Google Animates Ian McKellen, Conchita Wurst, & Sam Smith In Android Pride Ad

Via Ad Week:

Google-owned Android is featuring prominent gay celebrities to promote the mobile operating system's support of LGBT Pride Month and especially its upcoming centerpiece weekend. The minute-long #AndProud video from Adam&eveDDB shows more than 15 celebrities—including, of course, stars from Google's YouTube like Tyler Oakley and Hannah Hart—as characters inspired by Android's small green mascot. The ad is set in London and opens with an animated version of diver Tom Daley jumping into water. We then meet a cartoony Ian McKellen and musicians Jessie J, Sam Smith and Conchita Wurst. Meanwhile, flags from countries like the U.K., Ireland and the U.S. wave in the background.

From the clip description: "Be a part of our global Pride celebration. Androidify yourself to join our online parade, and your character could even appear on Pride parade floats in London, New York and San Francisco."

(Tipped by JMG reader TJ)

Google Launches Pro-Trans Business Ad

Ad Week reports:

Transgender issues have been front-page news all summer, though brands have clearly had a hard time knowing what their role should be in the conversation. But now Google—one of the world's most powerfully visible corporate LGBT advocates—is out with a new spot for Pride Month that tells the deeply poignant story of a transgender man and the small business that helped him during his transition. The first half of the spot below focuses on Jake, who was born female but identified as male from a young age. The second half introduces City Gym in Kansas City, Mo., which has given Jake a place where he can feel comfortable getting to know his changing body and find support for him and his friends. The spot, by Venables Bell & Partners, is wonderfully made. The story is skillfully and evocatively told, and never feels exploitative.

227K views already.

YouTube Celebrates Ten Years

Dan Savage makes the ten year best-of clip: "From the silly to the profound, from the personal to the political, we’re celebrating a decade of your creativity and self-expression. And, we’re doing it from A to Z.  With over 75 references and 18 filmmaking styles, we've tried to capture some of the richness and variety of YouTube from the last decade."

Google Doodle Honors Sally Ride

IRELAND: Google Says Yes Equality

Tech Industry Coalition Issues Statement Calling For Full Federal LGBT Rights

In response to the ongoing RFRA battles, a coalition of over 100 major tech industry corporations has issued a joint statement calling for full federal LGBT anti-discrimination protections.

The values of diversity, fairness and equality are central to our industry. These values fuel creativity and inspiration, and those in turn make the U.S. technology sector the most admired in the world today. We believe it is critically important to speak out about proposed bills and existing laws that would put the rights of minorities at risk. The transparent and open economy of the future depends on it, and the values of this great nation are at stake.

Religious freedom, inclusion, and diversity can co-exist and everyone including LGBT people and people of faith should be protected under their states’ civil rights laws. No person should have to fear losing their job or be denied service or housing because of who they are or whom they love. However, right now those values are being called into question in states across the country. In more than twenty states, legislatures are considering legislation that could empower individuals or businesses to discriminate against LGBT people by denying them service if it they felt it violated their religious beliefs.

To ensure no one faces discrimination and ensure everyone preserves their right to live out their faith, we call on all legislatures to add sexual orientation and gender identity as protected classes to their civil rights laws and to explicitly forbid discrimination or denial of services to anyone. Anything less will only serve to place barriers between people, create hurdles to creativity and inclusion, and smother the kind of open and transparent society that is necessary to create the jobs of the future. Discrimination is bad for business and that’s why we've taken the time to join this joint statement.

Signees include Google, Microsoft, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Linkedin, Yahoo, Netflix, Intuit, Uber, Salesforce, Cisco Systems, and PayPal. Hit the link for the full list.

Here's T-Mobile's April Fools Ad

Other corporate pranks include Google's backwards search page, the Google Maps Pac-Man takeover, and the Chrome selfie app.

Mark Mothersbaugh Talks To Google Play

Stereogum recaps:

Mark Mothersbaugh was born legally blind. It wasn’t until he was in second grade that he was finally diagnosed with myopia and got his first pair of glasses. In a new animated video made for Google Play, the DEVO member narrates how his discovery of the world led him to want to become an artist. Then, he recounts the first time he saw the Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show and how that made him want to become a musician, too. “We decided we weren’t observing evolution, we were observing de-evolution, and we decided to write music about that,” he explains the start of DEVO’s mission.

