Tag: Google

A Microsoft product didn’t work?!

In an effort to help people recognize Bing.com as a product from the Microsoft we’ve all grown to know and love, the Web search site was brought down by for a half hour because of a testing error.

The branding move backfired, however, when both Bing users received a 404 error and went to Google to find the new URL.

We’re big Microsoft fan boys here at SG, though, so we’d like remind you that, at least when Bing goes down, it doesn’t crash your entire system like other MS products. So, there’s your lemonade, Mr. Gates.

Did we mention how awesome you are?

That's all you're getting from us, Google.

Speaking of news about lawsuits and social media, a New York Supreme Court judge ruled that a model, Liskula Cohen, can force Google to give her identifying information about a blogger. The blogger, currently anonymous, called Cohen a “skank,” “ho” and the ever-slutty “psychotic” on his or her “Skanks in NYC.”

This would normally concern writers of a blog like ours, but we’re fortunately not anonymous. (Except for Bryan McBournie, who uses his penname to protect himself from animals that can read.)

… But, just in case, we don’t think you readers are skanky. Not at all. Well, maybe that one time, but we were just jealous of how many ping-pong balls you smuggled in.

You Missed It: The vomitting means it’s working edition

At the climax of another week, but really, what is there to look forward to? Football season is over, there’s another week until Valentine’s Day. Right now it’s just cold and boring. I know, we can celebrate Ronald Reagan’s birthday! Another week saved. If you were busy eeking by a team you should have blown out in the Super Bowl, odds are you missed it.

Food kits should come with antibiotics
The panic of the salmonella infected peanut butter may be over at this point for most, but not for the federal government. Food kits from FEMA were discovered this week to contain peanut butter that could be contaminated, which means people in need could end up sickening themselves. But don’t worry, aid still has not made it to New Orleans, so there is plenty of time for the kits to be recalled.

Where you lat?
This week, Google released a new friend-tracking program called Google Latitude. The program allows smartphone and PC users to let their friends know where they are and track where their friends are. Because, you know, it’s so much easier than to actually talk to someone now and then. No word yet as to when people will be able to track both the latitude and longitude of their friends, family members and exes.

Where is Peter Sellers buried? I feel like dancing
It’s every comic’s nightmare–waking up one day and realizing no one thinks you’re funny anymore. To the list of Chevy Chase, Whoopi Goldberg and Billy Crystal, add the name Steve Martin. Sure, technically he was on there a long time ago, but unlike the others, Martin is still making movies. Today, he unleashes his latest abomination, The Pink Panther 2, which is opening to terrible reviews, even for a February release. Next up, Martin plans to team up with fellow ham Eddie Murphy to remake Silver Streak.

IT’S SUING TIME!

Google Street View, the keen-o application that allows anyone around the world to check out a 360-degree-view of selected city streets, is under attack by a group of angry Japanese lawyers and professors. They’ve asked Google to shape up and ship out (though, mostly ship out) their street-level images, stating it violates privacy rights.

Real life Power Ranger and professor of law at Sophia University, Yasuhiko Tajima states that, “We strongly suspect that what Google has been doing deeply violates a basic right that humans have. It is necessary to warn society that an IT giant is openly violating privacy rights, which are important rights that the citizens have, through this service.”

Thank you Japan for telling me that walking down the street violates basic privacy rights.

Thank you Japan for being so crazy that you’ve got creepy vending machines, but having a random glance of a sunbather is not kosher.

Thank you Japan for deciding that those that walk out of strip clubs have rights too. I mean, they do, but if you’re OK with walking into a strip club, shouldn’t you be just as OK with walking out of one?

Who knows how long Google might exist in the future, or what the outcome of these pictures might be, but this is human history here. They are cataloging the streets of what life was like in 2000; just imagine what it would be like seeing these images 100 years from now, or even a 1000 years from now.

Next stop-the phone book! That horror of evil is next!

You Missed It: Feeling drowsy edition

Welcome to the last edition of You Missed It before the holiday. We say “holiday” so as not to offend those who are not of the faith, but still choose to celebrate Thanksgiving. In some retail circuits, it is also known as Black Thursday or Christmas Part II. (Part I being Halloween, of course.)

It’s that time of year again where everyone is hoping to see the first flakes of snow, meanwhile, parts of upstate New York have three feet of it already. So here’s hoping you get some of their share. If you were busy naming your son Bronx Mowgli, odds are you missed it.

