Yeah, these look great. (Photo: YouTube.com)

Today Google announced 8,000 winners in its #ifihadglass essay contest. Apparently contestants with the willpower not to troll the hashtag were handsomely rewarded.

Google launched the contest last month, soliciting 50-word applications on how users would use their Internet-connected creepshot devices. Lucky winners were given the chance to shell out $1,500 to humblebrag about the future—or get called an asshole, depending on your perspective.

Google started selecting finalists last Tuesday. Gizmodo discovered six of them had much more noble plans than the rest of us. Sarah Hills (walking angel) wants to show vets them war memorials without having to travel. Shannon Rooney, another winner, said she's going to take Glass to Japan to show her Japanese grandmother what the country looks like today. Then there’s zoo employee/bro Anthony Brown who said he plans to chill with penguins.

Winners will have travel to New York, Los Angeles, or San Francisco to pick-up the cyborg swag, but the device will be available for public consumption later this year or by early 2014.

We're just shocked our well-adjusted boss didn't win.

https://twitter.com/nitashatiku/status/313045736117911552

Who cares about fashion, you're in a hot-air balloon! (Photo: Screencap)

Google Glass certainly isn't lacking in the whiz-bang factor. The gadget was publicly introduced with a skydiving stunt; just yesterday, the company released a video from the point of view of a user, demonstrating how seamlessly the spectacles can capture your exciting life of hot-air ballooning and snake charming.

But now comes the hard part: Getting normals to want the damn things. Unlike many software developers and/or Betabeat reporters, most of America isn't likely to be sold on the pitch that hey, it's just like what Lieutenant Commander Geordi La Forge wore on Star Trek TNG!

Hence, step one is to make the things a little sleeker. The New York Times reports today that sources say, as part of a stab at style, Google is currently in negotiations with Warby Parker to get some design help with the project. If the company plans to start selling Glass to the wider world later this year, such a partnership would come not a moment too soon.

Right now, you'd be forgiven for spotting Glass in the wild and thinking it's some sort of medical contraption:

OH: "I saw someone in Dolores Park wearing Google Glass. I thought she was wearing headgear for a jaw problem at first."

— Mike Isaac (@MikeIsaac) February 20, 2013

The problem is getting the device to look like something other than, at best, a glorified Bluetooth headset. BaubleBar cofounder Daniella Yacobovsky helpfully condensed the problem with that for the Times: “Is it useful? Of course it is. Do I look like a tool? Yeah. I’m not going to wear it.” And right now? Even models look a little dorky wearing the things. Sergey Brin, the face of Google Glass, is now weirdly jacked, but it's going to take more than a few hours with designer Diane von Furstenberg to make him a fashion icon.

But the appearance of Silicon Alley cool kid Warby Parker has us wondering whether we've been mistaking the market for Google Glass all along. Maybe a computer for your face isn't the ultimate nerd toy. Maybe it's actually the perfect status symbol for no-brandcuffs startup-guy founders. Jazz up the frames with a bit of tortoise, and forget the Pebble--suddenly Google Glass is the new Nike Fuelband.

Once this things hit the shelves, you will never again be able to have a conversation with a founder when he's not checking his email.

(Screencap: YouTube)

Google announced a campaign this morning that would allow non-developers to score a pair of Google Glass by tweeting a missive about what you'd do with the specs along with the hashtag #ifihadglass. The whole thing quickly devolved into a bunch of bad Twitter jokes. But techies, it seems, are pretty desperate to get their hands on Glass.

First, we have tech writer Jason Kincaid, who made a music video about how badly he wants Glass. If he doesn't win, at least now the Internet knows what a magical singing voice he has.

Business Insider writer Nich Carlson wants to use it to make "better, experience based slideshows." NEW MEDIA JACKPOT.

https://twitter.com/nichcarlson/status/304213322637660162

There were the suckups:

https://twitter.com/ajt/status/304233891315732481

https://twitter.com/nickbilton/status/304282064851726336

The impossibly topical entries:

https://twitter.com/spencerchen/status/304260383093452800

https://twitter.com/spencerchen/status/304289259341369344

https://twitter.com/alexismadrigal/status/304279568301301760

The geniuses:

https://twitter.com/joshgreenman/status/304299102353649664

https://twitter.com/BarryTheArtGuy/status/304312879283322881

The humblebraggers:

https://twitter.com/jeffjarvis/status/304308390925049856

https://twitter.com/Natkinns/status/304313587592224768

And of course, the doubters.

https://twitter.com/bendreyfuss/status/304300046164324352

https://twitter.com/bendreyfuss/status/304304671449808898

https://twitter.com/kashhill/status/304281088258359296

As for Betabeat, we made the completely rational and reasonable offer of our left kidney, but are still waiting for a response from Eric Schmidt, chairman of Google/Babies.

