Results tagged “google”

For woefully explicable reasons, the fine folks at the San Francisco Google office yanked their brilliant lipsynch video set to Miley Cyrus' ode to a celebratory modern America -- which is, arguably, one of the best songs written in the history of girls. Otherwise, we'd post it here for you to enjoy. (And believe us, it is, if anything, enjoyable.)

Pompous Wall Street Journal managing editor Robert Thomson is, for lack of a better word, dim. And old. Case in point, he was, for some inexplicable reason, asked to speak at Web Summit 2.0 in San Francisco this week. During a panel discussion with Google executive Marissa Mayer, he accused her of "unintentionally encourag[ing] promiscuity." (Odds are he never would have said the same thing to Sergey Brin.)

In a sign that the recession might -- might! -- be over, Google CEO Eric Schmidy and the lovely/talented/benevolent Sergey Brin told reports this morning that the company is partying like it's 1999. That is to say, according to Ryan Tate at Valleywag, "the Mountain View, California company is through with its recent belt-tightening, which included layoffs and cutbacks in the company's famously posh perquisites."

It was between this, a cute animated video for Google Street View by Google Japan, or this, a clip of backstabbing Tyra Banks acting like a raging hypocrite during an interview with Cynthia McFadden.

Ack.

We randomly came across this little tidbit yesterday while searching for kid band The She's, who are performing at the Rock Make Street Festival on Sunday. The disgruntled revenge-seeker/Walnut Creek resident must have taken the time to register their gripe as a business on Google Maps, which curiously shows up at the top of the aforementioned search list, alongside various local salons and restaurants. Strange. Here's a transcript:

Apparently, most of 11th Street (between Mission and Bryant Streets) was deleted from Google's Street View a few months ago, which was not fixed in yesterday's update. It also appears in the above graphic that 16th Street, between Folsom and Harrison, is not available either. Here's evidence from 2007 that Street View was in fact once available on 11th Street.

Since working for both Google and Apple is starting to look odd, Google CEO Eric Schmidt recently ditched his gig on the board at Apple. Being on the board since 2006, Schmidt thought it best to excuse himself, especially now as Google "develops products that compete with Apple's core businesses, including the popular iPhone." So, yeah, that's a wise move. Other noted members of Apple's board, according to CBS 5/AP, include "former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, Genentech chairman Arthur D. Levinson and Andrea Jung, the chairwoman and CEO of Avon Products." Levinson, by thew way, serves on Google's board. No word as to whether or not he will step down soon.

SFist is a big fan of Google. So, naturally, we were elated to hear that Google VP of Search Product and User Experience and fellow air sign Marissa Mayer is now on Twitter. So far, she's messaged about Google comics, some guy named Bob Iger, and the keen philosophies of the American Visionary Arts Museum in Baltimore. Now, this is all well and good -- and she'll probably continue to post Twitter messages about super smart stuff that will go over our head -- but we hope, pray to God, she throws down tidbits about, say, life at the top of Four Seasons, or what Google dreamboat Sergey Brin is really like. (Just a scrap of something swoon-worthy on Brin will do nicely, Marissa. We're desperate. Obviously.) Anyway, if the mood should strike, follow her.

ComicCon, the other annual gathering of comic stars and fans, is taking place this very second in San Diego, starting today and ending on Sunday. Never one to shy away from all things adorably geeky, Google has honored this week's festivities with the above logo.

Yesterday, Gavin Newsom announced Google maps favorites, a feature that allows you, well, to list your favorite places, which then show up on Google Maps. Ta-da. A few celebrity favorite places of note? Maya Lin likes to see fine art and Dede's crispy hair at the de Young Museum, Tony Hawk likes a magical land called Alyeska, Yo-Yo Ma enjoys dining in Beverly Hills, and one of Mayor Gavinn Newsom's favorite spots is SF General Hospital (which seems to be a very strange fetish, but to each his own.) Anyway, be sure to check out Google's new feature. It's actually loads of fun.

Last night Google announced that it would soon be open-sourcing a new operating system, Google Chrome OS, to be run on netbooks for an ultimate 2010 release to consumers. Google says, "It’s our attempt to re-think what operating systems should be," but as TechCrunch puts it: "Let’s be clear on what this really is. This is Google dropping the mother of bombs on its chief rival, Microsoft. It even says as much in the first paragraph of its [blog] post, 'However, the operating systems that browsers run on were designed in an era where there was no web.'"

As of today, Google will remove the "beta" tag from most of its products, namely Gmail, which is over five years old and wildly popular with both business and personal users. While the moniker implied "serious kinks were still being worked out, [and] also made the idea of a beta test seem almost meaningless," it also sort of told users, ideally, that Google would continue, now and forever, to make their products better. So, GMail, Google Docs, Google Calendar, and Google Talk will all get their "beta" wings snipped. They are, it seems, officially ready for use.

This goes out to all the commenters who get up-in-arms about copyedit errors: Burrito Justice & Mission Mission point us to the fact that the folks at the helm over at Google Maps clearly don't spend enough time in Dolores Park. While the name "Mission Dolores Park" is spelled correctly on the main park label, it is spelled "Mission Delores Park" elsewhere on the same map. For shame.

Some of the largest employers in the Bay Area are being investigated by the Department of Justice to determine if they have been in cahoots not to recruit or hire away each others' key employees. The story first broke on The Deal, and now appears on The Washington Post. Sources for the Post report that the probe is industry-wide, and asserts that "by agreeing not to hire away top talent, the companies could be stifling competition and trying to maintain their market power unfairly."

