Some would say that needs no explanation. Some would say the Google Search Engine is correct to show information about Donald Trump when someone searches the word, “idiot.” But in Congress, Republicans think something smells, and they’re not talking about the stench in the White House!
On Tuesday, the search engine giant’s CEO Sundar Pichai had the task of explaining to members of Congress why that happens during a hearing in front of the House Judiciary Committee.
Pichai refuted Rep. Zoe Lofgren’s (D-Calif.) tongue-in-cheek suggestion that it was down to “a little man sitting behind the curtain” who was skewing the results against conservatives — saying the company doesn’t “manually intervene” in searches.
“We provide search today for any time you type in a keyword. We, as Google, have gone out and crawled and stored copies of billions of their pages in our index, and we take the keyword and match it against the pages and rank them based on over 200 signals,” Pichai explained.
“Things like relevance, freshness, popularity, how other people are using it. And based on that, you know, at any given time, we try to find the best results for that query,” he added, during the hearing that also threw up several other self-owns for lawmakers.
It is my hope that we will all wake up to the seriousness of Climate change before it is too late. Republicans nationwide and their buddies in Congress have bent backwards trying to appease the lobbyists and those protecting polluters, and today, any talk of legislation to address climate change is considered a declaration of war by Republicans, and they go all out to win that war.
But climate change is happening, it is serious and it is deadly. And you don’t have to listen to the majority of scientists or their findings supporting climate change, you just have to look out your window. We are already seeing the effects in the drastic changes in our weather patterns and the yearly storms that appear stronger and more frequently. Earlier this week, The Rockerfellas, who made millions with investments in fossil fuel, decided that having all the money in the world and no world to live in, is suicide. They announced they will end their investment relationship with companies funding the depletion of the earth and the atmosphere.
Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt today said it was a “mistake” to support the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a group that has said human-created climate change could be “beneficial” and opposes environmental regulations. Schmidt said groups trying to cast doubt on climate change science are “just literally lying.”
Google’s membership in ALEC has been criticized because of the group’s stance on climate change and its opposition to network neutrality rules and municipal broadband. Earlier this month, Google refused to comment after 50 advocacy groups called on the company to end its affiliation with ALEC.
That changed today when Schmidt appeared on The Diane Rehm Show and was asked by a listener whether Google is still supporting ALEC. The listener described ALEC as “lobbyists in DC that are funding climate change deniers.”
Schmidt responded, “we funded them as part of a political campaign for something unrelated. I think the consensus within the company was that was sort of a mistake, and so we’re trying to not do that in the future.”
Schmidt did not say what issue led Google to support ALEC. Yelp reportedly joined ALEC to fight so-called “Strategic lawsuits against public participation,” but it’s not clear if Google had the same motivation. We contacted Google’s public relations department today but haven’t heard back.
Now only if we could get the Republicans and climate change deniers to get on board. They are taking us down a one way path to destruction, and they are doing it for money.
I am a dedicated user of Songza. There seems to be a song on the app for every occasion, so on my weekdays, weekends and travels, Songza is usually providing my background music.
I hope this does not change now that Songza has joined Google.
From their Press Release…
Today, we’re thrilled to announce that we’re becoming part of Google. We can’t think of a better company to join in our quest to provide the perfect soundtrack for everything you do. No immediate changes to Songza are planned, other than making it faster, smarter, and even more fun to use.
Hey, America, WE’RE AT WAR!!! This is No Ordinary War, but it’s still War just the same! Stop it with your Penny-Anny whining about “Privacy and Civil Liberties” being taken away. It was taken away after 9/11, less we forget. Immediately after we were attacked with the planes diving into buildings, the Bush Administration began wiretapping phone calls and emails because of potential threats from known and unknown al-Qaeda groups.
President Bush authorized a surveillance program in late 2001, allowing the NSA (National Security Agency) to monitor communications between the United States and foreign countries without court oversight when a party is believed to be linked to al-Qaeda. During the 2008 article that revealed President Bush’s tactics, Administration officials had acknowledged that the NSA program was broader, and intelligence sources had described a vast effort to collect and analyze telephone and e-mail communications that were later scrutinized by the government for desired information. Does this Ring A Bell? Fast Forward to Thursday, June 6th.
On Thursday, President Obama was slammed for doing the EXACT SAME THING George Bush did as President, yet Obama is being pummeled by some Right Wingers, some Democrats that seemed to have forgotten what Bush initiated after 9/11, by media outlets like the New York Times and Fox News (No Surprise There) and every day Americans who also have forgotten WE’RE AT WAR!!!
