The Wall Street Journal reports on a conversation its editors had with Google CEO Eric Schmidt. Some of the nuggets of information (with some help of this Telegraph piece):

-The world of targeted information is near at hand. Schmidt says, “a generation of powerful handheld devices is just around the corner that will be adept at surprising you with information that you didn’t know you wanted to know.”

-Google might even help plan out what you should be doing: “”I actually think most people don’t want Google to answer their questions,” he elaborates. “They want Google to tell them what they should be doing next.””

-From the Telegraph article: “Mr Schmidt said he believed that every young person will one day be allowed to change their name to distance themselves from embarrasssing photographs and material stored on their friends’ social media sites.”

-About privacy regulation: “Mr. Schmidt says regulation is unnecessary because Google faces such strong incentives to treat its users right, since they will walk away the minute Google does anything with their personal information they find “creepy.””

Some fascinating insights into how Google hopes to be part of people’s lives in the future. The piece about young people perhaps needing to change their names once they reach adulthood in order to escape their online past is a reminder of how much information is available on the Internet.