The uber- and always-divine Leah Garchik reports on who the wealthiest person in San Francisco is: Larry Page, co-founder and of Google. (Of course, the award for sexiest-wealthiest person in San Francisco, hands down, goes to The Brin. Know Sergey, know beauty; no Sergey, no beauty.) Garchik mentions Page because there's a book coming out this week about the Google kingpin and 99 other fat cats in the U.S. Penned by Randall Jones, it's called The Richest Man In Town. While we plan on giving the book a once-over, we had hoped Page's section would open any top-shelf cans of worms the way Oh the Glory of It All did, which famously shattered the glitzy Aqua-Net veneer of Pacific Height's Dede "French is a faggy language" Wilsey. , it seems, looks more like a living-the-American-dream guide, not a vengeful tell-all. Alas. Anyway, Jones' "smug paean to extreme wealth" is available on Wednesday.

After receiving numerous complaints in Japan, "where personal privacy is highly valued," according to SF Business Times, Google will reshoot the country's street scenes. It seems that some of the shots in Japan, as in many other countries, looked over fence tops and into private residences. Google now plans to lower the camera, which is affixed to a car that helps capture said scenes, about 16 inches to help ensure less intrusive images. The Mountain View-based company did not say when, exactly, the new images will go live. In related news, Greece's Data Protection Authority (DPA) barred Google from snapping any more images "until the company provides additional privacy safeguards."

Yesterday, Google CEO Eric Schmidt spoke at the Newspaper Association of America's annual death procession. During the Q&A session, according to Valleywag, Schmidt answered every blogger's favorite question of rumination: what did newspapers do wrong? Schmidt answers:

Today, the California State Senate "passed legislation that will extend benefits to the unemployed by 20 weeks, sending Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger the first bill involving money from the federal economic stimulus package," according to reports. The bill passed in a 38-0 vote. "The most important thing we can do right now to help our economy and the day-to-day lives of Californians is to make sure those who are unemployed have the cash to pay their bills and feed their families," said Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento. This most recent alteration in California unemployment laws comes just as Google plans to cut part of its workforce.

OK, we know it's no longer cool to coo over Google's logos anymore -- we're sure most of you would prefer a post on the series finale Battlestar Galactica, a show we simple can't watch for it contains neither Patti Stanger nor Candy Finnigan -- but today's we couldn't resist. In honor of the book's 40th anniversary, Google is giving it up for The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Next to The Divine Comedy and Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Carle's The Very Hungry Caterpillar is the most important piece of literature. It tells the tale of a starving caterpillar who, after consuming and consuming and consuming and consuming, turns into a beautiful butterfly.

The benevolent folks over at Google have been kind enough to add a nifty new Undo Send feature to Gmail. To turn on the new feature, go to 'undo send' in Gmail Labs under 'settings.' But be warned: it can't retrieve an email that's already been sent; it just holds onto your message for five seconds "so you have a chance to hit the panic button." In related news, Valleywag has a wish list of five other things that could be undo on the internet.

Speaking at a Morgan Stanley Technology conference, Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz fessed up to the following bit of commonsense.

In the throes of our failing economy, Google trimmed 100 jobs and close three offices this week. According to reports, 100 full-time recruiters were shown the door. Google also shutdown three engineering offices in Austin (just after it opened "with a lavishly catered party"), Norway and Sweden. Google VP Laszlo Bock announced the layoffs yesterday via his blog, siting "the state of the economy is to blame for the cutbacks." Stay strong, Googlers.

Due to the ongoing recession, Google, who can do no wrong in our eyes, has let many of its temporary workers go. The Mountain View-based company, according to Business Week, has an estimated 4,300 interns, temporary workers and contractors. Just how many of these workers were pruned has yet to be revealed. This recent layoff goes along with Google's plans to "significantly reduce the number of its contractors and retain all of its full-time employees."

While we wait -- and wait and wait -- for Sergey Brin to call asking to meet him at the St. Regis lobby to "talk" over cocktails, some Googlers are bemoaning this year's awesome Christmas bonus, or lack thereof. See, normally, according to Valleywag, employees at the Googleplex get a yearly cash bonus, which could climb as high "as $20,000 or $30,000 per Googler." But this year they'll be getting the G1 phone that retails for about $180. The phone, we hear, is nothing short of a Christmas miracle. But, yeah, cash is always sweeter. Anyway, Owen Thomas has the canceled-bonus memo, which you should read, right here.

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Screw the thank-you letter. Whatever happened to the sticker album? Because if this were the sixth third grade, these GMail stickers would go right at the front of the book along with the puffy, Smurf, and googly-eyed ones.

Exemplary fag hag to many lucky homosexuals, Google VP multi-millionaire and Four Seasons resident Marissa Mayer is currently engaged. At least, so says the rumor mill. According to Valleywag, she's getting hitched to somebody named Zack Bogue, who "buys and manages apartments for rich people." May they be fruitful and multiple.

For those of you who watched Britney's birthday on Good Morning America, which we'll assume is all of you, Four Seasons resident and Google VP Marissa Mayer graced Today this morning. The multi-millionaire chatted to Matt Lauer about this year's top Google search words (Obama, Facebook, McCain) and queries on the tanking economy (e.g., people are cooking at home more). Her voice is much more raspy/sexy than we had assumed. Because we judge people based off of their hair color. But you'll have to see her appearance over at Valleywag. (Sir Owen Thomas gets granted the secret embedded code. We were not.)