Your best friend, Google, has officially started their quest for world domination.  If they continue down this path, they’re going to be the next Microsoft in a very short period of time.  Today Google announced several big initiatives that will drastically change the way we work with computers, watch TV, etc.  All of these announcements were made at the annual Google I/O conference in San Francisco.  So let’s jump right in.

The first big initiative they announced was a brand new video file format to directly compete against the Apple-backed H.264 for the future of web-based video.  They’re calling it the WebM project, and what makes this so special is that it is completely open-source, and royalty-free.  H.264 isn’t and requires a hefty yearly fee.  The other big news is that the format has the backing of Google, Mozilla and Opera, meaning just about all the big open-source web browsers will support the new video format.  Given the parties involved HTML5 should explode onto the market sometime before the end of the year.  This should also put a lot of pressure on Microsoft and Apple to support the format, which means the future of H.264, could be numbered.

The other big initiative which will be felt in the coming years is a partnership with Intel and Google for using the Android operating system in home entertainment devices such as televisions.  Unlike Apple and many other hardware makers, Google realizes that if they control the future software that will be used for net-connected devices such as HDTVs, they control everything we watch, look up, etc.  Once they combine this with their ads, it’s not impossible to envision a world where Google has formed a monopoly over pretty well every aspect of marketing.

We know the Android OS will be coming to Netbooks soon, but before too long we fully expect Android to be running on every single electronic device out there.  Once that happens world domination will be in their grasp!  If you don’t see the significance of these announcements yet, bookmark COE and come back in a few year’s time and you’ll see exactly what I’m talking about.