During a congressional grilling of Google chief executive Sundar Pichai this week, the tech titan was asked by Republican congresswoman Zoe Lofgren why Trump's image appeared when you search the term "idiot". “Right now, if you google the word ‘idiot’ under images, a picture of ...read more
by Kate Harveston Has there, in recent memory, been a company which has fallen from grace as spectacularly as Uber after such a swift ride to the top? It was supposed to be the fresh face, the harnesser of technologies, that would deliver the world’s nations from the ...read more
Banter readers, we've been swamped with emails about the site crashing Safari. We've now gotten to the root of the problem (after a considerable amount of time) and have fixed the problem. The site should load fine on all devices now. Thanks for your patience! Ben ...read more
A quick note from Banter HQ, we've had some technical difficulties with the forum so we're going to work on fixing it over the weekend. Thanks for your feedback and patience! The Banter team ...read more
Anonymous hook-up website Adult Friend Finder (you know, that place in all the pop-up ads) has been hacked big time. Ars Technica reports roughly four million users had their "email addresses, sexual orientations, and other sensitive details" sent out in the breach. While it was ...read more
(Ashton Kutcher is the founder of a new viral aggregation site) It happens once every few months. A business or media reporter writes a breathless profile of some previously unknown web native who has “cracked the viral code.” We’ve been treated for years to the adage that you ...read more
I’m the last person in the world to decry a good Twitter parody account. The Mayor Emanuel Twitter handle, launched during Rahm Emanuel’s election bid for the mayorship of Chicago, was a lesson in brilliant dadaist surrealism that caricatured Emanuel’s penchant for profanity and ...read more
Sometimes they tell the truth. It's rare, but they do. Sometimes in their phony-baloney careerist outrage, the far-right screechers on talk radio and Fox News Channel accidentally let the truth slip out. This time it was Rush Limbaugh who inadvertantly revealed why his ...read more
Over the weekend, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) continued his crusade against net neutrality, but this time with Carrot Top style props to illustrate his gargantuan lies about the subject. Specifically, Cruz was responding to Sen. Al Franken's (D-MN) recent CNN interview in which Franken ...read more
Know how I know Sen. Ted Cruz's (R-TX) opinion on net neutrality is insane? Alex Jones totally agrees with him about it. In fairness to Cruz, Jones -- the radio conspiracy theorist and sentient throat polyp -- totally clobbered Godwin's Law more than the senator ever has, ...read more
If you've ever waited in line overnight for the newest iPhone, only to find out that it bends if you put it in your back pocket and sit on it, imagine how you'd feel to find out that it's also ripping out your hair. The horror. The latest alleged defect in the iPhone 6 is ...read more
You can always sense it when a good pet is nearing the end. You try to deny it, you try to reason away that there are still some good days every now and then. Deep down though, you know you have to say goodbye soon. And after holding on a few years longer than any of us ever ...read more
More and more outlets are covering the story of The Mayday PAC, and whenever important issues with tons of moving parts take over the newsstands (see: net neutrality, Terry Richardson, hardcore hallucinogenic drugs, etc.) we get to the bottom of it by interview the world’s ...read more
It turns out Glenn Beck has been spreading around something vile other than his horrible opinions. No, it's not herpes (probably). Security firm Invincea reports that on July 1, Beck's site The Blaze unintentionally transmitted malware through embedded advertising to many of his ...read more
Life and Other Four Letter Words: D A R K The Internet is, and I’m not exaggerating, the best thing ‘we’ have ever done. It makes the pyramids look like the piles of old rocks they are and the moon-landing look like a Muppet Show sketch. If I meet Sir Tim Berners Lee, inventor ...read more
On June 9, a team of scientists from MIT and NASA will announce that they have successfully transmitted a strong Wi-Fi signal all the way to the moon. The presentation, to be given at the Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics in San Jose, California, will detail how ...read more
Yesterday morning, Adam B. Kushner welcomed us to PostEverything, the newest section of the Washington Post website, which he would be in charge of running. You might know Adam B. Kushner as the now former editor of National Journal. But this new website, PostEverything, is ...read more
