On Friday, June 3, Charlie Rose interviewed Eric Schmidt for the hour.

You can download the show from audible.com for $4.95.

Through Google Video Search, you can also search for keywords in the transcript and get a sense of the discussion.

Eric does a good job of selling Google, and not just to the public. He makes it sound like a really great company to want to work for. He knows how to sell it to engineers who've worked at small companies, who've worked at old-line behemoths, who've learned what they hate about big companies and are concerned that Google is rapidly becoming one.

What's he hiding?

The appearance has drawn some commentary:

Google CEO vows one right answer for every search and universal reach "we'll get them all, even the ones in the trees"

In the next couple of decades, Ray Kurzweil predicts, life expectancy will rise to at least 120 years. Most diseases will be prevented or reversed. Drugs will be individually tailored to a person's DNA. Robots smaller than blood cells -- nanobots, as they are called -- will be routinely injected by the millions into people's bloodstreams.

Inventing Our Evolution

A report by Don Clark and Nick Wringfield in Monday's WSJ confirms that Apple's move will begin next year, starting with the Mini.

WSJ seems oblivious to the existence of QuickTransit [1, 2] or sufficiently skeptical of Transitive's claims to not bother mentioning it in their report, despite referring specifically to emulation in the context of the shift from 68k to PPC.

WSJ lends some credence to the theory about a collective decision to let Jobs speak for everyone on this latest move. They say that Apple has already briefed their plans to IBM, Microsoft, and other software companies. It is being made to look like an Apple NDA is in effect, but it's more likely a mutual agreement, at least between Apple and Intel.

WSJ suggests that Intel will subsidize Apple's use of Pentium processors through the transition period. Perhaps the subsidies will help Apple cover the licensing costs to Transitive, and Apple notebooks will get faster without getting more expensive.

This whole story is especially interesting for what it isn't saying about AMD, who may increasingly come to dominate the no-margin "value PC" market even as the traditional PC platform fades into history. Today's industry realignment leaves them looking like a fifth wheel -- in the West, anyway. But if Lenovo and AMD can deliver on the promise of $100 laptops for the developing world, they might be able to stake out an early claim on a major international growth market.

[1] "Transitive expects to announce that a second computer OEM [after SGI] will deploy products enabled by its technology during the 1st half of 2005 and that others will deploy QuickTransit before the end of the year. Unfortunately, strict confidentiality obligations prevent us from discussing these relationships in any detail."

[2] "Alasdair Rawsthorne, founder/CTO, and Bob Wiederhold, CEO, were perfectly silent when asked why, given the vast installed base of Sparc and PA-RISC iron and disgruntled users on those boxes, Transitive would work on the IBM Power platform first. This may be because IBM approached Transitive first to encourage them to do this, which seems unlikely unless you think about how IBM might want to port mainframe applications to future Power6 servers. Maybe this is how IBM will do it--if it consolidates the mainframe onto the Power platform at all."

John Markoff adds to the coverage on the industry realignment. What comes through here is that circumstances are forcing this change on Apple. This isn't Steve Jobs, cooking up some grand vision of an Apple dominated world. This is about Paul Otellini manuevering now so he can still make his quarterly numbers in three years.

This is not about Apple. This is about establishing the structure of one of the major growth industries for the next decade. Based on the other parties' refusal to comment to the media, it seems they've decided to let Apple spin this as a Macintosh thing, at least for now. But make no mistake; this story is not about notebook computers. This is about the whole post-print, post-cinema, post-broadcast, by-subscription media landascpe.

"This is a seismic shift in the world of personal computing and consumer electronics. It is bound to rock the industry, but it will also be a phenomenal engineering challenge for Apple."

It is likely that Intel forged the alliance with Apple in an effort to counter the powerful home entertainment and game systems coming from Microsoft and Sony.

Markoff makes no mention of the QuickTransit product that was mentioned in the Wired News story.

Apple Plans to Switch From IBM to Intel for Chips

Imagine movies and computer games in which you get to smell, taste and perhaps even feel things. That's the tantalising prospect raised by a patent on a device for transmitting sensory data directly into the human brain -- granted to none other than the entertainment giant Sony.

Sony patent takes first step towards real-life Matrix

"The fundamental root of the problem is that I don't want to hear a recording. I want to hear the young Horowitz, Schnabel, Fats Waller, Thelonious Monk on an in-tune piano."

If the claims he is making for his new technology are accurate, he will soon be able to.

Play It Again, Vladimir (via Computer)

Steve Jobs cast doubt on Yahoo's announcement of a $60-per-year music subscription plan, saying that price point was "substantially" below Yahoo's costs and would be raised. Mr. Jobs then claimed Apple employees had a betting pool on when Yahoo would raise the $5-a-month rate, with Mr. Jobs putting his money on five months.

Notes from the D: All Things Digital conference | WSJ

The plug-in, called ml_iPod, allows iPod users to bypass iTunes and manage music collections in Winamp instead. The iPod is supposed to work with iTunes only. A new version of the software was released Monday.

iPod Plug-In Sets Music Free

There's a new NetNewsWire. It's been "streamlined", includes a tabbed browser, automatically downloads podcasts, supports "smart lists" like iTunes, and more.

Best of all, upgrades are free.

What’s New in NetNewsWire 2.0

The "ubiquitous network society", which will make it possible to connect anytime, anywhere, by anything and anyone, is now rapidly becoming more than just a concept. In a ubiquitous network society, everyone and everything can be connected, and new innovations that will completely change the current dimension of ICT are anticipated. In the ideal ubiquitous network society, smooth interaction, reflection of users’ needs and points of view as well as the tapping of individual energy are set to be realized.

Tokyo Ubiquitous Network Conference 2005