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By Guest Blog, on June 5, 2013, at 9:00 pm By: Public Citizen | Press Release
WASHINGTON, June 5 – What: Press conference on Thursday, the day of Google Inc.’s annual shareholder meeting, led by consumer groups and shareholders, who will call on Google to institute a policy to disclose its political spending and end its membership in the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
Groups of Google investors sent a letter on Monday that echoes the message. Another set of Google investors representing more than $125 billion in assets under management is planning to send a separate letter today with the same requests.
The press conference comes after several public interest groups (Read more…)
By Jay Cables, on May 5, 2013, at 11:52 pm
Google has changed the tagline on its homepage in the occupied territories from “Palestinian Territories” to “Palestine.” A Google spokesperson informed BBC that the company had consulted sources and authorities and was “…following the lead of the UN, Icann [Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers], ISO [International Organisation for Standardisation] and other international organisations.”
It’s hard to get overly enthused about a word above a Google search bar so long as actual Palestinians are under occupation, apartheid and treated like pariahs in their own land. Given the recent UN vote in favor of Palestine non-member observer (Read more…)
By Jay Cables, on April 23, 2013, at 2:57 am Executive chairman of Google, Eric Schmidt, recently went public with his concerns about ‘everyman’ drones getting into the wrong hands. Thinks they should be banned… might be a privacy threat. Guess Schmidt should know being a top exec of a company that some regard as one of the biggest privacy threats on the planet.
Google has a cosy relationship with Barack Obama who knows all about drones, so we should probably pay attention. Schmidt thinks we need to be aware of the potential of drones to “democratize the ability to fight war”… and warns of drones being used (Read more…)
By jtoddring, on January 30, 2013, at 5:59 pm The Blackberry 10 has just been unveiled, and the question returns: Blackberry, iPhone or Google-based Android smart phone? Here are some thoughts, techno-weenie talk aside. We’re talking pure functionality and ethics here, not who has the best gizmo-gadgetry whiz-bang for the buck. Google is a partner in evil, willingly collaborating with the super-creepy NSA’s deeply [...]
By dougrogers, on October 24, 2012, at 2:21 pm I’m trying a Google+ Page for samu press, at: https://plus.google.com/u/0/b/112300258731317304941/112300258731317304941/posts
Aside from the samu press blog, http://samupress.blogspot.ca at which I repost items from the Zazzle store: http://www.zazzle.ca/samupress and the Facebook samu press page, ( which really is a pain) and this cartoon life blog and my own Facebook page…and an array of others… sheeeesh. What a shmozzle. It feels like too many lines in the water and it seems hard to differentiate them. As much as I want to NOT to be a pain in the eyes, and as much as I want to
By trashee, on September 7, 2012, at 3:23 pm Google doodle today! But maybe I’m just being a nerd. (7) Trashy, Ottawa, Ontario
By Obert Madondo, on July 21, 2012, at 10:56 pm Today, over a billion Muslims around the world begin to observe the holy month of Ramadan, fasting from dawn to sunset. This year, Google is in on the action. In a serious way. The search engine behemoth will stream Islamic prayers live from Mecca via a dedicated YouTube channel. That means millions around the world will be able to experience “over 50 premium Ramadan shows.” Shows like the one depicted in the clip below, starring famed Syrian actor Jamal Suliman. Find out more on Google+ Arabia.
By Adam, on June 25, 2012, at 2:40 pm The Endangered Languages Project is a new initiative run by Google to catalog languages that are threatened because of globalization. As nice as it is that the people on the planet are finding more languages in common, we still need to encourage people to embrace languages that aren’t as popular.
“We have so many languages which are in danger of dying, and though there has been work done by linguists to document these languages, there are nowhere near enough linguists to do that,” said Anthony Aristar, professor of linguistics and co-director of the Institute for Language Information and Technology at
. . . → Read More: Things Are Good: Google to Catalog Languages
By Obert Madondo, on June 18, 2012, at 11:23 pm In a report released late Sunday, Google tells us Canada has joined the ranks of countries aggressively stepping up efforts to censor online political dissent through “censorship requests” to the giant search engine. Passport Canada authorities asked Google to block public access to “a YouTube video of a Canadian citizen urinating on his passport and flushing it down the toilet”. The case is one of the highlights in Google’s semi-annual Transparency Report for the period July – December, 2011.