Only models look this good in Glass. (Photo: Google)

Attention fellow wannabe cyborgs: Google Glass can soon be ours! As long as you have $1,500 and are willing to use Google Plus. So, ya know, there's that.

In a new video, the notoriously tightlipped Project X team released some fresh details about Google's attempt at wearable technology. The video, which--yes--includes skydiving, shows users saying "OK glass" to get the attention of the system before sending it commands, such as "Take a picture," "Record a video" and "Say 'delicious' in Thai." The system also sends speech-to-text messages and livestreams video.

Not to sound like a total nerd, but it looks prettttty awesome.

Google also announced a campaign for "bold, creative individuals" who want to get in on the Glass preordering phase. Interested participants have to tweet (or post to Google Plus) a less than 50 character message with the hashtag #ifihadglass. Of course, you still have to pay $1,500 for the developer's kit and somehow make it to New York, Los Angeles or San Francisco to pick them up, but it's totally worth it for all that footage you'll record of you eating, right?

Perhaps whoever wins the #ifihadglass contest can help Google make the device look slightly less bulky and/or like glasses your high school science teacher wore. Also: maybe we can get them in pink?

Which is to say, Google's overall effective tax rate was 21 percent in 2011, down from 28 percent in 2008, and almost half the rate paid by the average U.S. company.

That's according to Jesse Drucker, the Bloomberg reporter who made accounting fun again back in 2010 when he introduced us to tax strategies known in the business as the "Double Irish" and the "Dutch Sandwich."

The game goes something like this:

In Google’s case, an Irish subsidiary collects revenues from ads sold in countries like the U.K. and France. That Irish unit in turn pays royalties to another Irish subsidiary, whose legal residence for tax purposes is in Bermuda.

The pair of Irish units gives rise to the nickname “Double Irish.” To avoid an Irish withholding tax, Google channeled the payments to Bermuda through a subsidiary in the Netherlands—thus the “Dutch Sandwich” label. The Netherlands subsidiary has no employees.

And even as European governments make more noise about such tax dodges, Google hasn't dialed back on such schemes yet. Per Mr. Drucker, the company avoided about $2 billion in worldwide taxes in 2011, almost double the total from 2008, and an increase that more or less parallels the company's overseas revenue growth.

We've reached out to Google and will update if we hear back. Google told Bloomberg that the company complied with all tax rules and supports the national economies in which it invests.

Meanwhile: Is it lunch time yet?

Mother Jones reports that the WWF was already using unmanned aerial drones in Nepal, where they act as eyes in the skies for park rangers on the hunt for poachers hiding in remote destinations. Now the WWF's drone program will expand across the world:

The Google funding will enable WWF to expand its drone program in Asia and Africa to protect rhinos, which are hunted for their horns; elephants, which are pursued for their tusks, and tigers, which are killed for everything from their eyes to their reproductive organs. The grant will also be used to advance wildlife tagging technology, specialized sensors, and ranger monitoring software.

Money awarded to the WWF comes from Google's Global Impact Awards. According to a Google blog post published Tuesday, these awards will "support organizations using technology and innovative approaches to tackle some of the toughest human challenges."

Google has awarded a total of $23 million to seven organizations including the WWF. They include DonorsChoose.org, Equal Opportunity Schools, the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media and  GiveDirectly, a program that utilizes mobile tech to assist the poor.

So the next time we ponder whether Google has become "evil," perhaps we'll stop and ask the endangered rhinos.

Zachary Harris (LinkedIn)

When mathematician Zachary Harris received an email from a Google headhunter asking if he was "open to confidentially exploring opportunities" with the search giant, Mr. Harris was skeptical. He checked the email’s headers--the thicket of traffic data hidden in every message we receive--and saw that though the message was authentic, Google had a problem.

