Warning: This Site Contains Conspiracy Theories
I am sure this question posed by Evgeny Morozov on Slate, “Does Google have a responsibility to help stop the spread of 9/11 denialism, anti-vaccine activism, and other fringe beliefs?” will be quite provocative for readers of Disinformation. As Evgeny Morozov writes on Slate:
In its early days, the Web was often imagined as a global clearinghouse — a new type of library, with the sum total of human knowledge always at our fingertips. That much has happened — but with a twist: In addition to borrowing existing items from its vast collections, we, the patrons, could also deposit our own books, pamphlets and other scribbles — with no or little quality control.
Such democratization of information-gathering — when accompanied by smart institutional and technological arrangements — has been tremendously useful, giving us Wikipedia and Twitter. But it has also spawned thousands of sites that undermine scientific consensus, overturn well-established facts, and…
Google Shoot View
The whole world as a first-person shooter game. It’s down at the moment due to a the kibosh from Google, but Google Shoot View allows you to traverse Google Street View will holding an assault rifle, and to fire upon anything (to no effect). It’s quite existentially disturbing. Perhaps, visit your childhood home and unload a few rounds, to symbolize releasing and moving on from the burdens of the past:
Facebook, Google, And YouTube In 1997 Format
Miss that classic feeling of using the internet back when it was fresh? Now you can feel it once again — via Once Upon by Olia Lialina & Dragan Espenschied:
Three important contemporary web sites, recreated with technology and spirit of late 1997, according to our memories.
Best viewed with Netscape Navigator 4.03 and a screen resolution of 1024×768 pixels, running under Windows 95. We recommend using a Virtual Machine or appropriate hardware, connected to a CRT monitor. If such an environment unachievable, it should be possible to experience the piece with any browser that still supports HTML Frames. The transfer speed of our server is limited to 8 kB/s («dial-up» speed).
Google’s Elevator To Space
Google's Driverless Car. Photo: Steve Jurvetson (CC)
I kid you not, some of the geniuses at Google are working on an elevator to space, as reported by Clare Cain Miller and Nick Bilton for the New York Times:
In a top-secret lab in an undisclosed Bay Area location where robots run free, the future is being imagined.
It’s a place where your refrigerator could be connected to the Internet, so it could order groceries when they ran low. Your dinner plate could post to a social network what you’re eating. Your robot could go to the office while you stay home in your pajamas. And you could, perhaps, take an elevator to outer space.
These are just a few of the dreams being chased at Google X, the clandestine lab where Google is tackling a list of 100 shoot-for-the-stars ideas. In interviews, a dozen people discussed the list; some work at the lab or…
Google Transparency Report Reveals That Governments Are Seeking More About You Than Ever Before
Elinor Mills reports on CNet News:
A new report from Google shows a rise in government requests for user account data and content removal, including a request by one unnamed law enforcement agency to remove YouTube videos of police brutality — which the company refused.
The latest Google Transparency Report, also shows historic traffic patterns on Google services via graphs with spikes and drops indicating outages that, in some cases, indicate attempts by governments to block access to Google or the Internet. For instance, all Google servers were inaccessible in Libya during the first six months of this year, as was YouTube in China.
But the truly interesting data are the statistics on requests made to the company by governments for either access to user data or to remove content.
Some countries had large amounts of user data requests. The United States leads that pack, with 5,950 such requests pertaining to more than 11,000 users…
Google Earth Begins Mapping Amazon Rainforest
Photo: Alex Guerrero (CC)
Not sure if ’street view’ is the right term for it, but Google has begun mapping the Amazon much like it does streets in cities and towns. Via The Australian:
Two women washed clothes in the dark water of the Rio Negro as a boat glided past with a camera-laden Google tricycle strapped to the roof, destined to give the world a window into the Amazon rainforest.
A “trike” typically used to capture street scenes for Google’s free online mapping service launched last Thursday from the village of Tumbira in a first-ever project to let web users virtually explore the world’s largest river, its wildlife and its communities.