Justice never sleeps, but it does faint now and then
Scary one here for the U.S. Justice Department, during a speech in Washington on Thursday, Attorney General Michael Mukasey began slurring his words before slowing falling forward into the podium. He was caught and taken to a Washington, D.C. hospital. Worries of a stroke were quelled when Mukasey was released Friday afternoon, apparently it was a fainting spell. Mukasey was estimated to be the fourth person to lose consciousness during his speech that night.

‘We promise not to go on any luxury retreats after this, honest’
Executive of the Big Three car manufacturers went to Congress this week to beg for some of the free money that they have been handing out so generously to banks and mistresses. When they testified, they were not met with the customary “Of course you can! Here’s a check, just write in the amount. We know you’re good for it.” No, they were instead met with angry sound bite after angry sound bite, as lawmakers railed the executives. NSACAR fans, on the other hand, have been nothing but sympathetic.

The death of Lively
Google announced this week that it will be shutting down next month its Second Life-esque Lively. This of course saddened the dozens of people who had actually heard about Lively in the first place. The company said it was directing its resources elsewhere, because apparently the Internet is already saturated places for lonely men to troll for random hook-ips.

Drinking and Googling: The perfect combination

Good morning, time for a belt. First off, while we advocate the consumption of alcohol, especially on long flights, where it is needed to dull the pain of constant probing, we do not condone hijacking a plane while doing so. However, that may be a new drink name.

Moving along, we’ve got some bad news for you sots out there: your brain is smaller than your teetotaler friends (like you associate with those types). The bad news here is that a study found regular drinkers and even occasional partakers lost brain mass at a faster rate than those lame-os who have never touched the stuff.

But there is hope! Another new study hints that using the Internet regularly can keep your brain smarter for longer in your life. The theory is that it makes you do a whole bunch of complex thinking, so it keeps the brain active, which is apparently good.

This means it is also a great counter to the brain-shrinking effects of alcohol. And we already know that Google Mail will keep you from sending drunk e-mail messages, so now Web surfing drunk is safe and healthy. Hooray for science!

GWI: Googling while intoxicated

Remember drunk dialing? It used to be so much harder when you didn’t have a phone in your pocket with your boss’ or ex-girlfriend’s number programmed into it. But really, drunk dialing is so 2003. It was replaced by drunken MySpacing, Facebooking, etc. (So what do kids these days, drunken YouTubing, Twittering or whatever it is they do?)

One thing that has not gotten passé is e-mailing under the influence. Good news, Gmail users, you don’t have to wake up in the morning wondering if you really did send that rambling manifesto to boss the night before. Yes, the developers at Google are taking a stand against inebriated e-mail with Mail Goggles.

When you enable Mail Goggles, it turns on only on weekends late at night. When you try to send something during this time, a screen pops up asking you if you really want to send it. More so, it does its own Google sobriety check, asking you to answer some math questions in a limited amount of time. Answer incorrectly and say goodbye to drunken e-mail message.

Now if they can find a way to keep me from drunkenly IMing my sister random advice, that’s something I could use.

All your phones are belong to Google

Not content to simply rule the entire Internet, Google, the beneficent giant (think one part Microsoft, one part hippies, three parts Ed Grimley and four parts Steven Hawking) wants your phone. Well, that is, if you’re a T-Mobile customer.

Google announced on Monday that they would pair up with T-Mobile to use their Android operating system on the HTC Dream, also known as T-Mobile G1. Yes, the Googlephone is alive. And no, it can’t let you do that Hal. The first honest to God competitor to the iPhone, complete with open source OS, is not pretty. It’s almost akin to a Nintendo DS/Sony PSP hybrid, along with a hint of Treo, Blackberry, Sidekick and iPhone-at best. But Lord have mercy, it’ll sell craploads, as it’s expected to by year’s end.

Take it from Snee: Shut up, actors

Look, actors, you can't ALL be Arnold.You know what irks me?  Having to apologize to myself whenever I watch a movie starring Tim Robbins, Susan Sarandon, Leonardo DiCaprio, Edward Norton, John and Joan Cusack, Martin Sheen, Darryl Hannah, Edward James Olmos, Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, George Clooney, Christopher Reeves or any other politically-involved actor.

The same internal dialogue happens during the opening credits:

“OK, Rick.  You’re just watching their movie.  You’re not really paying them, more like paying their producers who only want you to see explosions and sequels. 

“Just pretend you didn’t accidentally read how they’re really into environmentalism, peace or walking again.  (Thank god the ‘Superman’s Grounded’ hoopla is over and done with!)  All you wanted to do was find out they were voted ‘Sexiest Man Alive’ again or made a sex tape to Google later. 

“It’s not your fault they told you things you didn’t want to hear.  You can just watch this movie where they read lines like the meat robots they actually are.” Continue reading Take it from Snee: Shut up, actors