Google Inc.

Obsessive Guide to Saturday Night Live Needs You

Adventures in Google's Contextual Advertising

Hollywood's Lost Its Mind Again With My Fair Lady Remake

Why It's Hell to Be a Bottom

We Knew This Web Thing Was Just a Fad

Google Exec to Obama Transition Team

Online Drink-Buying Service Saves Christmas

Who Are I?

Theatre Askew plays the same-name game

Doodle 4 Google Winner Announced.

Oh cute: Google has announced its Doodle for Google art contest winner. It's Christin Engelberth of Bernard A. Harris Jr High School in San Antonio, Texas, and here's her prize piece, selected by a panel of judges from Google, the Smithsonian, Cooper-Hewitt, and the National Design Museum. She's i ... More >>

Vintage Voice: Read Our Old Stories at Google!

​Google has finally uploaded our back issues, which stretch all the way back to our debut on October 26, 1955, online. (It cost five cents then; it costs you nothing now. Vive le Internet!) Interestingly, Google's news blog announcement links to Lester Bangs' classic Iggy story, "Blowtorch in ... More >>

Google's Voice Archives Far From Complete

​The Voice archives at Google are not complete. Far from it, in fact.We sent over tapes of the newspaper's entire history a couple of years ago, and we've been looking forward to Google making the archives public and searchable.So we were very excited when, earlier this week, Google made them avai ... More >>

Fallen Trees in Central Park are a Warning: Chop Them Before They Conk Us

We warned you and we warned you and we warned you and we warned you and we warned you about the trees. But did anyone listen? Now, just weeks after a Google employee was bashed into a coma by a falling oak limb in Central Park, Wednesday night's storm left the Park littered with fallen trees and b ... More >>

Who the Internet Thinks You Are

​ This is eerie. You plug in your first and last name, and this web app gives a picture of how the internet sees you. The website, created as part of an MIT art installation Metropath(ologies), is meant as a critique of data mining efforts by Google, Netflix, and the U.S. Government. In a s ... More >>

Tech News: First Tweets, Captioned YouTube, Parking Spot Finder, Commenter Loses Job

​ Put your Twitter username in My First Tweet and they'll display your initial message to the Twitterverse. Yeah, for most of us it's just a matter of scrolling, and if you put in one of the big names you get a "Too Many Tweets" error. Still it's new, tech, and wastes time, so we thought yo ... More >>

Google Apologizes for Michelle Obama Image Bomb

​The latest Google Bomb is apparently this awful Photoshop of Michelle Obama, which comes up first when you look for her on Google Images. Google, being devoted to free exchange of ideas (void in China) has chosen not to game its system, but has placed an ad on the page to explain its policie ... More >>

Murdoch Forces Google to Change "First Click" to "First 5 Clicks" Free

Looks like Rupert Murdoch is getting some traction in his quest to keep "kleptomaniacs" like you and us from getting his content for free. Google senior Business Product Manager Josh Cohen says at the Google News Blog that his company is "updating" its First Click Free program, which had previously ... More >>

Google Street View May Get Ad Updates -- Whether There's an Ad or Not

​Google Street View maps are fun and informative, and soon they may be be an ad venue as well: PC World reports Google has obtained a patent on technology for "identifying groups of features in an online geographic view of a real property and replacing and/or augmenting the groups of features ... More >>

Google Claims Attack in China, Says It May Pull Out; "Uncensored Stuff" Reported

​After a bizarre hacking/spying incident, Google announced yesterday that it was "no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn," their Chinese outlet. Google said they'd start implementing this over the coming weeks, but the blog On Point claims to be getting "heaps of re ... More >>

How Fucked Up's Savvy SXSW Post About Artist Exploitation Applies to Other Venues (Like, Um, the Internet) Too

​Very smart post up today written by guitarist Mike Haliechuk at the Canadian band Fucked Up's blog, talking about the economics of Austin's South By Southwest music conference. The gist of it is an attempt to answer a simple question, one that a person could easily ask about CMJ or other, sim ... More >>

Google Owns You, But It Was An Accident

​In a blog post on the real deal Google blog, Alan Eustace, Senior VP of Engineering & Research, admitted that the company has been hoarding information from unprotected wireless networks for years using Google Street View cars. "Quite simply, it was a mistake," he writes. Well, sure, oops a ... More >>

