Ladies, we know the New York dating scene is tough, especially around Valentine's Day. But put down your Match.com dinner spreadsheets for a moment and have your heart melted by hard facts: men are more lovelorn than women according to The Internet. According to a release from Google, "places to meet women" is 55% more popular in NYC than the search "places to meet men," and the phrase "single valentine's day" is up 145% nationally from this time in 2005, and up 1500% in the last 30 days. No word on the popularity of "fleshlight" or "make the crying stop."
NYC Men More Desperate Than Women Around Valentine's Day
[UPDATE] Today The Internet Roars: Protests, Blackouts Against SOPA
[UPDATE BELOW] What? You don't think this country needs "Austrian economics" to return to greatness? Why, if you just Wikipedia what that means, surely you'llGAH! While Wikipedia and Reddit have gone black today to protest the anti-internet piracy bills SOPA and PIPA, the 20,000-strong NY Tech Meetup group has organized a protest today between 12:30 and 2 p.m. in front of the offices of Senators Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrandboth supporters of the legislation.
New Holiday-Themed Google Easter Egg: Let It Snow!
A lot of people were delighted last month to learn that one can command Google to perform the internet equivalent of stupid pet tricks. And it seems that Google has added a new easter egg for the holiday season: "let it snow."
NYers Compulsively Searched For "Mta" In 2011, Says Google
2011 is almost over and that means it is again time for Google to release its annual Zeitgeist report on what people searched for this year. The top ten list of "fastest-rising global queries" are mostly understandable (Rebecca Black, Casey Anthony, Steve Jobs, Fukushima) with a few that are a little more surprising (the late Jackass Ryan Dunn, Google +, Battlefield 3). But it is when drill down into the searches that things get interesting.
Google And NORAD Start Countdown To Santa
It's December 1st, which means you can finally break into that advent calendar and start the countdown to Christmas. Today Google and NORAD have kicked off their official countdown, which allows one and all to follow Santa online as he embarks on his annual trip from the North Pole to your chimney (an annual tradition).
Dress A Turkey With Today's Adorable Google Doodle
Awww, today's Google Doodle for Thanksgiving is not only cute—it has easter eggs, too. Nothing live action today, but that's cool! Not only can you change the Google turkey's hairstyle, shoes, and feathers (or click the wing to randomize the whole thing) but if you happen upon one of the pre-approved outfits the turkey goes *poof* and gets a few more accouterments. So far we've found a pirate and a magician. Anybody get any other combos to work?
Google Captures Central Park With Their Street View Cameras
For agoraphobics, there's nothing better than Google Maps bringing a city park directly to your laptop. Currently you can enjoy the High Line via their street view option, which is almost like being in the open air park. Or at least, it's the closest you're going to get if you don't want to leave your cozy, enclosed apartment. Now the Google team has taken to Central Park, hopping on a special tricycle on Monday to capture the entire park via 360-degree street views.
Video: Google Street View Comes To The High Line
Last year when Google donated $1 million to the High Line, we knew it was only a matter of time before the elevated park got the Street View treatment, and now it's all happening people! You don't even have to leave your apartment now to enjoy this, and other parks of the world. Go ahead, take a stroll through and see if they caught some ghosts or anyone doing anything scandalous. Speaking of which, can we get a High Line After Dark street view?
Google Easter Eggs REVEALED: Barrel Rolls, Tilt, Pig Latin, And More!
Reddit is all about Google easter eggs today: User "Tacked" was amazed to learn that one can command Google to perform the internet equivalent of stupid pet tricks. Because who wouldn't want to make their computer screen "do a barrel roll"?
Behind The Scenes Of Today's Live-Action Halloween Google Doodle!
Did you see today's live-action Halloween Google Doodle? It involves massive pumpkins, time-lapse photography, and people who get paid more money to have more fun than you at their jobs, and outside in nicer weather. Here's video of the finished product, which we must admit looks marvelous once night falls:
Sesame Street's YouTube Channel Disabled After Being Hacked With Porn
C is for...cock? The Sesame Street YouTube channel was taken down yesterday (and remains down) after horny hackers went wild and replaced videos of everyones favorite furry friends with hardcore porno clips. And not even the plushie kind!
