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.
‘First Orbit’ Celebrates Today’s 50th Anniversary Of Man In Space
Move over PBS: YouTube/Google funded this very cool and very free movie about the beginning of spaceflight, with today being exactly 50 years since Yuri Gagarin became the first man in space.
You can download the movie or watch it on YouTube.
From the official First Orbit site:
April 12th 1961 – Yuri Gagarin is about to see what no other person has seen in the history of
humanity – the Earth from space…
Snoop Dogg, Katy Perry, Lady Gaga Go Where The Money Is: Silicon Valley
Facebook = Katy Perry; Twitter = Snoop Dogg; Google = Lady Gaga. Who’s got the biggest star? Not much competition as Alexia Tsotsis points out at TechCrunch:
As the battle for Silicon Valley engineering talent intensifies, it seems as if hot tech companies like Apple, Facebook, Google and Twitter have launched some sort of ridiculous competition as to who could can score the biggest Hollywood talent for an onsite appearance, in order to wow current and future employees.
Between Ashton Kutcher and Chamillionaire at Y Combinator Demo days…
Likely GOP Presidential Candidate Rick Santorum On His ‘Google Problem’
Nearly a decade later, sex columnist Dan Savage’s innovative and wildly successful “Google-bombing” continues to haunt politician Rick Santorum, and will likely influence the approaching 2012 presidential race, writes Roll Call:
The former Pennsylvania Senator might be well-known on Capitol Hill, but his name more regularly produces blank stares in places like Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, if recent polling is any guide. The likely Republican presidential candidate knows he needs to expand his name identification.
Santorum can only hope voters don’t turn to Google, the world’s most popular Internet search engine, to learn more about him.
Try it for yourself: Enter “Rick Santorum” into Google. In a fraction of a second you’ll have hundreds of thousands of results. But two of the top four cite a graphic definition for a sexual neologism. In this case, the neologism is a reference to anal sex. This, of course, is no accident.
Santorum himself sounded…
Google Collects Kids’ Social Security Numbers During Contest
Google has been criticized, yet again, for its data gathering process. In the contest “Doodle-4-Google,” children were asked to redesign the home page logo, and for their social security numbers. The International Business Times reports:
Google’s data gathering has come under fire again, this time because of an art contest for children.
The “Doodle-4-Google” contest invites children to redesign the home page logo. The contest has been in place for four years, and this year the theme is “What I’d like to do someday…”
The problem was in the registration form, which asked for the last four digits of the child’s social security number and the city of their birth, as well as the name and address of the parent or legal guardian.
Stories appeared in New York Magazine and The Huffington Post, but Google changed the registration form to omit the question about the last four digits of the social security number on Feb. 18, before…
Glenn Beck: “Don’t Use Google” Because They Are “Deeply In Bed With The Government” (Video)
The Joy of Beck. Via Media Matters:
What Does Google’s Subtle Censorship Say About Us?
Interesting article from Eli Rosenberg in the Atlantic Wire:
The latest news from Google is that searches related to online piracy through torrent downloads are being dropped from the much touted ‘autocomplete’ and ‘instant search’ functions. As we have noted in the past, the notion of Google shaping or even suggesting searches is a relatively strange concept on its own. And now terms like ‘BitTorrent,’ and ‘Vodo’ will no longer show up automatically in your search bar. Yet the filter seems somewhat arbitrary: An autocomplete search for ‘how to pirate music’ yields the large torrent site the Pirate Bay, and as plenty of critics have buckle to pressure from the MPAA, RIAA, and other entertainment industry interests?
Even if we were to pretend that all torrent downloads were illegal, Google’s blocking has raised some interesting questions about its relationship with potentially criminal activities. Last I checked, making an explosive is a pretty serious crime; but when we…
Egyptian Google Exec Released After Unlawful Arrest
Photo: Jerry Jackson (CC)
After Amnesty raised concerns that the Egyptian executive of Google was being held without reason, he was released today, 10 days after his disappearance. CNN reports:
Google executive Wael Ghonim was released Monday in Egypt, the company announced.
“Huge relief — Wael Ghonim has been released. Our love to him and his family,” the company tweeted shortly after 8 p.m. in Cairo (1 p.m. ET).
Ghonim’s Twitter account, which had not had a posting since he went missing January 28, carried a tweet around the same time.
“Freedom is a bless (sic) that deserves fighting for it,” the tweet said, ending with the hashtag “#Jan25,” a reference to the Egypt protests.
Minutes later, Ghonim added this tweet: “Gave my 2 cents to Dr. Hosam Badrawy. who was reason why I am out today. Asked him resign cause that’s the only way I’ll respect him.”
Hossam Badrawi, often described as a relatively liberal politician,…
Web-Free ‘Tweeting’ Brought To Egypt By Google
It’s good to know the world won’t stop if the internet does. Well, as long as cellphone service is always available. Via The Strait Times:
GOOGLE, in response to the Internet blockade in Egypt, said on Monday that it had created a way to post messages to microblogging service Twitter by making telephone calls.
Google worked with Twitter and freshly acquired SayNow, a startup specialising in social online voice platforms, to make it possible for anyone to ‘tweet’ by leaving a message at any of three telephone numbers.
‘Like many people we’ve been glued to the news unfolding in Egypt and thinking of what we could do to help people on the ground,’ Google product manager Abdel-Karim Mardini and SayNow co-founder Ujjwal Singh said in a blog post.
‘Over the weekend we came up with the idea of a speak-to-tweet service – the ability for anyone to tweet using just a voice connection,’ they…
Google Would Beat Bing On Jeopardy
In two weeks, IBM’s Watson computer will compete on Jeopardy against two of the show’s all-time human champions. But instead of wondering whether humanity emerge victorious against the rise of the machine, Stephen Wolfram is wondering which machine is better. The physicist behind the Wolfram Alpha “answer engine” just announced the results of his own experiment, which revealed that Google would beat Microsoft’s Bing search engine in any contest based on questions from Jeopardy!
“Wolfram took a sample of Jeopardy clues and fed them into search engines,” explains this technology blog. “When it came to the first page, Google got 69 percent correct, just beating Ask with 68 percent and Bing on 63 percent… To put that into context, the average human contestant gets 60 percent of answers correct, while champion Ken Jennings has a record of 79 percent.” Interestingly, Wikipedia came in last, scoring 23%, though they may have more to…