Now the question is: would you have wanted to watch the video and understand the protester’s motivations? I would have. When
. . . → Read More: CANADIAN PROGRESSIVE WORLD: Google Exposes Harper Government’s Growing Internet Censorship Appetites
By Garry J. Wise, Wise Law Office, Toronto, on April 26, 2012, at 2:49 am Trial judges routinely warn jurors to avoid using social media and the internet to research or comment on matters before the court during trials. Nonetheless, news reports of jurors who disregard these instructions seem to be increasingly frequent.
Such juror misconduct has potentially disastrous consequences for the administration of justice. A December 2011 Arkansas appeal provides a ready illustration – see Death row inmate gets second trial due to Twitter-obsessed juror:
In a tweet referencing the trial, Franco wrote ”Choices to be made. Hearts to be broken…We each define the great line.” He also posted updates when each day
. . . → Read More: Wise Law Blog: "CourtBerry Syndrome" and Why Some Jurors Can’t Resist Tweeting
By redtory, on March 8, 2012, at 7:29 pm Google moves in mysterious ways… Whatever happened to “related videos” on YouTube that were at least in someway tangentially similar to the previous video watched?
Suddenly, it seems that there are only four options presented – none of which are remotely connected to the preceding video. Like the ubiquitous promo for the “Invisible Mercedes” or some “Epic Pee Prank” they do however have many millions of hits.
It also seems that the “suggestions” (in the past, always pathetically inept guesses for the most part) are now just the same as those appearing where “related videos” used to!
Quite odd…
. . . → Read More: Red Tory v.3.0.3: Has YouTube Killed “Related Videos”?
By Orangutan, on March 5, 2012, at 8:49 pm Thank you for inventing an Android application that in the future will help you and other humans better understand me and other non-humans. I am thrilled that Translate for Animals (non-human ones) recognizes and transcribes words and phrases that are common to non-human species. This might just be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
By rww, on February 29, 2012, at 9:50 am In the beginning there were BBSs (Bulletin Board Systems). In a foreshadowing of things to come, almost immediately following the invention of the Personal Computer (PC) they became communications devices as BBS systems were set up for hobbyists to use to share information and home-written programs. At this time PC users were primarily computer hobbyists and the BBSs were mainly confined to
By trashee, on February 28, 2012, at 8:41 am Check it – I receive ONE email in French and with the word “retraite” in the subject line (retirement, en anglais)… and look at the ad… Trashy, Ottawa, Ontario
By David Eaves, on February 22, 2012, at 12:33 pm Some of you know I’ve written a fair bit on Google transit and how it is reshaping public transit – this blog post in particular comes to mind. For more reading I encourage you to check out the Xconomy article Google Transit: How (and Why) the Search Giant is Remapping Public Transportation as it provides a lot of good details as to what is going on in this space.
Two things about this article:
First, it really is a story about how the secret sauce for success is combining open data with a common standard across jurisdictions. The fact that
. . . → Read More: eaves.ca: More on Google Transit and how it is Reshaping a Public Service
By Mark, on February 14, 2012, at 10:10 am Google has posted a Valentine’s Day video on their home page, and it includes an adorable gay couple near the end. Aw, how sweet! That couple, though, is displayed in a visual collage alongside other “non-traditional” pairings such as a dog and a cat, a cookie embracing some milk, and an astronaut holding hands with an alien. Uh… thanks?
By Adam, on January 19, 2012, at 10:04 am Yesterday you probably noticed that most of your favourite websites were down yesterday or had a notice up warning you about two bills in front of the American government. Those bills are SOPA and PIPA and essentially if these bills pass the internet would be all but dead to American citizens and beyond!