Today, the World Plays Pac-Man ... or, Google Introduces Its First Interactive Doodle

​Tomorrow is Pac-Man's 30th birthday -- seems like just yesterday he was a wee yellow incomplete circle! In honor of the game finally reaching maturity and Pac-Man getting a real job and being able to afford a place of his own, Google has unveiled the first interactive doodle on their homepag ... More >>

Google Launching Facebook Killer "Google Me"; Facebook Movie Trailer Hits YouTube

​Maybe I'm just not up on the lingo of the tech world, but why is a new product always set up to "kill" an existing product? Aren't these unrealistically lofty expectations, especially when the thing you're trying to "kill" -- in this case Facebook -- has nearly half a billion users worldwide? ... More >>

Google Instant: Now Saving Us Milliseconds

Pondering the milliseconds Google saves users​Google Instant completes a trio of the company's recent releases, and according to Google, saves us the milliseconds that we didn't know we were wasting. The trifecta began with Google Voice/ Gmail integration a week and a half ago, followed by Priorit ... More >>

Google Announces Real Robot Cars

​The end is really, really nigh. Google has announced, simultaneously on their official blog and in a front page story set for Sunday's New York Times, that they "have developed technology for cars that can drive themselves." But not "have developed" as in, they're in a lab somewhere waiting f ... More >>

Google Makes Up For Instant Search by Wishing You Happy Birthday

via search engine land​Birthdays on the Internet usually include numerous Facebook wallposts, IMs, and emails from people you typically never talk to. But this year you can make sure you get a greeting from someone you talk to every day. You don't even have to return the favor and wish them an ... More >>

Google Alert: Google's Devilish Tax Deals Detailed in Bloomberg News Scoop

​The motto for those good Google guys out in Mountain View, CA. is "Don't be evil," but Bloomberg News today details how that pledge stops somewhere short of their tax returns. Bloomberg's Jesse Drucker explains how the world's most successful Internet search engine manages to cut its tax rate ... More >>

Google Will Pay $8.5M to Settle Class-Action Buzz Lawsuit, Just Not to You

​If you use Gmail, you probably received a strange and unexpected e-mail from Google yesterday about Google Buzz and some kind of $8.5 million class-action lawsuit settlement that you really didn't bother to read about because, yeah, Google Buzz was a disaster, but you never signed up to be pa ... More >>

Rupert Murdoch Bans Google For Bing

​News Corp.'s own Darth Sidious, a.k.a. Rupert Murdoch, has had it up to here with the Google and their world domination. In fact, he's gone ahead and set the computer homepages in the new Sunday Times offices to Bing, the poor man's Yahoo!, which pays Uncle Rupe for his content. "None of us k ... More >>

Vitaly Borker, Thuggish Russia-Born Brooklynite, Stars in Sunday's New York Times

Michael Falco for The New York Times​This weekend's best story comes courtesy of the New York Times, whose Sunday business section features the jaw-dropping story of Vitaly Borker, a resident of Sheepshead Bay, and his online eyeglass store DecorMyEyes. What makes Borker special is his blatant ... More >>

Groupon Brushes Off Google's $6 Billion Offer

​Six billion dollars isn't cool. You know what's cool? Groupon, the Chicago-based mega-start-up of online group coupons (get it?), turning down a six billion dollar offer from SkyNet Google. The tech giant has more money than God and often uses it to snap up smaller companies. But often, they ... More >>

WikiLeaks Reveals Chinese Leaders Googling Themselves

​"Egosurfing," also known as vanity searching, egosearching, egogoogling, autogoogling, self-googling, master-googling, is now officially a geopolitical issue causing tension between China and the United States. The latest WikiLeaks dump includes diplomatic cables about the problems of balanci ... More >>

Get Your Google Off the Table: Are Search Engines Allowed at Mealtime?

