Nevada, America's one stop shop for all sorts of bad ideas, has issued a license to an autonomous vehicle that is most definitely not a human being. One of Google's driverless Priuses that we've been keeping a wary eye on for some time now recently passed road tests in Carson City and on the Las Vegas strip, earning itself the first autonomous vehicle license. This comes about a year after Nevada was the first state to pass legislation allowing self-driving vehicles on public roads, possibly in an attempt to obliterate that state's profitable limousine industry. more ›

Google Drive launched today, as you may have heard everywhere on the internet. It's like Apple iCloud, or any other cloud-storage thing, only it's a virtual hard drive, and syncs up with your other Google stuff, and its name isn't as pretty. more ›

In what some are calling the "World Series of intellectual property trials", or "Larry vs. Larry" if you're nasty, the tech world's two 8-gajillion pound gorillas are set to square off in court over a meaty piece of intellectual property. The IP in question: Java, the ubiquitous software platform that Oracle gobbled up in 2010's phagocytosis of Sun Microsystems. According to Oracle's lawyers, the Google hivemind ripped off several Java patents when it included a handful of Java API calls and lines of source code while building it's Android operating system. more ›

Former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown, it seems, was one of the lucky attendees at MC Hammer's 50th birthday party at the Tonga Room. He wrote about the festivities in his Sunday column for The Chronicle. Once again, however, we leave Brown's golden nuggets of wisdom amused yet confused. Behold: more ›

We've been watching the streets for Google's robot Priuses ever since the company announced they had logged hundreds of thousands of driverless miles on California's highways a few years back. (One time, one of these things tried to run us down on Fell Street. True story!) About a year and a half and another 100,000 miles later, Google demonstrates some practical applications for the hybrid vehicles. Practical applications like... making trips to the Taco Bell drive-thru. Observe: more ›

Mason Mayer, brother of Google VP and local socialite Marissa Mayer, is facing three felony charges in San Francisco for an alleged attack on his former girlfriend that took place at his condo in the Four Seasons back in September. During the incident Mason, who has not held a job since his sister's company went public back in 2004 and lives in the same building in which she owns a $5 million penthouse, allegedly punched and beat his then-girlfriend before threatening to throw her off the Golden Gate Bridge. more ›

Google will finally offer a new online storage service, rumored to be called GDrive, which will unveil itself at the start of April. Says who? Om Malik, that's who. And he's right about these kind of things. Ahem: more ›

Today, March 8th, is International Women's Day. Google has reimagined its iconic logo into a piece celebrating the big day. To honor the holiday, as HuffPo notes, "Google created a simple, colorful doodle which transforms the 'G' into a female gender symbol, the second 'O' into a yellow flower and replaces the logo's regular blue with purple." (What, no ponies?) more ›

A perturbed frenchman, caught peeing in his garden by Google's popular Street View feature, is suing the company for humiliation and invasion of privacy. The photo, posted online, has reportedly made him the laughing stock of his tiny village. "My client lives in a tiny hamlet where everyone recognized him," said lawyer Jean-Noel Bouillaud, client of the urinating man who has asked to remain anonymous, adding that the image was snapped while the man was on "his own property and the gate to his garden was closed at the time the photo was taken." more ›

Sigh. Remember Google TV? Yeah, we barely do. Anyway, the Bay Area's most well publicized employer is working on their first real foray into the world of entertainment hardware, with the intent of releasing something that's only being referred to as an "entertainment device" sometime this year. The Wall Street Journal reports today that the thing is a music device for the home, probably Bluetooth-enabled, and we're guessing unattractive. more ›

The chilling Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), drafted by Rep. Lamar Smith, a Texas Republican, would have catastrophic affects on how you use the web and who (namely the U.S. government) controls it. Think China, Malaysia, or Iran. SOPA also represents another reality-estranged attempt attempt from "Hollywood, the Recording Industry Association of America, and their allies to counter what they claim to be rampant piracy online, especially from offshore sites such as ThePirateBay.org," notes CNET. The act would essentially let the Justice Department make any "allegedly piratical Web sites virtually vanish from the Internet." more ›

