Shares of Google closed at $845.72 in New York today, up almost 2 percent. It’s been a pretty big week for the company. Google Now, a voice-activated search assistant, launched on iPhone this week. And the wearable computer Google Glass has been getting a lot of press.

Pretty much everything Google’s doing is changing the way we think about and get our information. What’s all that searching doing to us?

“I think we’re going to ultimately move beyond these little devices that are like looking at the world through a keyhole,” Futurist Ray Kurzweil, the director of engineering at Google, says. “You’ll be online all the time. Google Glass is a solid first step.”

Unlike Google’s board of directors, Kurzweil doesn’t focus as much on generating revenue on a daily basis from that technology. But he believes that when consumers find something valuable, the business model will follow. He cites as an example the company’s current advertising model.

“The goal is to be a win-win,” Kurzweil says. “Like if I see a television commercial for baby diapers, I’m annoyed by it because I stopped buying baby diapers 30 years ago. But if I get an ad for something I really care about, some new supplement let’s say, then I actually appreciate the ad.” […]