@thebulletin.us
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