Google Maps Can Service Your Voyeuristic Beefcake Needs
Some people like their sex anonymous, and it seems the same is true for folks who like to look at photographs of sexy folk on the street. In addition to all those surreptitious photos sites of hot guys that have been popping up, we now present you with the creepiness that is Dudes From Views, a beefcake gallery culled entirely from Google Maps street views (though it plans to incorporate other map sites in the future).
Google Doodle Gets Animated With Gumby, Goo, Pokey, And More
Today's Google Doodle features the classic stop-animation clay figures Gumby, his pals Pokey, Goo and Prickle as well as those dastardly Blockheads, because today would be Gumby creator Art Clokey's 90th birthday.
Rick Santorum All Frothy That His Name Is "Santorum"
Are your kids in the next room playing with their Candy Tails? Google "Santorum." You'll notice that the first result is a website that defines the word as, "The frothy mix of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the byproduct of anal sex." This is because sex columnist Dan Savage vowed to repay bigoted failure and GOP Presidential Candidate Rick Santorum eight years ago for the hateful things he says about the gay community, and BOY is it working. Charlie Cook tells the Daily News, "There is nothing that Santorum can do but just try to ignore it." Or he could whine to the media!
Park Slope Food Co-op: Your One-Stop Viagra Shop?
Is the Park Slope Food Co-op struggling to retain its long-standing members? Has it been forced to expand into more upwardly-mobile business ventures? Mike Epstein noticed something strange when he was googling the Co-op today: "Was the @foodcoop website hacked? Googling it shows an ad for Viagra in the search snippet." And as you can see here, that still seems to be the case. We doubt that the Co-op is that hard-on for new advertisers, but as long as the Viagra isn't made in Israel, we guess anything is possible.
Amazon Goes After Apple With New Kindle Fire Tablet
Today, Amazon joins the likes of recent contenders RIM and HP to see if it can break into the tablet computer market which Apple has thoroughly dominated since it released the iPad nearly two years ago. At a very-Apple press event this morning the online retailer announced the Amazon Kindle Fire, a 7" color tablet running a heavily customized version of Google's Android OS (seriously, it looks almost nothing like the Android interface you know). The most interesting thing about this WiFi-enabled tablet? It is expected to cost $199, a steal compared to Apple's pricier pad. And the Fire wasn't the only thing that Amazon had up its sleeve today.
Google Doodle Honors Jim Henson's 75th Birthday With Interactive Puppets!
In honor of Jim Henson's 75th birthday, Google is giving you a chance to be a virtual puppeteer!
Google Doodle Salutes Biochemist Albert Szent-Györgyi, Who Studied Vitamin C
Google loves using Google Doodles—the illustrations that replaces its logo on search pages—to enlighten users about holidays, events and some famous and/or interesting people. Now, Google wants you to appreciate Albert Szent-Györgyi, who would have turned 118 today. Who? Well, to put it more simply, he was a Turkish biochemist who discovered vitamin C and its benefits—raise a glass of orange juice to him, people!
Watch Out, Yelp: Google Buys Zagat Survey
It seems that Google, whose $500 million bid was once famously spurned by Yelp, went and bought the original model: As of today Tim and Nina Zagat have sold their 30-year-old baby, Zagat Survey, to the Googleplex. No word on how much the company, which went on and then off the market during the height of the recession and has been called doomed by many, sold for, but the company's large database of high-end user preferences will certainly be a boon for the the advertising giant's algorithms. And we're sure the Burgundy bible's omnipresent window stickering campaigners can teach Google Places a thing or two.
Video: Google's Animated Birthday Tribute To Freddie Mercury
Google produced an extensive animated Google doodle (the longest was for Charlie Chaplin) with an exuberant one-minute thirty-eight-second piece for Freddie Mercury. The Queen frontman would have been 65 today.
BREAKING: Not All Internet Reviews Are Real
With more and more consumers needing to be told where to eat, what to buy, and the best place to be jailed, businesses see a legitimate reason to outsource illegitimate, positive reviews of their products and services. The stakes are high! One Craigslist ad asking jobseekers (AKA everyone) to "Write Yelp Reviews" is looking for people who "have an active Yelp account and would like to make very easy money." You mean, we can't trust everything we read on the internet?
