Larry Page is doing a keynote at this week's Consumer Electronics Show. Now why would a search giant be present at a show related to consumer electronics? Maybe because that will be one of the next arenas that Google will enter. In fact, it is rumored that Google is in current negotiations with Wal-Mart and other retailers to offer a personal computer, running Google's own operating system. That's right - a Windows free PC.

This is highlighted in a LA Times report entitled Industry Feeling Presence of the 800-Pound Google. "Sources say Google has been in negotiations with Wal-Mart Stores Inc., among other retailers, to sell a Google PC. The machine would run an operating system created by Google, not Microsoft's Windows, which is one reason it would be so cheap — perhaps as little as a couple of hundred dollars," the Times reports.

It has been speculated for some time that Google has been developing its own operating system with the hiring of ex-Microsoft employees who had worked on the Windows OS. With a low cost PC in the works, Google would have a place to run their OS as well.

Larry Page, co-founder of Google, will give a keynote address Friday at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas where it is suspected that he will show off the device and/or announce a partnership with a big retailer such as Wal-Mart to sell such a machine.

If true, this is another move that will no doubt continue to worry Microsoft who recently lost a bid to buy a piece of Time Warner Inc.'s AOL Search to Google last month. "Within days, speculation was rampant that Microsoft, determined to keep itself in the game, had offered to buy Yahoo Inc. for $80 billion. If rumors were to be believed, the Microsoft bid — a premium of more than 30% over the Web giant's current market value — was rejected by Yahoo as too low," the LA Times reports.

Will they offer more? Will they lower the price of the Windows OS? Maybe they will make a pitch to buy Dell or another leading computer manufacturer? No one can tell for sure but this current news at the beginning of the new year sure makes for an exciting year ahead in this ongoing battle between these two rivals.