Collection of audio, video, email, photographic and Internet search usage of foreign nationals overseas who use any of the nine major Internet providers, including Microsoft, Google, Apple, Yahoo and others has also taken place.
Thursday was June 6th, the Commemoration of D-Day. On June 6th, 1944, the Great Theater of Battle was the Normandy invasion which was to liberate Europe from the stronghold of Adolf Hitler and the German war machine.
During WWII, we knew what the enemy looked like. Another battle was taking place thousands of miles away in Japan. We saw them coming in Big Ships across the oceans, hundereds of thousands of planes in the air and Tanks across the desert. Today, our enemy lives in caves but has the technological skills of a seasoned IBM’er.
They disguise themselves by blending in like you and me. By going to work everyday, or enrolling in schools, colleges, the Armed Services, they are unnoticed because they adopt our way of life. Then, without warning, the Fort Hood Shooting takes place. Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan opened fire on his fellow servicemen, killing 13 and injuring 30. Then Sen. Joe Lieberman opined that Hasan was under personal stress and may have turned to Islamic Extremism.
And how about the Boston Marathon Bombers? The brothers, Dzokhar Tsarnaev, 19 and his brother who was killed in a gun battle with police in Boston, 26- year old Tamerlan, killed 3 and injured over 260 with pressure cooker bombs. The purpose of the attack after investigation and interrogation of young Dzokhar, Extreme Islamist beliefs and the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Don’t sleep America! There are many other ‘cell groups’ right here on our soil. And it takes a great deal of surveillance that WE Have No Idea About that HAS to be monitored.
To be sure, Obama didn’t launch the data-mining initiatives, which were started during the Bush administration, though he has expanded them. He had defenders Thursday ranging from California Sen. Feinstein, a liberal Democrat, to South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, a conservative Republican. “It’s called protecting America,” Feinstein said.
Obama called it “a false choice between the liberties we cherish and the security we demand.” Yes, we demand our Freedoms but do we sacrifice Freedom over our Safety?
Senior administration officials defended the programs as critical tools and said the intelligence they yield is among the most valuable data the U.S. collects. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said the Internet program, known as PRISM, can’t be used to intentionally target any Americans or anyone in the U.S, and that data accidentally collected about Americans is kept to a minimum.
At hearing of this story that NEVER SHOULD HAVE BEEN REPORTED, I asked several Verizon users their thoughts on the whole matter, one being my In-Law. She stated, “ I’ve got Nothing to hide so I’m not concerned”. A golf buddy stated he had concerns of how the government gathers our information but didn’t feel threatened since he was a law-abiding citizen. I always wonder why when it comes to things of this nature, people get all flushed and bothered. If you have Nothing to hide, why does it bother you so much?
In the name of Safety, I want All the Protection my Government can Provide for my family, friends and this Great Country. In the name of Freedom, We have to Allow some Inconveniences along the way.
The enemy has brand new ways of infiltration. We can’t always see them, but thank God we have people working to Cease and Desist ALL perpetrators who would do us harm.
And by the way, the reason I said this story should Never have been reported, it opens the eyes of the Enemy. Now, they have to regroup and change the way they were doing ‘business’. Because our government knew of their actions, their mode of communication, their habits, they too have heard this story. We’re back to square one. In that reporters zealous for getting a story out there, You may have just jeopardized the security of not just Americans, but the World as a Whole…I’m just saying…
We all remember how surprising Apple’s decision last year to remove Google Maps as the default iOS Map was. We also remember the widespread criticism that followed, due to user non-satisfaction with Apple’s newly released Map. Well, this may have been just the beginning of a “war” for the dominion of the mapping technology market. In fact, on May 4 2013, the US Patents Trademarks Office published Apple’s new patent “3D Position Tracking for Panoramic Imagery Navigation” which describes a product similar to Google’s street view technology.
Two major differences with Google’s street view seem to be:
The use of mobile devices integrated sensors to navigate at street level allowing users to physically move the device up/down/left/right in order to virtually turn at street corner, enter/exit building, move up or down streets, etc.
The possibility to expand the panorama by using more than one adjacent devices simultaneously. As it reads in the patent text: “For example, two adjacent electronic tablets can be arranged in a variety of portrait/landscape configurations. […] Although the overall layout is consistent, the relative orientations of the tablets to each other allow for a rich interaction, such as filtering, layering information, navigation information visualization, etc. Additionally, a 3D layout of multiple devices enables observing occluded or interior information. Some of the devices can be static while others can be moving .”