Google, Everyone Loves Lucille Ball On Her 100th Birthday!
In case you're a bit confused about today's Google Doodle old fashioned TV, today would have been legendary comedian Lucille Ball's 100th birthday! Starring in a series of shows for CBS from 1951 to 1974, Ball is best known and loved for her first television series, I Love Lucy, which some say has been seen by more people more often than any other program in history.
Google Domination Spreads To Ace Hotel (With Loaner Chromebooks For All!)
Deep in the heart of a very definable neighborhood rarely referred to as NoMad, the Ace Hotel has out-cooled itself again. When the people at Ace sat down to dream up New York chic, they checked off the boxes for coffee with Stumptown, oysters at John Dory, perfect and drippy lamb-feta burgers at the Breslin, and an outpost for the bastion of avant-garde downtown style at Opening Ceremony. With only one checkbox left for start-up hungry entrepreneurs and bloggers, the Ace was near giving up. How would they fit into this mess? But, if you build such a compound, tired and half-motivated entrepreneurs and bloggers will come. And they did, flooding the poorly lit lobby with more MacBooks using the free WiFi than the eye could see, occasionally taking espresso breaks. And now Google is getting involved.
FTC Prepares To Probe Google On Anti-Trust Issues
For awhile now everyone's favorite search giant, Google, has been getting flack from competitors for, they say, unfairly putting its own products ahead in its supposedly neutral search results. And now the Federal Trade Commission appears to be listening. The Wall Street Journal reports today that the FTC is poised to serve the company with civil subpoenas in the coming days that could signal "the start of a wide-ranging, formal investigation into whether the Internet-search giant has abused its dominance on the Web."
Google Celebrates Richard Scarry With Busytown Doodle
If you visited Google today, you might have noticed a chaotic illustrated scene with a dog police officer, kitty cat on a tricycle (where is the tricycle lane?!?!), a lion doctor, and firefighting pigs helping out a cat—and that's because today is the 92nd birthday of children's book author and illustrator Richard Scarry. And if you look at search pages, you'll notice the "L" in Google is Lowly Worm!
"I'm Like A Unicorn": Brooklynite Discusses Gmail Data Loss
Tens of thousands Gmail users found their accounts were, well, missing today in what Google calls an issue that affected "less than 0.02%" of its user base." The issue was noted by the tech giant yesterday at 3 p.m., and there hasn't been an update on the Google Dashboard since 10 p.m. What are the afflicted doing? Well, one Brooklyn woman is getting sympathy from her coworkers—not to mention amazement from her friends, "I'm like a unicorn. They're like 'wow, you're one of the people.' I feel like I won the unlucky lottery or something."
Don't Know Who Arcade Fire Is? There's An Internet Search Engine For That
Following the Arcade Fire's win at the Grammys, it seemed like half the nation was asking: Who Is Arcade Fire? What started off as a post on BrooklynVegan, grew into its own Tumblr account, and by last night the band themselves caught wind of the meme. At the Brit Awards—while accepting one of their awards (they took home trophies for Best International Album and Best International Group)—Win Butler said, "We're called Arcade Fire—check it out on Google."
Google Erased The Holland Tunnel
Last we checked, despite the blizzard traffic was still slowly moving on the Holland tunnel. But you certainly wouldn't know it if you asked Google Maps. In fact, if you try to get directions to Jersey from the popular mapping service it appears is as if the tunnel has been filled in with water.
Google Puts Up Cash For Eighth Avenue Building
Google has reportedly closed on its purchase of 111 Eighth Avenue, the huge, 2.9 million square foot building spanning an entire city block between Eighth and Ninth Avenues and 15th and 16th Streets. The Post reports that the technology company is paying $1.77 billion cash for the building—the "final cost, including transfer taxes and assorted other fees, could be close to $1.9 billion"—and will own it on Wednesday, once the mortgage is cancelled.
New York: The New York Times State
When you think of New York, what do you think? If you ask Google, they'll say the New York Times. Very Small Array put together this map of the states as named by Google's autocomplete. It looks like Massachusetts and Louisiana get researched a lot by history buffs, the midwest is all about college sports, and Kentucky is only worthwhile if followed by "fried chicken." But what about the city itself?