The project was the brainchild of Amazonas Sustainable Foundation (FAS), which two years ago went to Google Earth with a vision of turning “Street View” into a river view in the lush and precious Amazon Basin.
[Continues at The Australian]
…
Is The Internet Polluting The Planet?
Is your constant craving for coneing clips hastening the destruction of the world? People tend to think of internet usage as “virtual” or “magic” but, it isn’t so.
YouTube viewing alone pumps thousands of tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every day. Computer servers add to worldwide carbon emissions at the same rate as the aviation industry, and Facebook and Apple are powered largely by coal. In fact, I better stop typing right now. Via Hungry Beast:
Anonymous Launches Social Networking Site: AnonPlus
AnonPlus is to be a new social networking site without censorship, but how different is it from other social networks? The Raw Story reports:
Infamous hacker group Anonymous launched Monday its own social network after being rejected by Google’s freshly-launched online community.
“Today we welcome you to begin anew,” the hacker alliance said at the website anonplus.com, which it described as a platform to distribute information.
“Welcome to the Revolution – a new social network where there is no fear…of censorship…of blackout…nor of holding back.”
The drive to build a social network came after the Anonymous account was suspended at the Google+ online community, which was launched last month by the Internet giant as a challenge to Facebook.
A message on the anonplus.com website promised that the Anonymous social network would be for everyone and listed online monikers of developers taking part in the project.
Google Is Ruining Your Memory
Columbia University Professor Betsy Sparrow says we just don’t bother remembering anything anymore. From Columbia News:
The rise of Internet search engines like Google has changed the way our brain remembers information, according to research by Columbia University psychologist Betsy Sparrow published July 14 in Science.
“Since the advent of search engines, we are reorganizing the way we remember things,” said Sparrow. “Our brains rely on the Internet for memory in much the same way they rely on the memory of a friend, family member or co-worker. We remember less through knowing information itself than by knowing where the information can be found.”…
Google Launches Latest Social Network: Google+
It seems when you get tired of one social networking site another appears. Google+ is the new answer for those of you who are tired of Facebook, or just enjoy creating new online profiles of yourself. Via Mashable:
Google has finally unveiled Google+, the company’s top secret social layer that turns all of the search engine into one giant social network.
Google+, which begins rolling out a very limited field test on Tuesday, is the culmination of a year-long project led by Vic Gundotra, Google’s senior vice president of social. The project, which has been delayed several times, constitutes Google’s answer to Facebook.
The search giant’s new social project will be omnipresent on its products, thanks to a complete redesign of the navigation bar. The familiar gray strip at the top of every Google page will turn black, and come with several new options for accessing your Google+ profile, viewing notifications and instantly sharing…
Why Google Earth Can’t Show You Israel
Hamed Aleaziz writes in Mother Jones:
Since Google launched its Google Earth feature in 2005, the company has become a worldwide leader in providing high-resolution satellite imagery. In 2010, Google Earth allowed the world to see the extent of the destruction in post-earthquake Haiti. This year, Google released similar images after Japan’s deadly tsunami and earthquake. With just one click, Google can bring the world—and a better understanding of far-away events—to your computer.
There is one entire country, however, that Google Earth won’t show you: Israel.
That’s because, in 1997, Congress passed the National Defense Authorization Act, one section of which is titled, “Prohibition on collection and release of detailed satellite imagery relating to Israel.” The amendment, known as the Kyl-Bingaman Amendment, calls for a federal agency, the NOAA’s Commercial Remote Sensing Regulatory Affairs, to regulate the dissemination of zoomed-in images of Israel.
Amateur Astronomer Claims ‘Bio Station Alpha’ Is Proof Of Life, Or Past Life on Mars … (Video)
Via News.Au.com:
An American armchair astronomer claims he has found evidence of, well, something on Mars. David Martines’ YouTube video is heading for viral status after he uploaded a flyby of Google Earth’s Mars explorer zooming in on a white, cylindrical shaped object.
He’s calling it “Bio Station Alpha, because I’m just assuming that something lives in it or has lived in it”.