Besides his work in Devo, Mothersbaugh has written scores for dozens of movies, video games, and television shows, including the theme song for Pee-Wee's Playhouse.

Google Backs Down On Porn Ban

Via the Guardian:

Google has backtracked on plans to ban sexually explicit images from its blogging platform Blogger, in the face of widespread opposition from users. The company had initially announced a ban on “sexually explicit or graphic nude images or video”, with just a few exceptions for content which offered “a substantial public benefit, for example in artistic, educational, documentary, or scientific contexts”. It planned to enforce the ban from 23 March, when any user with offending material still on their blog would be forced to turn it into a private site. Now, the company has backed down. Jessica Pelegio, a social product support manager at Google, wrote: “We’ve had a ton of feedback, in particular about the introduction of a retroactive change (some people have had accounts for 10+ years), but also about the negative impact on individuals who post sexually explicit content to express their identities. “So rather than implement this change, we’ve decided to step up enforcement around our existing policy prohibiting commercial porn.”

(Tipped by JMG reader Eddie)

Google Bans Porn From Blogger

Via CNN Money:

In an announcement that was sent out to bloggers who use the company's blogging website, Google said people will no longer be able to "publicly share images and video that are sexually explicit or show graphic nudity" on Blogger as of March 23. Google said those Blogger sites that continue to host pornography after March 23 will be made "private." That means the content will be allowed to remain up, but it will only be accessible to the site's owner and the people who the user directly shared the blog with.

Google noted that it isn't completely banning nudity from being shown publicly on Blogger. The site will allow nudity "if the content offers a substantial public benefit, for example in artistic, educational, documentary, or scientific contexts." But it also puts Google in the position of deciding what is art and what is pornography -- a decision that Instagram and other sites have struggled with. Blogger previously allowed adult content on its sites, but it required users to mark their blogs as "adult." Those Blogger sites came with an "adult content" warning that would appear before a visitor could enter the site.

Two years ago Yahoo made a similar move with Tumblr, but reinstated porn blogs after a social media backlash.

Ten Years Of Viral YouTube Clips

Via Business Insider:

To celebrate YouTube's incorporation ten years ago this month, The Daily Conversation put together a list of the 101 biggest YouTube videos ever and then compiled them all into one 16-minute supercut. Highlighting such gems as "Star Wars Kid," "The Sneezing Baby Panda," "Shoes," "Surprised Kitty," "Potter Puppet Pals," and so many more, the video will send you spiraling back through years of viral greatness. It's actually amazing.

I think I recognized all but four.

Google Honors Langston Hughes

Yesterday would have been the 113th birthday of famed gay poet and activist Langston Hughes. Google marked the occasion with the below Google Doodle.

(Tipped by JMG reader David)

Google: Year In Search 2014

(Tipped by JMG reader Daddy Ray)

Take That, Putin

Russia can tear down their monument to Steve Jobs because Apple CEO Tim Cook has come out, but that won't save their stock market. Via the Telegraph:

Apple is now worth more than Russia's stock market, new data have revealed. The US technology giant's market capitalisation has overtaken the combined value of all Russian public companies for the first time in history, Bloomberg reported. Apple, the world's most valuable company, has added $147bn to its market cap this year and was worth $652bn as of November 12. The shares closed up 1.2pc to $114.18 each on Friday. Russian equities have fallen $234bn to $531bn in the same period, Bloomberg data stated. Apple, led by Tim Cook, has being going from strength to strength in recent months, culminating in the release of the company's latest smartphones in September - the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus. Mr Cook revealed earlier this year that his company is also working on products that "haven't been rumoured about yet". Meanwhile, Russia has been struggling to cope with a falling ruble and tough Western sanctions as a result of its conflict in eastern Ukraine.

Just let that sink in. An out gay man oversees the company whose value exceeds all of the companies on the stock market of the world's most famously anti-gay nation. I think that calls for a "neener, neener." At least.