On its site today, Google announced that they purchased dining and entertainment guide Zagat for an undisclosed amount. Thrilled with the company's recent purchase, Google VP Marissa Mayer noted, "Moving forward, Zagat will be a cornerstone of our local offering—delighting people with their impressive array of reviews, ratings and insights, while enabling people everywhere to find extraordinary (and ordinary) experiences around the corner and around the world." more ›

Working yet again with the Naval Research Lab, Google unveiled their first real-time weather layer to go with Google Maps. The weather feature will show current temperatures and conditions around the world. This makes the 11th layer one can implement while using maps, with traffic and transit being the most popular. Give it a try, won't you? more ›

Today in things that Google computers are better at than you, simple human: Driving. An incident involving a Google driverless Prius was originally reported by Jalopnik this morning as the first traffic accident for Google's fleet of robot cars. Which could have been terrible PR for the Google autonomous vehicle program that's been quietly logging hundreds of thousands of miles on the streets of California and Nevada. As it turns out, the incident in which a gPrius rear-ended another Prius near the company's headquarters in Mountain View occurred while the vehicle was in manual mode. So, the robot car wasn't trying to mate with another hybrid vehicle, then? more ›

Tired of blocking followers who post relentless political campaign-related gibberish or blatant Gilt-esque advertising? We don't know about you, but we sure are. (Side note: if you're a campaign director who's hired a "social media consultant" [ick] to advise you that spamming your followers with aimless updates about your candidate is a good thing -- which counterproductively results in you and your updates getting blocked -- you should, one, fire that scam artist on the payroll and, two, stop it this very second.) Which is why (at least for now) Google Plus is a radical shot of fresh air. Like a VIP club or comfy booth inside the noisy, arena-like nightclub that is Facebook, the best part of Google+ is for sharing and discussing with a close circle of friends. more ›

We're suckers for both father-daughter drama and the occasional "It Gets Better" shlock. We're also suckers for Google Chrome. It should come as little surprise, then, that these new ads for Google Chrome -- one of which debuted on last night's Glee and features Dan Savage -- plucked our icy heartstrings. Yes, we know, we're essentially giving the Mountain View-based company a free plug. No, we don't care. They're that good. Though they rarely advertise, it's refreshing to see Google put forth cleverness and emotional whimsy in an ad, minus the dopiness that befalls those terrible Bing spots. Enjoy. more ›

Tina Fey visited the Googleplex in Silicon Valley last week where she sat down for an interview with noted vaudevillian Eric Schmidt. Hilarity, of course, ensued. The 30 Rock creator/star discussed everything form raising her daughter, mobiel communications devices, differences between male and female writers, and her favorite laugh-inducing bit. Gawker boiled down the funnest parts here. Or, for diehard Fey fans, you can watch the entire hour-long interview below. Enjoy. We certainly did. more ›

In a surprising move, Google's first quarter saw lower-than-expected earnings. This morning, shares were down $39.51 to $539. "But heavy spending on new hires and other investments crimped the bottom line, reports Wall Street Journal. Although Google projected $8.11 a share, they reported an adjusted profit of $8.08 on Thursday. "Google added more than 1,900 employees to its headcount during the quarter, which made for the highest rate of new hires since the first quarter of 2008. Operating expenses rose to 33% of revenue for the quarter compared to 27% of revenues for the same period last year." more ›

​Lady Gaga, archenemy of thirtysomethings and elderly gay brethren across the land, was in town for her show at Oracle Arena tonight. Also, she made a pitstop at Google today to chat with Marissa Mayer and hawk Google Moderator, "a tool that allows distributed communities to submit and vote on questions for talks, presentations and events." more ›