​Using a cell phone at the dinner table is rude, the New York Times cements as a rule this weekend, citing a new Emily Post book of manners for children and a Zagat survey. But are there exceptions? "What if a few clicks of the smartphone can answer a question, solve a dispute or elucidate tha ... More >>

New Study Shows That Food & Wine Really Don't Mix; Ex-Google Chefs Start Catering Biz

​Steve Cuozzo offers advice on how to survive dining out during the holidays: for one, do not drive into Manhattan. Hear that, Jersey? [NY Post] The Center for Science in the Public Interest, a consumer group, is suing McDonald's for using toys to market Happy Meals to young children. [CNN] ... More >>

Google CEO Eric Schmidt to Step Down, Co-Founder Larry Page to Step In Again

​Eric Schmidt will step down as the CEO of Google in April, the company announced today via official blog post. "Mr. Schmidt will remain executive chairman and serve as adviser to Mr. Page and Sergey Brin, the other company co-founder and its president of technology," reports the New York Time ... More >>

Google Offers Adds to the Ever-Growing List of Email Blast Coupons — but Will It Be Better?

mashable.comComing soon to an inbox near you.​Google is launching its own coupon service called Google Offers with discounts at stores and restaurants. But will it be able to stand out in the game, which already includes Groupon, Livingsocial, Gilt City, VillageVines, and BlackboardEats?

Google Will Own Your Wedding Now, Too

​Weddings are a huge ($40 billion!) industry, so it makes sense that Google (also a huge industry) would want a hand in them. Enter Google for Weddings, Google's new all-weddings-all-the-time one-stop Internet shop where users can create their own wedding websites, plan their weddings, create ... More >>

Google Seems to Think Abortion Is Murder

​Well, what about that. If you google "murder," this is what comes up. Note the second entry. Cory Doctorow at Boing Boing reports that this isn't actually Google's doing, however -- "Someone has spoofed Google into making the Wikipedia entry for 'abortion' into the second result in searches f ... More >>

Google Launches Magazine, Sort Of; Florida Newspaper Wants Cursing, Crazy Reporter

​"Is Google a Media Company?" the New York Times asked in the summer of 2008. "Critics say each new Google initiative in [content hosting] casts more doubt on the company's claims that it is not a media company." On Monday, David Carr updated us on the company's progress in three action-packed ... More >>

Google Is Watching You, Again: Adds Facebook-Style ' 1' Button

​The SkyNet of today and tomorrow, also known as Google, added a fresh feature on Wednesday called the " 1" button, which allows users to "like" a search result (or advertisement!) much in the same way you would a Facebook or Tumblr post. For the nerdiest among us, on Reddit it's called "votin ... More >>

Facebook Tried to Plant Negative Press About Google

​A secretive story has been bubbling in Silicon Valley this week, in which the PR firm Burson-Marsteller pitched anti-Google articles to national newspapers on behalf of some unnamed client. Google, they claimed, has privacy issues that the American people should know about -- but it was far f ... More >>

The 5 Best Google Doodles

​Every once in a while Google likes to surprise us with a treat, a little gem on their homepage that makes searching the internet fun. In honor of the birthday of Les Paul, the Google Doodle today is a working guitar, encouraging every asshole in the office to take a stab at "Stairway to Heave ... More >>

What's so Special About Google ?

​Google has launched Google , a social networking service they hope will compete with Facebook and eventually destroy it and reduce Mark Zuckerberg to the sniveling street urchin he once was. Google , which can only be accessed by invited guests as of today, has stressed its focus on privacy, ... More >>

Prepare for More Foodie Daily Deals: Google Offers Now in Beta in New York City

Google​Back in January, we alerted you to the advent of Google Offers, the daily email service offering discounts at restaurants and shops throughout the city. Given the plethora of existing sites and crowded market space, you might not have been eagerly awaiting this moment (or maybe you've ... More >>

Google Buys Zagat, Will No Longer Have to Appropriate Yelp Reviews

​Almost four years after putting their dining-guide empire on the market, Tim and Nina Zagat are finally selling out.

Waste Time With The Jim Henson Google Doodle

​ Google Doodles are often inspired, but rarely are they as fun as today's celebrating the day that would have marked Jim Henson's 75th Birthday.

Google Teams Up With Dogfish Head to Create Global Super-Beer

Google just can't help revealing its inner foodie. First, it bought the long-running dining guide Zagat. Now HuffPost Food brings news that Google is teaming up with Dogfish Head to create a Pangea-inspired beer called URKontinent.

What Was Google Buzz, Again?

​A little-known Google product called "Buzz" is finally being put out of its misery. Our experience of Google Buzz: we clicked on it accidentally one time when trying to click on our inbox. They're also getting rid of iGoogle, which, no idea.

Google Knows Your Deep, Dark, Dirty Secrets

​You can run, but you can't hide -- just like Sandra Bullock in The Net (OMG!) : Google knows all about you (or thinks it does, at least.)