The cryptographic key that validated the email and verified it as having come from someone at Google was surprisingly weak. Weak enough that Mr. Harris realized that given a little time he could spoof the key and then send an email to Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin. Thinking this was surely some kind of test, Mr. Harris cracked the 512-bit key (current standards indicate they should be twice that length) and sent an email to Mr. Brin and Mr. Page--but made it look as if it came from one man to the other.

He never received a response. However, as Wired reports, Google clearly noticed:

Harris made sure the return path for the e-mails went to his own e-mail account, so that Brin and Page could ask him how he’d cracked their puzzle. But Harris never got a response from the Google founders. Instead, two days later, he noticed that Google’s cryptographic key had suddenly changed to 2,048 bits. And he got a lot of sudden hits to his web site from Google IP addresses.

Oops, Harris thought, it was a real vulnerability he’d found.

Mr. Harris examined other sites and found that a laundry list of some of the most popular domains had the same weakness. They included PayPal, Yahoo, Amazon, eBay, Apple and Dell, just to name a few. As Wired noted, "Send an e-mail as jeff.bezos@accounts.amazon.com? No problem. Spoof marissa.meyer@yahoo-inc.com? Piece of cake."

Mr. Harris noted that many banks as well as PayPal did have stronger 768-bit cryptographic keys, however even those larger codes were potentially vulnerable to cracking with large enough resources. He told Wired a large group with considerable resources or an unfriendly nation-state like "the government of Iran" could probably crack 768-bit keys.

Considering that the U.S. believes Iran is already attacking American financial institutions, Mr. Harris's discoveries may be an unwelcome wake-up call to financial security professionals nationwide.

Google France had said earlier that the plan "would be harmful to the internet, internet users and news websites that benefit from substantial traffic" that comes via Google's search engine.

It said it redirected four billion clicks to French media pages each month.

So yes, Google is a little nervous about the possibility they may have to start shelling out Euros just to crawl French news sites. The search giant also sent a letter to the office of French Culture Minister Aurelie Filippetti which said in part that any law forcing them to pay "would threaten its very existence."

Imagine! They might have to charge an extra $10 for the new Chromebook to make up the shortfall.

Still from a trailer for Innocence of Muslims

Muslims protested at Google headquarters in London on Sunday, expressing outrage over the search giant's refusal to remove Innocence of Muslims from YouTube.

One of the men behind the event, Masoud Alam, told the Telegraph that there will be more protests "at the offices of Google and YouTube across the world." Muslims wish to ban the film, said Mr. Alam, because it is an "insult of the Prophet."

Some in attendance on Sunday said they want to expand their protests:

Sheikh Siddiqui, a barrister from Nuneaton, said he wanted to form a coalition with the Church of England, Catholics, Jewish groups, Trade Unions and even Conservatives to encourage their ranks to join his "campaign for civility".

"We want everyone in society to recognise these people are wrecking our fragile global society. We want the Church, the Synod, Jewish groups and establishment figures involved," he said.

The Telegraph quoted a YouTube spokesperson, who admitted that the company's efforts to "create a community everyone can enjoy" is challenging, "because what's OK in one country can be offensive elsewhere."

Google and YouTube are holding fast to what they see as a free-speech issue and has clearly stated that they will not remove or block the video in any country where it is considered protected speech.

Muslims have apparently protests online as well. Muslim Cyber Fighters continued a fourth week of well-organized denial of service attacks on American financial institutions last week, taking the websites of Regions, Capital One and SunTrust banks offline for several hours a day.

It's not a done deal that the government and Google will end up arguing the case in court, but a memo currently being prepared by the FTC is a big step in that direction:

The F.T.C. staff memo does not mean that the government will sue Google for antitrust violations. Next, the vote of three of the five F.T.C. commissioners would be required. And each step is a further prod for Google to make concessions to reach a settlement, before going to court. Last month, Jon Leibowitz, chairman of the F.T.C., said a final decision on whether to sue Google would be made before the end of this year.

Even if Google manages to soothe American concerns, a parallel European investigation into many of the same issues is proceeding apace. Above that, individual states are probing Google as well. The Times reports those states include New York, Texas and California.

According to the Times, practices questioned by the FTC include Google's use of AdWords as well as its smartphone business.