You know what really gets our goat? Cook's Illustrated blocks most of their recipes online unless you buy an entrance fee or purchase a stupid magazine subscription. (Isn't having to sit through a half hour of Christopher Kimball's banter, Adam Ried's Equipment Corner, and Jack Bishop's patronizing Tasting Lab payment enough?) That is, until now. Starting today, you can find some of Cook's Illustrated's test-tested meals - or any number of other recipes using searches ranging from ingredients to calorie count - using Google's new recipe finder and search engine. more ›

Rumors are swirling - swirling! - about Google and Facebook conducting clandestine meetings about about buying Twitter. According to the Wall Street Journal, "Executives at both Facebook Inc. and Google Inc., among other companies, have held low-level talks with those at Twitter Inc. in recent months to explore the prospect of an acquisition of the messaging service, according to people familiar with the matter." more ›

Wael Ghoneim, the Google marketing manager/opposition leader who has been "missing" in Egypt since late January, has been freed. "Google Inc. said Monday that its marketing manager has been released in Egypt after being detained during anti-government protests two weeks ago," reports the Associated Press. "Google released a statement Monday confirming the release of Wael Ghoneim. The statement said officials felt a 'huge relief' when hearing of Ghoneim’s release and that they wished him and his family well." [via CBS 5] more ›

Google’s head of marketing for the Middle East and North Africa, Wael Ghonim, who has been missing in Egypt since the uprisings began, has been named the symbolic spokesperson for the opposition youth movement in Egypt. more ›

While searching for an appropriate Sergey Brin link to use in today's "Google's Eric Schmidt Nets $100 Million" article, we came across one of Brin's old world wide web sites, a personal one he created while at Stanford. While we're sure loads of tech geeks and their countless hanger-ons have already chortled over this bit of antique web design (cira 1998-ish), we just found it. more ›

Although Google CEO Eric Schmidt is on his way out of the prized gig - company co-founder Larry Page, 37 (!), will replace Schmidt in April - he will be awarded $100 million worth of shares once he steps down. Which is nice. That's the dollar amount at which we start buying lottery tickets. So, you know, kudos all around, we guess. more ›

An "unexpected shakeup" went down at Google today. Larry Page, company co-founder, will take over as CEO effective April 4. "Page, 37, is reclaiming the top job from Eric Schmidt, who had been brought in as CEO a decade ago because Google's investors believed the company needed a more mature leader," reports KTVU. "Schmidt, 55, will remain an adviser to Page and Google's other co-founder, Sergey Brin, as Google's executive chairman." more ›

Very Small Array put together this curious map of the states as named by Google's autocomplete on Friday. When looking up California, they ended up with Prop 19, the state's marijuana initiative. (On Saturday afternoon, while logged in and out of Google, we got "California DMV" as our top result. Go figure.) more ›

Apparently not content to test a computer's ability to drive one of those autonomous Priuses, a Google engineer was spotted testing California's hands-free cell phone law by chatting from the driver's seat (but you know, not actually driving) while cruising around near Google HQ in Mountain View. Is it still hand-free if you have to hold the phone, but not the steering wheel? [Jalopnik] more ›

Groupon, the collective discount peddler that is a dream come true for bargain-addicted Marina girls and can mean a slow death by coupon for some small businesses, is in talks to sell itself to Google for a reported $6 billion. Yes, SIX BILLION DOLLARS. The deal would be the largest acquisition offer Google has made to date, after the 2008 purchase of DoubleClick for $3.2 billion. This is twice the estimated $3 billion valuation that someone punched up on their calculator a few weeks ago, and sounds insane to us, but anyway. Just yesterday, Groupon quickly announced the acquisition of three Asian startups as well as San Mateo marketing firm Ludic Labs, which will automatically cause Groupon's Silicon Valley office to grow from 25 to over 100 employees. Groupon's board is meeting to discuss the Google offer today, and is likely already busting out the champagne. more ›