Over the past few years, I've spent quite a lot of time discussing Google's foray into non-search technologies: Wearable computing, robotics, home automation, indefinite life extension, green energy generation -- you name it, if it's a technology that even has the slightest chance of blossoming in the next decade or so, Google is all over it. Most observers have explained away these acquisitions and research efforts as having a tangential connection to Google's primary product, search, but I would argue that there's another possibility: Google is gearing up to become its own nation.