The publication of this patent follows the recent acquisition of WifiSLAM by Apple last March. WifiSLAM is an indoor-GPS company that aims to make indoor location as accessible as possible using integrated sensors and existing indoor Wi-Fi signals. The appropriate use of these technologies combined allows WiFiSLAM to pinpoint users’ indoor location more quickly and more precisely than what GPS alone could accomplish.
Even though we have no clue about when these technologies will be incorporated into Apple’s current Maps, this new patent (along with the recent acquisition of WifiSLAM) suggests that Apple is actively working on its mapping product and willing to get the competition to a new level. Google has dominated the mapping technology market for over 7 years, and, as one might has predicted, Apple will do nothing but improve its Maps and probably catch up with Google Maps… unless Google has some mind-blowing tricks in store. We shall see!
If you haven’t done so yet, you should really try and get to know Rick Santorum. Some of the basics: He is a one of the Republicans running for President in 2012, he’s a lawyer and a former United States Senator from Pennsylvania…and his last name has a very strange sexual connotation. Don’t believe me? Google “Santorum” and see for yourself. And it turns out that the Republican presidential candidate has been fighting to remove this description for years!
The association of “Santorum” with this sex act is the handy work of Dan Savage who, in 2003, created a website that successfully change the meaning of the Republican’s last name. Mr. Savage began his endeavor after the Republican compared homosexuality to incest and bestiality. Savage’s first action was to start a website called spreadingsantorum.com, all dedicated to his new definition of little Rickie’s last name.
Now, anyone using the search engine Google to look up information on “Santorum” gets this definition: “the frothy mix of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the byproduct of anal sex.”
So now Santorum, running for the Republican nomination to take on Barack Obama in the 2012 Presidential election is concerned, and he wants Google to do something about it. In an interview with Politico, Rick disclosed that he’s asked Google to clean up his name.
“I suspect if something was up there like that about Joe Biden, they’d get rid of it,” Santorum said. “If you’re a responsible business, you don’t let things like that happen in your business that have an impact on the country.”
He continued: “To have a business allow that type of filth to be purveyed through their website or through their system is something that they say they can’t handle but I suspect that’s not true.”
Google Update: We Can’t help you Rick. Contact the webmaster of the site responsible for the new definition of your name:
“Google’s search results are a reflection of the content and information that is available on the web. Users who want content removed from the Internet should contact the webmaster of the page directly,” the spokesperson said. “Once the webmaster takes the page down from the web, it will be removed from Google’s search results through our usual crawling process.”
After googling “Santorum” and seeing/reading its new definition, it is very hard accepting the fact that this “frothy mix of lube and fecal matter” is running (yeah, running… lol) for President of the United States.
Glenn Beck says everyone should “pay their fair share” – that is, those pesky middle class Americans. If you’re a millionaire who gets tons of tax cuts and tax loopholes from the Government, then Beck thinks you’re not getting enough.
The call to pay up came when Glenn Beck put his two cents in regarding the story in Wisconsin, where the Republican governor is trying to silence the unions by taking away their bargaining abilities. Governor Scott Walker suggests the reason for trying to implement these rules – which includes a requirement that public workers pay half the costs of their pensions and at least 12.6 percent of their health care coverage – is for budgetary reasons.
“You know who should be angry are not the unions [sic], the parents,” Beck laments, when talking about the teachers who left the classrooms in Wisconsin for 2 days to join the protesting.
How dare you! How dare you do this and take time off from the class rooms. Have you seen your test scores?
…. this has not gotten better as they promised under Jimmy Carter when we got the Department of Education and all they did was organize labor, organize the money, suck us dry and tell us exactly how politically correct we have to be. Its not working. And I’m sorry, it’s time for everyone to pay their fair share. To pay for some of what they receive.
Words spoken by a millionaire who, as recently as December 2010, criticized the government for wanting to allow the tax rates on himself and other millionaires and billionaires to go back to what they were under Bill Clinton – a massive increase of 3%.
Teachers, union members and other middle class Americans have been paying our fair share and some of yours too Glenn Beck, when are you going to join us and do the same?
Don’t look now, but Glenn Beck has a new conspiracy theory, one that he has verified (in his head) and has determined to be true. According to this nut-job, Google is a “government propaganda” machine responsible for the uprising in Egypt and those in Iran in 2009.
But in order not put words in Beck’s mouth, let me pass the chalk over to the man worshiped by millions of followers in radio land and on Fox-We Make This Stuff Up-News!
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