RELATIONS

'Google Palestine' label stirs both sides of Israeli-Palestinian conflict

Google has swapped in the word "Palestine" for "Palestinian Territories" on its search site for the area, prompting comments from both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The word appears directly beneath the Google logo and above the search field on the site's home page, www.google.ps, and the change follows a vote by the United Nations' General Assembly late last year to grant Palestine the status of "non-member observer state."

"We're changing the name 'Palestinian Territories' to 'Palestine' across our products," Google spokesman Nathan Tyler told the BBC on … Read more

Facebook engineer blocks Imgur by mistake, apologizes on Reddit

A Facebook engineer took to Reddit late Monday to apologize for inadvertently blocking Imgur, one of the most popular image sharing sites on the Web, from the social network.

Users were prevented from posting any Imgur links to their profile pages and timelines on Monday, and were greeted by a Facebook error message telling them the links were being "blocked for being spammy or unsafe."

The false positive may have gone unnoticed by Facebook's estimated 950 million users late on Monday night, but the block was enough to provoke a backlash from users of Reddit, the hugely … Read more

'Star Wars' M.C. Escher Lego model a perfect geek storm

Paul Vermeesch is my kind of geek. The longtime Lego tinkerer has captured nerd lightning in a bottle with an elaborate Lego diorama featuring "Star Wars" characters battling it out in a 3D version of M.C. Escher's famous "Relativity" print. Be still my beating heart!

The model presents pretty much the entire original "Star Wars" trilogy. You could easily spend hours staring at the staircases and reenacting the movie scenes in your mind with the help of Vermeesch's strategically placed Lego minifigures.

Vermeesch even thought through how the colors reflect the particular film scenes he chose. The delight is in the details. Oh look, there's Luke's detached hand, still clinging to his lightsaber. … Read more

The 404 995: Where the damage is done (podcast)

Leaked from 404 Podcast 995:

Apple Mac OS X 'Mountain Lion' takes more bites out of iOS. Get started with iMessage for OS X. Low Latency No. 10: Good artists copy, great artists steal. Apple PR maintains a blacklist of journalists that it refuses to talk to. Bathroom break video : Live television texting-while-walking fail.

Facebook guidelines for employers and employees

Imagine you referred to your supervisor as a "scumbag" in a Facebook post read by your coworkers. You might expect to be looking for a new job very soon thereafter, especially if your employer has a policy that prohibits making disparaging remarks about the company or posting anything about the organization or its managers without permission.

In a case involving Facebook posts by workers for an ambulance service, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) determined that the employee's name-calling was "protected activity" because it occurred away from the workplace and on non-work time.

The employer … Read more

How to search by image on Google

"A picture is worth a thousand words" is not just a cliche poetic statement, it's also an enormous hurdle to overcome when searching a topic with just a picture as a reference point. The chances of you using different words to describe a picture than someone else is quite high when you're trying to find an image on the Web. Thankfully, Google Images has a feature that lets you use images to search for related topics as well as images similar to it. Here's how to use it:

Step 1: Navigate your browser … Read more

PlayStation 3 price drop

Netflix launches a video streaming channel for kids, a Chrome extension called Google Related shows content tied to the currently viewed page, and Sony drops the price of all its PlayStation 3 models by $50.

Links from Wednesday's episode of Loaded:

Google offers workshops to lure Android developers

Google is launching a series of workshops designed to grab developers who can create high-quality Android apps.

Set up by the folks at Google's Android Developer Relations, the Android Developer Labs (ADLs) will try to show developers how they can optimize their apps for Android tablets, according to an Android developers blog.

Dubbed "Optimizing Honeycomb Tablet Applications," the ADLs will cover how to develop apps for the screen size and user interface of Honeycomb tablets and how to migrate apps from mobile phones to tablets.

The sessions are for experienced developers only, specifically those who have already … Read more

Netflix now tone-deaf on public perception

Reed Hastings sure can't be accused of sugarcoating anything.

Yesterday, the Netflix CEO and his company made a few more statements about a planned price increase that has many customers accusing the company of greed and threatening to quit the service.

After Netflix announced the increase on July 12, some had predicted that the blistering customer response would force managers to recognize it had erred and re-evaluate its decision. On the contrary, in the most recent statements, the company sounded full of confidence and even cheerful about the financial benefits the price increase would offer Netflix.

Whether or not Netflix has good reason to raise prices, the company has demonstrated that it doesn't know how to deliver bad news. Two weeks ago, Netflix left it to a little-known manager to announce prices were going up in a blog post. Netflix informed customers that starting in September it would do away with a popular $10-per-month subscription plan that offered DVD rentals as well as unlimited access to the company's streaming-video library. Subscribers will have to pay for streaming and DVDs separately and each costs $7.99 per month, or $15.98 per month for both.

The message was a "a disaster," says Howard Belk, co-CEO and chief creative officer at Siegel + Gale, which advises companies on their brand strategies and customer experience. "The tone was wrong, the quantity of information was too little, and it came out of left field. The message didn't reflect any value to their customer base." … Read more

Facebook's antisocial PR pitch against Google

There's already no love lost between Facebook and Google in the realm of social networking. And now Facebook has been caught trying to spread some additional ill will toward its would-be rival.

Public relations giant Burson-Marsteller confirmed to CNET this morning, rather ruefully, that Facebook hired it in what USA Today, which broke the initial story, has called a "whisper campaign" intended to stir up fears of Google violating users' privacy.

Earlier this week, USA Today reported that an as-yet-unnamed company had hired Burson-Marsteller to pitch prominent news outlets on the potential privacy and legal issues surrounding … Read more