“It’s very unusual in that it’s quite large, it’s over 700 feet long and 150 feet wide, it looks like it’s a cylinder or made up of cylinders,” he says, “It could be a power station or it could be a biological containment or it could be a glorified garage — hope it’s not a weapon. Whoever put it up there had a purpose I’m sure. I couldn’t imagine what the purpose was. I couldn’t imagine why anybody would want to live on Mars.”
Facebook And Google Team Up To Oppose Privacy Legislation
There may be bad blood after last week’s revelation that Facebook has been trying secretly to inject smear stories about Google into the media, but the two internet giants can join together on the most important issues, writes the Atlantic Wire:
Facebook, Google, Twitter, Skype and others cosigned a letter “strongly opposing” a bill introduced by California State Senator Ellen Corbett that would force sites to explain privacy settings in “plain language.”
Her recently introduced Social Networking Privacy Act (SB 242) would require a notice before users hand over their personal information to a site. In Sen. Corbett’s own words, “You shouldn’t have to sign in and give up your personal information before you get to the part where you say, ‘Please don’t share my personal information.” The bill would also grant parents the right to request photos or text be removed from any of their children’s social networking pages within 48…
What Google and Facebook Are Hiding
Eli Pariser of the progressive organization MoveOn says the Internet is hiding things from us, and we don’t even know it. In this TED Talk he calls out Facebook, Google and other corporations who are transforming the Internet to suit their corporate interests:
Google Lobbies Nevada to Allow Self-Driving Cars
John Markoff writes in the NY Times:
Google, a pioneer of self-driving cars, is quietly lobbying for legislation that would make Nevada the first state where they could be legally operated on public roads.
The cars, hybrids, have a laser range finder on the roof, as well as radar and camera sensors and more equipment in the trunk.
And yes, the proposed legislation would include an exemption from the ban on distracted driving to allow occupants to send text messages while sitting behind the wheel.
The two bills, which have received little attention outside Nevada’s Capitol, are being introduced less than a year after the giant search engine company acknowledged that it was developing cars that could be safely driven without human intervention.
Why Do Gadget Makers Wield A ‘Kill Switch’?
Photo: Stahlkocher (CC)
Mark Milian writes on CNN:
When you buy a video game from Best Buy, you don’t give the retailer the right to barge into your house whenever it wants. So why do we give that permission to software companies?
Most popular smartphone operating systems and other electronic gadgets include what security researchers refer to as a kill switch.
This capability enables the company that makes the operating software to send a command over the Web or wireless networks that alters or removes certain applications from devices.
Apple, Google and Microsoft include this function in their platforms, along with a few lines in their usage agreements describing the policy. Google and Apple executives say this feature is important in order to protect against malicious software.
“Hopefully we never have to pull that lever, but we would be irresponsible not to have a lever like that to pull,” Apple CEO Steve Jobs told The Wall…
In The Wake Of Bin Laden: How The Certainty of His Death Poses New Uncertainties
Eric Best
I do not rejoice in anyone’s death but I am glad Bin Laden has met his maker and grateful to those servicemen and women who put themselves in harm’s way to carry out our country’s military plans. In the case of Al Qaida, a non-state terrorist organization willing to target mostly civilians, a war played outside the rules has provoked responses that have been outside the rules as well.
Victory may be sweet, but we need to be vigilant that provocation does not cause us to abandon the American principles of law and individual rights that we hold dear. That said, I find my mind filled with questions:
If we went into Afghanistan to pursue Osama and deal Al Qaida a death-blow, is our reason for being there now satisfied (having satisfied it in Pakistan)? That debate has been going on for nearly the last decade, and the NY Times reports that it…
Assange: Facebook, Google, Yahoo Are Spying Tools For U.S. Intelligence
Julian Assange says Facebook, Google and Yahoo are spying tools for U.S. intelligence:
Timeline Of The Future, According To Google
Wondering what the future holds? In the age of Google, you no longer have to wait to find out. xkcd compiled a time line, spanning from 2012 to 2101, of what the internet thinks will happen in the decades to come. Events listed for each year are determined by the first pages of search results for phrases including, “in the year 20xx”, “by the year 20xx” etc.
