Oh, yay, Google is set to implement a micropayment system for online content. CNET reports the search giant has confirmed that users will be able to purchase articles for prices between $0.25 and $0.99 apiece.
Google isn’t trying subvert free content, it says the project is experimental and intended to promote creation of “high-quality content” online.
As CNET notes, micropayment systems have never fared well: Read More
Andrea Dove, who lives outside Houston, Texas, was using Google Maps to get directions to a relative’s house when she made an interesting discovery on Street View: something that resembles a fading, pinkish UFO straight out of cartoon sci-fi.
KLTV-TV sent a reporter after the story, who went full man-on-the-street in tracking the alien image: Read More
Google will not delete an inflammatory video currently playing a role in Muslim protests around the world, in spite of a take-down request from the White House.
The search giant is only censoring Innocence of Muslims in India, Indonesia, Egypt and Libya, where violent and deadly protests have broken out following the video’s translation into Arabic. Reuters reports on the company’s legalistic explanation for not just wiping the video completely from the web: Read More
The commenters at Hacker News realized something quite entertaining: Google employees at the search giant’s various international HQs have taken to lining up outside of the offices when it’s time for the Street View cameras to record mapping data for their address. Read More
Planning to sunbathe topless in Central Park this week? You might want to make sure you’re okay with having your voyeur-friendly moments played out across the Internet. Turns out Google has mounted some cameras on a dorky-looking bike and is inspecting “every nook and cranny of the 843-acre park” this week. Quick, hide that open canister!
Of course, Google insists that they will blur out faces and other identifying details as they do for all street view photos, so teenage couples that treat the park like the urban equivalent of the backseat of their parents car are safe from prying eyes.
Your move, Chuck Schumer.
Does Google forcefully feed its employees the Kool-Aid or something? A Googler from the Kirkland, WA engineering office took to social news site Reddit today for a Q&A, but appeared so worried about violating Google’s mandatory nondisclosure agreement that he basically “no comment”-ed every worthwhile question. Read More
Adopting the mantra “don’t be evil” has a way of inviting extra scrutiny, and and in recent months Google has faced questions about its Street View practices, privacy policy revamp, and even its CAPTCHAs. But the New York Times reports that rather than sit quietly, the company has launched a lobbying offensive, shelling out $5.03 million in the last three months alone. Then there’s the fact Google has a former GOP Congresswoman Susan Molinari commanding its troops in D.C.
If that seems like quite a lot of money, that’s because it is. It’s 240 percent more than the company spent over the same period last year. The number looks even bigger when you line it up next to what other tech companies spent: It’s more than Apple ($500,000) or Microsoft ($1.79 million) or even Verizon Wireless ($4.51 million). Read More
The gang at College Humor has a knack for mashing up pop culture iconography into one zeitgeisty web short. Take, for example, Jersey Shore star Snooki’s entrance into the technology scene. What would Snooki’s emails to her unborn daughter look like? With a little help from Google Chrome, we get a pretty good idea. Read More
In college, this reporter once took a “new media” class where the professor let loose a terrifying edict: As homework, we would not be allowed to use any Google products for the entire week. That meant no Google search, no Gmail, no Gcal… nothing.
The experiment was supposed to teach us just how reliant we were upon one company for many of a college student’s basic needs, like learning, communicating and organizing.
It was not the darkest hour of this reporter’s life, but it was a very, very dark one. Read More
