Google Inc. CEO Larry Page once suggested the tech industry needs "safe places where we can try out new things" without rules or interference. Some people thought he was describing a futuristic fantasy.

But Page already has the next best thing in Google X, the secretive skunk works where company scientists get plenty of resources and free rein to work on things like self-driving cars, Internet-connected balloons and flying power generators.

At a time when other tech companies have trimmed research budgets or focused tightly on their core business, Google's X division is pursuing a range of seemingly outlandish ideas. And while much of it is hush-hush, the X projects that have been announced may push the envelope further than Google's ventures into ultrafast fiber networks, industrial robotics and high-tech home thermostats.

"They're doing a lot of incredibly weird stuff," said Rob Enderle, analyst at the Enderle Group, "but they're rolling in money." Google made a $13 billion profit on $60 billion in sales last year, mostly from online ads. "That gives them a lot of latitude."

While the X division is housed in two nondescript office buildings near Google's main campus, it's been compared to Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory by the man who runs it on a daily basis. Eric "Astro" Teller, an entrepreneur and scientist who reports to Google co-founder Sergey Brin, once described his staff as "Peter Pans with Ph.D.s."

"They understand that their mission is to think really audaciously, to incubate magic," Teller said last year, adding that X's goal is to "have an impact on the world and then worry later about making money on it."

Google announced last month that an X team has produced a prototype contact lens embedded with a tiny chip to monitor glucose in human tears, so diabetics don't have to prick their fingers several times a day.

Teller said two other projects have "graduated" from X after producing new technology for indoor mapping and computerized image-recognition, which were handed off to Google's maps and search divisions.

The downside? Google risks losing focus by pushing in too many directions, Pivotal Research analyst Brian Wieser warned. With most of the X projects, "I've not heard any compelling argument as to what these have in common."

Most investors aren't worrying, as long as Google keeps churning out profit. Analyst Colin Gillis of BGC Partners said Google just needs one or two "hits" for its "moonshot" strategy to pay off. And as the Internet industry evolves, he said, "They're going to need new sources of revenue."

X hasn't produced a clear financial hit yet, Gillis said. But that hasn't fazed Page and Brin. "They're going to do these projects," Gillis said. "That's one thing they have made pretty clear."