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Earlier this month, Google's cloud platform deleted the entire customer account, including some backups, of UniSuper. Why it matters: Fortunately for the $135 billion Australian pension fund's 647,000 members, some of UniSuper's backups on Google Cloud's servers and elsewhere were salvageable, and the fund was able to recover its data, teaching us all a lesson about having multiple redundancies. What they're saying: This was not a "systemic issue," Google says. "An inadvertent misconfiguration" during a setup left a data field blank, which then triggered the system to automatically delete the account. The big picture: Google is having a rough 2024....

A popular progressive streamer has been ridiculed after being asked to give his definition of a woman. Destiny, real name Steven Kenneth Bonnell II, who attracts 3million viewers to his YouTube channel, said that defining a female was 'insanely complicated' and 'depends on the circumstances.' He compared the question to considering 'what makes a table a table', and whether or not a hot dog qualifies as a sandwich. Campaigners have slammed the internet personality's 'rambling' explanation, describing it as 'a reflection of a society that has lost its way.' Jay Richards, a research fellow at the right-wing Heritage Foundation, told...

You know how Google's new feature called AI Overviews is prone to spitting out wildly incorrect answers to search queries? In one instance, AI Overviews told a user to use glue on pizza to make sure the cheese won't slide off (pssst...please don't do this.)

Google’s AI-generated search results are already being slammed as a “disaster” that “can no longer be trusted” — with critics citing bizarre responses that have included advising adding glue to pizza sauce and touting the health benefits of tobacco for kids. In a controversial feature that critics say poses dire threats to traditional media outlets, Google’s chatbot auto-generates summaries for complex user queries while effectively demoting links to other websites. Dubbed “AI Overviews,” the feature rolled out to all US users beginning last week and is expected to reach more than 1 billion users by the end of the year...

ransomnote: I posted Matt Taibbi's introduction to the article below. Follow the link for the core of the article.Susan Schmidt, Andrew Lowenthal, Tom Wyatt and 5 others provide a well organized overview to their extensive research. They describe 30 main players in the Censorship-Industrial Complex (CIC), and another 20 in the 'honorable mentions' catagory. I will put a hyperlinked table of contents in post #1. Illustration by mrmooremedia.comIntroduction by Matt TaibbiOn January 17, 1961, outgoing President and former Supreme Allied Commander Dwight D. Eisenhower gave one of the most consequential speeches in American history. Eisenhower for eight years had been...

Google and Meta are spearheading a fierce push to kill New York legislation aimed at protecting children online — and the controversial lobbying battle is poised to surpass $1 million in spending ... The SAFE Act would crack down on addictive recommendation algorithms used by social media apps by requiring them to provide default chronological feeds for users 18 or younger unless they receive parental consent. It would also allow parents to impose time limits on social media use and in-app notifications. ... The Child Data Protection Act would block apps from collecting or selling the personal or location data...

Google unleashes AI in search, raising hopes for better results and fears about less web traffic, a shift promising to quicken the quest for information while also potentially disrupting the flow of money-making internet traffic.

Google has come in for some well-deserved criticism after its “artificial intelligence” wouldn’t answer a simple question: How many Jews did the Nazis kill? That’s bad enough. But then a not-so-intelligent Google employee compounded the problem with a lie about why it happened. The story goes that Michael Apfel asked a Google “virtual assistant” this question: “Hey Google, how many Jews were killed by the Nazis?” Google’s answer: “Sorry, I don’t understand.” Then he asked: “How many Jews were killed during World War II?” Google: “I don’t understand.” “How many Jews were killed in the concentration camps?” “Sorry, I don’t...

Google is coming in for sharp criticism after video went viral of the Google Nest assistant refusing to answer basic questions about the Holocaust — but having no problem answer questions about the Nakba. “Hey Google, how many Jews were killed by the Nazis?” Instagram user Michael Apfel asks a Google Nest virtual assistant. The video was later posted to X by venture capitalist Josh Wolfe on May 8. “Sorry, I don’t understand,” The same token answer was offered to other related questions including “How many Jews were killed during World War II? Who did Adolf Hitler try to kill?...

An investor at famed Silicon Valley firm Andreessen Horowitz is the latest VC to get involved in the debate around "fake work" in the tech industry. In an interview published Monday with Emily Sundberg for her Substack newsletter "Feed Me," Andreessen Horowitz general partner David Ulevitch called Google "an amazing example" of a corporation employing people in "BS jobs." "As we (society / our economy) prioritize conglomerates and megacorps, irrelevant jobs proliferate," he said. "Anyone who works in a 10,000+ person or larger white-collar job company knows that a bunch of the people can probably be let go tomorrow and...

