There’s a whole branch of linguistic theory that suggests that the words we know (and the languages we learn them in) have an inescapable knock-on effect on the thoughts and ideas we’re then able to express. We have to assume—having resignedly been forced to acknowledge a few years back that they do, technically,…
Google is no longer content to be one of the most successful corporations in world history. It isn’t enough, anymore, that they’ve functionally replaced the term “internet search” with its own name as a common verb. No, Google also wants to rub your hometown pride in the dirt by releasing information displaying…
Just in case the lesson from every Black Mirror episode hasn’t sunk in just yet, here it is again: All technology is bad and it will eventually be used to destroy our lives in ways we can’t even imagine. Today, that’s coming in the form of imperceptible musical signals that can be used to take control of smart devices…
The fight to finally bring about sensible gun control in the United States is just beginning, and is a multi-pronged effort that will extend from this week’s CNN Town Hall to the ballot box this November and beyond. But here’s one thing that’s simple, easy, and, if you’re a regular reader of The A.V. Club, involves…
You might remember an incident from a few months back, when Google engineer James Damore transformed himself into “former Google engineer James Damore,” using one of the tech giant’s legendarily intuitive interfaces. That is, Damore decided to send a memo to the entire company complaining about its “prejudices against…
Down in Mountain View, California, the idyllic West Coast community that harbors Google corporate headquarters, two values are paramount. First, that everyone tolerates those damn Google buses. And second, your stupid Google bicycles are fair game. At least, that seems to have been the general operating principle in…
There are few aspects of online life that Google hasn’t managed to smash its way into over the years, buying up competitors, covering everything in a healthy slathering of doodles, and happily setting up its omnipresent shop. It’s a familiar enough story at this point that it’s almost more remarkable to be reminded…
Yesterday, as part of an ongoing Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on the way Russian troll farms influenced the 2016 election, tech giants Facebook, Google, and Twitter were forced to reckon with the fact that they made massive quantities of money off ads that radicalized and misled aunts, uncles, and old…
Google has identified the most pressing issue facing its company and, to its credit, is moving quickly to address a concern affecting millions of employees and service users alike. That’s right, we’re talking about its shitty hamburger emoji.
Every year, Google releases a list of the top Halloween costume searches, giving us a quick, festive window into the mind of the spookily-inclined American. This year’s list confirms what this summer’s box office receipts already proved: Nobody beats Wonder Woman in 2017.
Last week, the Senate Intelligence Committee confirmed Russia had interfered with the 2016 election through various means, including ad buys on social media sites like Facebook. Like the ill-informed among us, the political ads helped spread disinformation, the effects of which are still being studied by Special…
Hurricane Harvey has produced a lot of asshole behavior so far, largely from people who aren’t being directly affected by the massive, deadly storm. But for every snitching reporter, door-slamming preacher, or pardon-happy president, there are hundreds of people helping victims as the flooding continues, providing…
Machines, particularly ones made by Google, are often concerned with defeating humans at complicated games or learning how to monitor us even when offline, but a new feature on the mobile version of Google’s search engine might actually help people. As reported by The Verge, people who search for “depression” on their…
Following in the footsteps of Spotify—and iTunes, which made a move to clear its catalog of “hate rock” bands three years ago, after an article from the Southern Poverty Law Center drew attention to their growing presence in the streaming music world—a number of streaming services and online music distributors,…
White supremacists, white nationalists, and neo-Nazis (the AP is very clear on them not being the same thing, though we’re still trying to figure out when each is appropriate) got a shot in the Hitler-saluting arm when the president of the United States referred to (some of) them as “very fine people.” To add to this…
The lack of tolerance for intolerance trend continues apace this morning—not long after Donald Trump finally managed to speak out against the torch-wielding white supremacist mob in Charlottesville, Google has denied neo-Nazi site The Daily Stormer an internet home after its gradual ouster from GoDaddy. The Daily…
The last few days have been pretty harrowing for people who believe in the basic good stuff that America is supposed to be all about, but not all of the assholes of the world are focusing their efforts on Charlottesville this weekend. As reported by Variety, Google has been forced to cancel an upcoming town hall…
In what we can only assume is great news for AltaVista and Ask Jeeves, anti-diversity advocates and the “PC culture-gone crazy” crowd have declared war on Google, attempting to organize a march on several of its business headquarters in the U.S., scheduled to take place next week. Planning for the march apparently…
We tend to think of Google as a cheerfully smiling monolith, an integrated, synergistic team of people working in harmony to offer up better search results, faster internet, and a constant bounty of private data to hurl into its all-consuming, ever-hungry maw. But a crack appeared in the tech giant’s doodle-perfect…
Google’s Deep Mind project has taken another adorable, silly, extremely goofy step toward world domination this week, with a new video highlighting how the artificial intelligence project taught itself to walk. Showcasing a series of models that all look extremely cute—right up until the point when they come lunging,…
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