In early 2013, before Glenn Greenwald was convinced that Edward Snowden, who assumed the pseudonym "Cincinnatus," was who he said he was, Snowden evidently created a video tutorial in order to coach Greenwald through the process of installing encryption software on his computer ...read more
As at least a few of you on the site are aware, the 2014 NFL Draft was last night (Bueller...? Bueller...?), but what any casual sports fan knows like the back of his foam finger-wearing hand is that there's a relatively limited lexicon that analysts use when describing the ...read more
Happy Wednesday! Like a glass of day old milk being half full! Here's what's happening on the interweb: 1. Vanity Fair Exclusive: Monica Lewinsky Writes About Her Affair with President Clinton Monica Lewinsky told Vanity Fair in an exclusive interview about her affair with ...read more
A warm breeze tickles your neck and condensation from your decadent tropical cocktail drips onto your lap as you watch a breathtaking sunset in Oahu. It’s an almost-perfect moment, a moment that could only be elevated to perfection by bragging about it on Facebook. But you ...read more
Trigger warning: This article contains information that might cause minor existential crises. WorldPayZinc just realized a data visualization which shows just how much revenue and profit tech companies like Apple, Google, and Facebook make per second, and just like looking up ...read more
Since Bill Gates has already started making substantial headway in revolutionizing the condom, he and his foundation have begun trying to save the world in a new way. Their latest idea: Mosquito Week. In a post on Mashable, Bill Gates cites the devastating effects that ...read more
The battle over net neutrality is one of those news stories that's innate unsexiness has caused it to go terrifyingly under the radar. The Daily Banterdug deeper on the issue, but thanks to a new graph courtesy of the Washington Post, the first ramifications of this new era of ...read more
They kind of look like something out of one of those Japanese invention books, but despite blogger snickering and criticism that the cyborg glasses developed by a professor at the University of Tsukuba are creepy as all hell, they could become frighteningly useful in the ...read more
#LetFreedomRing As Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel's budget proposal highlighted a few weeks ago, the wars of the future are more likely to take place on the cyberplanes of the interweb than the deserts of the Middle East. So then how do we as a global superpower respond to ...read more
Normally, I’m way on board with ThinkProgress, but I think an article they ran yesterday about Brad Pitt’s production company reportedly obtaining the rights to a Rolling Stone story about the Steubenville rape/Anonymous case was a little premature in its criticism. The ...read more
Over the Summer we reported on a new product that was essentially a tinfoil hat for your smartphone, released at the height of the Edward Snowden revelations hyped by Glenn Greenwald on The Guardian and elsewhere. Known as the OFF Phone, it wasn't the first product to be ...read more
Happy Thursday! Just a few deep breaths and stiff drinks away from Friday! Here's what's happening on the interweb: 1. Fort Hood Shooting: Multiple Injuries, 4 Deaths Reported A shooting at Fort Hood on Wednesday left at least four people dead and injured multiple people. ...read more
We don't do this for us; we do this for you. We want you to know that there are other semi-sane people out there who want to converse with others that believe in the sanctity of rational thought. So this week's Comment of the Week comes from...Rita D.Lipshutz! In response to ...read more
Happy Wednesday! The exclamation points make it feel like it's real. Here's what's happening on the interweb: 1. Facebook Just Bought the World's Most Advanced Virtual Reality Machine for $2 Billion Facebook is acquiring Oculus VR, the makers of the immersive virtual ...read more
While most of our collective American-red blood is currently boiling because of our old nemesis Russia and the relatively new dictator on the block, Kim Jong Un, there's a sleeping giant on the interweb, and Michelle Obama is preparing for the digital world to shake when it ...read more
There's a famous saying that goes, "If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention." Unfortunately, outrage comes with a lot of annoying side effects -- wrinkles, grey hairs, a break in communication from your redneck family who destroys your very soul with their ...read more