A new Donald Trump election ad has been completed banned by Google. I don't see why they would ban it other than it makes Biden look bad. But truthfully, he does that all on his own. Let me know why you think they would suppress and cancel this video?

Google just removed this new Trump campaign ad because they say it violates their "community standards,"

A whistleblower organization has initiated a court action to force the Department of Justice to disclose why it spied on congressional staff, setting up a landmark legal battle on an issue that has rankled both Republicans and Democrats.Last fall, several current and former congressional oversight staff were belatedly informed that the Justice Department seized phone and email records in 2017 in an internal investigation, raising concerns about separation of powers between two branches of government.Jason Foster, who is now the founder and chair of Empower Oversight, the group which sued in court this week to unseal the court documents in...

Dozens of Google workers who were fired for protesting the tech giant’s cloud deal with the Israeli government filed a complaint on Monday with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) over their termination.The complaint, obtained by The Washington Post, alleges that Google violated the workers’ rights by “terminating and/or placing them on administrative leave in response to their protected concerted activity, namely, participation (or perceived participation) in a peaceful, non-disruptive protest that was directly and explicitly connected to their terms and conditions of work.”The workers are seeking reinstatement of their jobs and back pay, alleging that Google had “unlawfully retaliated”...

Alphabet shares shot up Friday morning after the company posted better-than-expected first-quarter results and approved its first-ever dividend. Alphabet shares shot up 10% Friday morning after the company posted better-than-expected first-quarter results and greenlit its first-ever dividend and a $70 billion buyback. The company on Thursday reported revenue of $80.54 billion, a 15% increase from a year earlier and the fastest growth rate since early 2022, surpassing the $78.59 billion in sales expected by analysts polled by LSEG. Earnings of $1.89 per share eclipsed the $1.51 in earnings per share expected by Wall Street.

Some employees protested the tech giant’s contract with the Israeli government. They’ve been let go. SAN FRANCISCO — Google fired about 20 more workers whom it said participated in protests denouncing the company’s cloud computing deal with the Israeli government, bringing the total number of workers fired in the past week over the issue to more than 50, according to the activist group representing the workers. A spokesperson for Google confirmed it had fired more workers after continuing its investigation into the April 16 protests, which included sit-ins at Google’s offices in New York City and Sunnyvale, Calif. The firings...

In a world where sociopolitical issues are increasingly divisive, saying the perceived wrong thing on gender identity or the Israel-Palestine conflict could make you a victim of cancel culture—or, fired from your job. Now, Google CEO Sundar Pichai has weighed in on the debate over the relative values of political expression and workplace coexistence by ordering employees to leave their political opinions at home. A day after firing 28 workers for participating in a sit-in protest of the tech giant’s cloud contract with Israel, Pichai warned staff that the office is not a place “to fight over disruptive issues or...

Hidden away in the Colorado Rockies, a Sicilian resort, or a Utah ski lodge are some of the most exclusive events a billionaire can hope to attend. Attendee lists are so all-star that even the Goldman Sacks chief executive is a 'third-tier guest' and if you have to ask, you're not invited. Between discussions topics like 'can you marry a robot?' quizzes on tech trends and performances by celebrities, deals are made and executives are hired. More and more of these elite getaways are popping up as guests crave time away from the spotlight with few cameras and everything is...

The pro-Palestinian staffers — who wore traditional Arab headscarves as they stormed and occupied the office of a top executive in California on Tuesday — were terminated late Wednesday after an internal investigation, Google vice president of global security Chris Rackow said in a companywide memo. “They took over office spaces, defaced our property, and physically impeded the work of other Googlers,” Rackow wrote in the memo obtained by The Post. “Their behavior was unacceptable, extremely disruptive, and made co-workers feel threatened.” The fired staffers are affiliated with a group called No Tech For Apartheid, which has been critical of...

Google has fired 28 employees over their participation in a 10-hour sit-in at the search giant’s offices in New York and Sunnyvale, California, to protest the company’s business ties with the Israel government, The Post has learned. The pro-Palestinian staffers — who had donned traditional Arab headscarves as they stormed and occupied the office of a top executive in California on Tuesday — were terminated late Wednesday after an internal investigation, Google vice president of global security Chris Rackow said in a companywide memo. “They took over office spaces, defaced our property, and physically impeded the work of other Googlers,”...