Here’s a video by the Kahn Academy explaining the bills:
So why is this on a website dedicated to good news? Here’s why:
Yesterdays coordinated action shows that disparate companies can join together to oppose harmful legislation. Thanks to Google 4.5 million people signed a petition . . . → Read More: Things Are Good: Why We Went Down Yesterday
By Jay Cables, on January 16, 2012, at 5:54 pm Rupert Murdoch has had his hands full of late. He has been exploring his ‘human side’ with a Twitter account. No coincidence of course that he has taken to a Twitter facelift in the wake of the phone-hacking scandal involving News International.
Employees in the Murdoch trenches have been accused of hacking phones to get an edge on stories. They have also been called out for police bribery and exercising improper influence in pursuit of stories. One way to off-set dark talk of the media monster variety is to Twitter like a regular human which Murdoch has been doing a
. . . → Read More: Drive-by Planet: Murdoch tweets target Google, White House and Silicon Valley
By redtory, on December 31, 2011, at 9:15 pm To end the year on a fittingly sardonic note, here’s Charlie Brooker’s brilliant take on the past twelve months as darkly viewed through the pop culture lens of a jaded media critic:
If nothing else, you can just skip about half way through the video to enjoy a short documentary gem by Adam Curtis about “how Rupert Murdoch took over the old newspapers of Fleet Street and used them to wage a cultural revolution against the snobbish elites that dominated Britain…”
This short film not only provides a succinctly plausible explanation of the “weird logic” behind the rise of Murdoch’s
. . . → Read More: Red Tory v.3.0.3: Charlie Brooker’s 2011 Wipe
By Mark A. Rayner, on November 30, 2011, at 8:45 am
On the other hand, a really specific (short) word limit can force one to be more creative and improve the text. I love the Blaise Pascal quote: “Je n’ai fait celle-ci plus longue que parce que je n’ai pas eu le loisir de la faire plus courte.”
In English: “This letter is very long because I did not have time to make it short.”
In other words, brevity is not only the soul of wit, it takes more time to achieve, sometimes, than much longer pieces of writing.
This post notwithstanding.
Alltop is long on funny. Cartoon by
By Adam, on November 7, 2011, at 10:37 am Here at Things Are Good we like geothermal energy and countries that use it. The USA could be on the list in the future! Researchers from SMU that have received funding from Google have released a map that shows the potential of geothermal energy production in the continental United States. The conclusion is that there is [...] . . . → Read More: Things Are Good: USA Can be 100% Powered by Geothermal Energy
By Farron Cousins, on October 18, 2011, at 2:37 pm CA_Inhaling_backup_300x250_v1_ALL[1].jpg Environment New Jersey has announced an aggressive new online advertising campaign to hold so-called “environment-friendly” state representati… . . . → Read More: DeSmogBlog: New Jersey Environmental Group Targets Anti-Environment Legislators With New Ad Campaign
By Garry J. Wise, Wise Law Office, Toronto, on October 7, 2011, at 7:53 pm Legal Ethics in an Age of Technology… That sounds a wee bit lofty, no? Some of you are probably thinking, “Ethics? We’re talking about Facebook and Twitter, here, right?” Well as you will see in this video, the more involved a legal prof… . . . → Read More: Wise Law Blog: Video: Legal Ethics in an Age of Technology
By Graham Readfearn, on October 7, 2011, at 11:21 am lobbyplanet.jpeg THE maxim of the lobbyist is generally to be heard but not seen, although a new report on the concentration of lobbying in Brussels suggests you'd be hard pressed to go any… . . . → Read More: DeSmogBlog: Lobby Planet report shows Brussels spinning with corporate influence
By Adam, on September 28, 2011, at 4:32 pm Tides Canada has teamed up with Google Earth to allow the world to see Canada’s precious environment using Google’s technology. Now you can visualize things like the boreal forest and the migration of many wild animals. It’s one thing to say that the Canadian boreal forest is the largest intact forest ecosystem on earth, Ms. Moore [...] . . . → Read More: Things Are Good: See Canada’s Environment in Google Earth
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