Happy Tuesday. Let's do this. Here's what's happening on the interweb: 1. Investigators Chase 'Every Angle' In Missing Malaysia Jet Authorities questioned travel agents Monday at a beach resort in Thailand about two men who boarded the vanished Malaysia Airlines plane with ...read more
I've stayed away from the entire NSA/Greenwald discussion, for a number of reasons, not getting screamed at by random people online being one of them. It's not like they wouldn't have grounds to object should I dip my toe into the whole mess: others have covered the issue in ...read more
When I was 12 or so, my dad passed down a great gift on to me; he began teaching me speed-reading. And I will be forever grateful to him for it. As a professional writer and a voracious reader, I ultimately have a love affair with the written word, but like true love, it’s a ...read more
Happy Wednesday. How full is your glass? Here's what's happening on the interweb: 1. Wendy Davis Wins Primary In Texas Gubernatorial Race Texas state Sen. Wendy Davis is officially the Democratic nominee for governor, the Associated Press reports. Davis, the clear ...read more
I'll spare you the “There's an app for that” joke and get to the point: BroApp for the Android ($2) was designed for men who fancy themselves too busy to text their girlfriends. Called “your clever relationship wingman” by its developers (and a way to "outsource our humanity" ...read more
Happy Wednesday. Hope you're not caught in a polar vortex. Here's what's happening on the interweb: 1. Republicans Drag Senate To A Halt To Force A Vote On Iran Sanctions Senate Republicans are dragging the upper chamber to a halt in an effort to force a vote on a bill that ...read more
It was reported that in the wake of new net neutrality laws, Netflix has agreed to pay Comcast to ensure that its movies and TV shows stream more quickly . Now I already spent a few hundred words last week discussing how Netflix not only climbed out of a grave, but has thrived ...read more
This past Valentine’s Day, more than a few couples decided that in lieu of fancy dinners and romantic trysts they would spend night at home and maybe order food in instead. And this wasn’t because people have developed a newfound appreciation for intimacy and this wasn’t ...read more
You may live in a house on a street in a city in a state somewhere, but this is the world you really live in... (click here for a larger version) Inspired by xkcd's map of online communities, an art student named Jay Jason Simon (born Marin Vargic) from Slovakia designed ...read more
The internet is buzzing with the recently published Google's 'How To' manual for Google Glass, its fancy eyewear product that allows you see the world wide web on your lenses. Google describes its community of Glass-wearers as 'Glass Explorers,' and the guide is essentially a ...read more
As a 20-something living in the real estate disaster of Washington DC, I’ve lived in my fair share of “up and coming” neighborhoods. For the most part they’ve been wonderful experiences, and I’ve only really feared for my personal safety on a few random occasions. Honestly, it ...read more
We've all heard the old wives tale warning about getting your wife a vacuum cleaner. It may be a practical gift, but its lack of empathy will most likely have you sleeping on the couch for the better part of a week. Apparently the old boys at Goldman Sachs never got the message ...read more
Most of the East Coast is covered in snow and terrified. Here's what's happening on the interweb: 1. Comcast to Buy Time Warner Cable Comcast is set to buy Time Warner Cable in an all-stock deal, CNBC's David Faber reported Wednesday night. Faber shared the news on ...read more
Forget the Obamacare website or the ability for doctors to have unlimited access to knowledge sharing sourced from around the world, the internet’s biggest impact on modern medicine is that thanks to websites like WebMd.com, everyone with an internet connection is granted the ...read more
A Facebook status update has confirmed what you had previously thought to just be rumor: that one friend of yours is now mining Dogecoins. You had brushed off previous declarations about this friend's new occupation because of the excessive inebriation of those who had ...read more
It has been a while since anyone mentioned Tom Friedman in any serious capacity. More likely than not, this has something to do with Tom Friedman never saying anything serious. I went to check in on the NYT's chief blatherer, and was delighted to see that he was still stringing ...read more
Happy middle of the week day! Here's what's happening on the interweb: 1. Obama Delivers Strong State of the Union Address The polls say that President Barack Obama is at a low point, but you couldn’t tell it from the tour de force of his State of the Union speech. He was ...read more
