The Height of Google's Hubris

Jonathan Rosenberg, a top executive at Google, has let loose with a 4,492-word treatise on the future quoting presidents and deriding "the faceless scribes of drivel." It is the best window yet into Google's egomania. More »

The five racist cartoons Google wants you to see, but no one else does

Google's YouTube hosts 11 Warner Bros. cartoons banned since 1968 for their racist content, New York Times reports. Google flack Ricardo Reyes told the paper it is up to users to flag offensive content and up to copyright holders to notify Google when infringing content is uploaded. "The cartoons are despicable," the NAACP's Richard McIntire told the Times. "We encourage the films' owners to maintain them as they are — that is, locked away in their vaults." But hiding the videos goes against Google's mission to organize all the world's information, including — it seems — records of our hateful past. Should the five racially offensive cartoons embedded below be so easy to share? Google never asked. More »

Mark Cuban gives "Internet is dead" stump speech in San Antonio

Blogging billionaire Mark Cuban dropped by a meeting of Texas's Cable and Telecommunications Association for Marketing members in San Antonio yesterday. His message: "The Internet is dead. It's had its time; say goodbye." Cuban went on to explain that high-definition entertainment (like that offered on his HDNet channels) is the present and the future, promising that cable companies can leverage those big, pretty screens for computer-like features. More »

Google's right-wing Australian mouthpiece

Google, more than ever, needs brassy PR people who aren't afraid to assert boldly that black is white, ignorance is freedom, and evil is good. Heck, I'd applaud the hiring of Rob Shilkin purely on the basis of his last name. (Say it with me: "SHILL-kin.") But I wonder if the mostly lefty crew in the Googleplex were aware of his politics. Four years ago, Shilkin, then a lawyer, penned several pieces praising the "Allies' great work in Iraq" and decrying critics of pre-war intelligence reports. Then again, perhaps his fellow Googlers learned all this through the company's quasi-proctological interview process, and came away from it admiring his capacity for doublespeak and self-delusion.

Blu-ray backers launch deceptive "Hi-Def News" site

There is a new web site focused on unbiased coverage of high-definition entertainment. The only problem: it's a Blu-Ray promotional campaign — exclusively covering Blu-Ray — created by its backers: Sony Pictures, Twentieth Century Fox, Walt Disney Studios, and others. Hi-def fans spotted the campaign immediately and are decrying the site as propaganda. More »