Gawker
cartoons
Posts Tagged “Google
”
cartoons
the internets
Google Looking for a "Corporate Concierge" to Find You Aerosmith Tickets or Whatever
Google is known for offering lavish perks for its employees. Here's one more—they're looking to hire a "Corporate Concierge"! Boston Magazine's recent article about a concierge service (cubicle slaves with Google and a phone) describes a hellish scene in which entitled douches call up asking their concierges to schedule vet appointments and order up some midgets for a party—and they have to let their supervisor know every time they take a bathroom break.More »
the internet
Professor Busted For "Pussy" Search
Good news fusspots: The internet has brought everyone a new thing to get offended about! Editor and blogger Maud Newton (pictured) was today shaken up that someone arrived at her personal website by "searching for a colleague’s name + 'pussy.'" In case you don't already know, when you search for something in Google or Yahoo or whatever and click on one of the hits, your browser forwards the search terms to the destination site (by sending the whole referring Web address). Usually this isn't a big deal, because you're searching for something innocent, or sitting at home behind a quasi-anonymous internet connection. But the professor who hit Newton's site was not so careful: his first initial and last name are part of his internet address (let's just assume he's a dude), along with the name of the university where he works. Whoops! Luckily for the prof, Newton has not outed him, at least not yet. But she is all in a snit: More »
obscenity
Google to Prove You're a Sex-Fiend In Court
This is why Google has spent a decade collecting and preserving all the information it can gather about everyone on Earth: so it can prove in a court of law that your neighbors are perverts. There's an obscenity trial going on down in Florida, where life itself is generally obscene, against an icky hardcore pornographer (first they came for CumOnHerFace.com, and I said nothing, because I preferred alt-porn). In an obscenity trial, the prosecutors must prove that the material is in violation of "community standards." This is, obviously, a ridiculous yardstick. Everyone who watches movies knows that just below the friendly surface of American Suburbia lies violence, depravity, secret gay neighbors, and Dean Stockwell in eyeshadow. But jurors like to pretend that they've never enjoyed a little Skinimax. This is where Google—and your deepest, darkest secrets—come into play! More »
Modern Crime
Murder Suspect Done In By Evolution Of Media, Own Stupidity
The revolutionary information age is great and everything, but it makes crime a really big hassle. In the McCarthy era, they ran down the Reds by tracing their anti-American magazine subscriptions. Dragnet cops could storm into the library to demand a suspect's list of books borrowed. But now criminals use the internet, and its treasure trove of crime information is an equally rich source of evidence against those who access it. We've already seen a Facebook update lead to a murder-suicide. And now, the latest entrant in the annals of "Bad Things To Do Online": Google "How to kill with a knife," and then murder your wife and child: More »
print is dead
Google Apologizes For Killing Newspapers
All these people who accidentally destroyed the newspaper industry feel so bad about it! Craig Newmark, whose Craigslist decimated the classifieds sections of the nation, endowed some chair at Berkeley's journalism school to assuage his guilty conscience. Now Google, whose ad company is destroying the revenue model newspapers depend on, is hopping on the "we totally love journalism" bandwagon. Google head Eric Schmidt claimed that their DoubleClick ad service will aid newspapers! In getting more online revenue, obv, not with the whole "saving newspapers themselves" thing. "It's a huge moral imperative to help here," Eric said. Too little, too late, Google! ONCE A WHORE, ALWAYS A WHORE. More »
google maps
The Town That Was Too Good For Google Maps
The town of North Oaks, Minnesota told Google Maps to get out of its nice quiet community this January, says the Star-Tribune, and Google removed the whole town from its "Street View" service. The private community, a suburb of St. Paul, is 92% white with an average income of $75,000. Of course, if the poors wanted privacy, they wouldn't get it. More »
futurism
Facebook Funder Buys Stake in Fantastical Ocean Utopia
Hooray! A bunch of eccentric rich people are striking out to create their own sovereign nation in the middle of the ocean! Again! You may remember back in the 60s when a pirate radio broadcaster occupied a sea-bound fort 6 miles off the coast of Great Britain and declared it the Principality of Sealand. (It's for sale, btw.) But while that little adventure in sovereignty was merely for kicks, Wired reports today on a venture much more exciting for its batshit reasoning, impressive backers, and fantastic scope. More »
flackery
Intrepid Jennifer 8. Lee has defied Google's blackout on photographs of the lego sculptures at its offices in New York's Chelsea. The New York Times reporter, stymied by Google's publicists, obtained images from a brave insider—who will no doubt soon be sweeping the floors at one of the internet monolith's server farms.
