The Google Translator

Our Google translator finally arrived in the mail! Now lets see just how good it is at decoding Googleish.

We fed the contraption this story written by my colleague Michael J. Miller at PC Magazine. His work is based on an interview with Google Chief Executive Officer Eric Schmidt.

Schmidt: Personally, he wouldn’t support an embargo on the sale of Internet filtering technology to punish China, Cuba and other countries for having less-than-Western ideals about personal freedoms. Rather, give everybody fast Internet connections and lots of cheap personal computers. Google can do the rest. “The technology we have is incredibly empowering to citizens,” he said.

Translation: Are you kidding me? We just managed to get licensed to work inside China, and sold a little bit of soul to do so. Without the filters, there’s no Google/China deal, and no Google entry into a green field market of billions of people. Business is business.

Schmidt: He’s “pleased” with the likelihood Google must provide the U.S. Department of Justice with a random sample of the Web sites Google’s found and indexed. It’s only a miniscule amount. And the privacy of Google’s consumers is protected.

Translation: You get it yet? The government is watching what you search for. Google’s fighting hard, but losing its battle to keep the feds from seeing customers’ search habits.

Schmidt: Microsoft “Office is not the business we’re in,” and Google’s recent purchase of a Web-based word processor isn’t a sign of a Google competitor to Microsoft’s ubiquitous enterprise desktop features.

Translation: It’d be stupid to admit we want a piece of the business desktop. Microsoft RULES this market, anybody else is really a loser. So to admit we are going after ‘Office’ makes us look like a loser. Check back in a year or so, see what I say then.

The machine seems to have overheated. That’s all we got.