RELATED: In other gay-related business news, pro-LGBT Microsoft has unseated ExxonMobil as the world's second-most valuable corporation. The energy giant's slide to third place comes as oil prices continue to sag worldwide. For 17 consecutive years the shareholders of ExxonMobil refused to enact workplace protections for its LGBT employees. Only in July of this year did the company grudgingly agree to comply with President Obama's executive order protecting the LGBT employees of companies that contract with the federal government. Fourth place Google, not incidentally, is now poised to overtake ExxonMobil. If that happens, the world's top three corporations will be aggressively pro-LGBT tech firms. Neener.

New Android Ad Features Gay Proposal

(Tipped by JMG reader Phil)

Lesbian Named Obama's Chief Tech Officer

The White House yesterday appointed out Google executive Megan Smith as the Obama administration's new Chief Technology Officer.

Smith, the new U.S. CTO, is an MIT-trained mechanical engineer and entrepreneur with deep roots in the California tech world. She currently serves as a vice president at Google[x], the company's lab for ambitious next-generation projects, like its delivery-by-drone Project Wing and its balloon-borne Internet connectivity program Project Loon. For nine years, Smith led Google's team responsible for developing new business, where she led the acquisitions that would become Google Earth and Google Maps. And she's familiar to Washington's burgeoning "civic tech" community through her work with the Google Crisis Response project. Smith also has a record of focusing on digital inclusiveness. Before Google, she was the CEO of the online LGBT community PlanetOut.

Daniel Radcliffe On Self-Googling

A reporter from the Guardian talked to Daniel Radcliffe about self-Googling.

I wonder if he has ever Googled himself and seen the automatic search entries, but before I finish the question he’s started reeling them off: “Daniel Radcliffe alcoholic. Daniel Radcliffe gay. Daniel Radcliffe girlfriend,” he says, sighing as he does. Actually, I tell him, girlfriend is the top result these days. “Oh great – I’ll take that, as these things go. I’m pleased my girlfriend comes up before alcoholic or gay. When I first did that, I got really annoyed for about half a minute, until I tried a few other people’s names and I found out [gay] comes up after almost everyone if they’re a man, and even some women – Florence Welch had it, and I was like, really?” Maybe it’s a sign that a star has made it. “Probably. If people are speculating about your sexuality, then you’re doing OK,” he laughs, then says that these days he resists the temptation to self-Google as “it fucks you up. You shouldn’t be on there if you’re an actor. There’s a line in The Thick Of It – Googling yourself is like opening the door to a room full of people telling you how shit you are – and it’s exactly that. I first did it in my late teens and it was such a destructive thing for me to do.”

Radcliffe's What If is now in theaters.

Google To Shut Down Orkut

Via TechCrunch:

Orkut, the social networking service Google launched back in 2004, miraculously survived multiple rounds of spring cleaning despite the fact that it was never a huge hit outside of Brazil, India and a few other countries. It was always just a matter of time before Google was going to shut it down, however, and that day has now come. On September 30, 2014, Orkut will be officially shut down. At that point, users won’t be able to log in anymore, photo export to Google+ will be unavailable, and all the APIs and other tools will go down, too. Today, 50 percent of Orkut users are still in Brazil, 20 percent in India and just under 18 percent are from the U.S.

Google Cardboard

Forbes breaks it down:

Google’s answer to VR? Cardboard. Or, rather, a DIY cardboard headset equipped with cheap lenses into which you slide your smartphone. Simply download the Cardboard app and you’re ready to roll, all for a few bucks in materials. Which is—let’s face it—about as weird an idea as anyone could dream up, but also sort of brilliant; a truly “open” solution to virtual reality that hearkens back to Google’s roots and commitment to open development. And one that sidesteps a lot of the challenges facing other VR gadgets by utilizing the ubiquitous smartphone. The actual construction of the cardboard VR headset will probably deter many would-be virtual-reality-goers, but it really doesn’t look difficult at all for anyone with a knack for putting stuff together. Almost certainly kits and fully-assembled versions of this will be available for sale within…days? Hours? Soon, in any case. I suspect we’ll even see more expensive, less “disposable” iterations pop up. After all, this is sort of the point: What Google is doing with Cardboard is opening up the possibilities of VR to basically anyone.

Here's the website.

At Google's Manhattan HQ

Google has altered the sign on its massive Chelsea headquarters. Every year several hundred "Gayglers" march in New York City's pride parade. Source.