Google's Secret Lego-Made Logo
Intrepid Jennifer 8. Lee has defied Google's blackout on photographs of the lego sculptures at its offices in New York's Chelsea. The New York Times reporter, stymied by Google's publicists, obtained images from a brave insider—who will no doubt soon be sweeping the floors at one of the internet monolith's server farms.
pic of the day
An Illinois girl exposes her breasts to one of those creepy camera-bearing vans that make the "streetview" panoramas for Google Maps.
Girl Flashes Google Mapmakers' Cameras
An Illinois girl exposes her breasts to one of those creepy camera-bearing vans that make the "streetview" panoramas for Google Maps.
the internets
Google Street View No Longer Fun
Google has announced plans to blur all the human faces in its "Street View" service, which allows you to take a virtual photographic tour of interesting places like Manhattan so that you never have to leave your dank apartment in real life. This is, in all likelihood, to prevent you from seeing any inadvertently captured interesting moments, like drug deals or people crashing their bikes. Google says ""The purpose of Street View isn't looking at people, it's looking at buildings and locations." Whatever. Somewhere on there is a picture of a Google programmer flagging down a hooker. Occam's Razor, people. [AFP]
foreign affairs
Google Terrorizes Italy
Ever since Rome elected a straight-up neo-fascist mayor, they've been a little on edge about things. So when Google sent their magic creepy photo-van around town to capture every block for their wonderful Street View feature, Italians naturally fled "into shops and bars, hoping to be out of view of the camera's lens." Because they thought it was government surveillance, not the good, benevolent private surveillance we Americans know and love. Or at least don't give a shit about. Silly Italians! [Times of London]
movies
Google? A Movie? For Serious?
It's like "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon," except with the Internet and likable schlubs you've never heard of. Actually, it does look kind of good. Like cable-good. Like Supersize Me without wanting to punch the narrator in his smug stupid face. Come see the preview! More »
what the hell happened
A Brief History of the Longest Primaries Ever
So! Tonight! Pennsylvania's Primary! The current CW sez Clinton will win—her internal numbers have her 11 points ahead, public polling has a slightly narrower margin. But she needs a HUGE win to, uh, overtake Obama in the popular vote. The delegate thing? Well, that's a much harder gap to close. Hey, remember how Hil was inevitable? Anyone? It was less than a year ago that she was the unstoppable presumptive nominee. What happened? We went back in time, with our magic Googling time machine, to dissect 18 months of campaign spin, media narratives, and pundit bullshit to figure out how Senator Hillary Clinton went from our next President to this increasingly desperate-looking figure. More »
branding
Brands Control Us All
The new "BrandZ" ranking of the world's most powerful brands is out, and it just helps to confirm that it's only a matter of time before China is running everything. China Mobile is the fifth most powerful brand in the world, ahead of names like IBM, Apple, and McDonald's. China's most powerful brands collectively gained more than 50% in value over the past year. And China and other emerging economies are the most powerful drivers of growth for all brands. Russia is also a fast riser. The takeaway: at least we are still killing all these foreigners through our strong American Marlboro brand (#10). Below, the top 25 brands in the world, and their added value to the company, so you can sound smart at your next branding party. Yes, Google is #1: More »
things we actually like
Google Earth More Urbane, Badass
Google updated its Google Earth application to make everything look a lot more real and so you can basically be Spider-Man. The upgrade includes very real looking 3D buildings, a street-level view, shadows and all kinds of new controls to fly around the city with. I fumbled around New York a bit and edited the best bits into a movie after the jump. It includes the Times building, Hearst tower, Starbucks and America's Next Top Model. More »
technology
Google Demands Better Bar Codes
Google is working with QVC on a REVOLUTIONARY advanced type of bar code that can be scanned with a mobile phone. Revolutionary in the sense of "Everything old is new again." These "QR codes" do face some obstacles, the most significant being the fact that less than 5% of people currently own phones compatible with the technology. A previous attempt at a similar product called CueCat was a big failure [Ad Age]. But Google, the company that's determined to scan all the world's books, is not giving up in its retro attachment to print-based technologies, even in the bar code sphere. Besides, these scannable QR codes have already proven their worth in trial campaigns by making the Case Western University campus "look like downtown Tokyo" and benefiting "the end user," say jargon-spouting engineers! More »
identical cousins
