Posts Tagged ‘google’

China and Google

Written By: - Date published: 7:52 am, August 6th, 2018 - 2 comments

Google is planning a launch of its eponymous spectacular search engine in which it allows censorship from the Chinese state. Some U.S. politicians aren’t happy about it. Principles are, in the words of the words of my tailor, funny; you loosen a bit here, you loosen a bit there, you find your trousers fall down. […]

Technology and democracy

Written By: - Date published: 7:30 am, April 26th, 2016 - 23 comments

Preliminary evidence shows how social media giants like Facebook and Google could influence elections. Should we be worried?

Defining the truth

Written By: - Date published: 10:31 am, March 17th, 2015 - 12 comments

Changes being considered at Google have far reaching implications. Who gets to decide what is true?

New Zealand is…

Written By: - Date published: 11:16 am, July 21st, 2013 - 14 comments

new-zealand-is

GCSB Bill scaring off investors

Written By: - Date published: 7:22 am, July 4th, 2013 - 103 comments

One of National’s favourite lines of attack on any significant lefty policy is that it will “scare off investors”. So how now do they respond to Google’s threat that global telecommunications companies may well abandon New Zealand because of the compliance costs of the new GCSB legislation?

The Google poll

Written By: - Date published: 7:43 am, November 7th, 2010 - 23 comments

It seems that in American elections there is an almost perfect correspondence between some candidates’ opinion polling and their current search volume on Google.  Can we do away with political opinion polls?  Sounds interesting doesn’t it.  A quick check shows that the relative frequency of searches for “National party” and “Labour party” predicted the result of the 2008 election.  What other tricks can we try?

YouTube launches political campaign toolset

Written By: - Date published: 12:56 pm, June 4th, 2010 - 2 comments

Today, Google launched a new set of tools to help political candidates and activist organisastions engage with constituents and citizens.

From the Google Public Sector Blog:

We want to do our part to make sure candidates and campaigns have the tools to stay close to voters, who now expect to hear and see much more from their elected officials than ever before.

Will your house get bulldozed?

Written By: - Date published: 10:49 am, May 14th, 2009 - 15 comments

Labour’s just launched an interactive Google map showing National’s plans for the Waterview connection. Click the map below to check it out.

Streetview sleuthing

Written By: - Date published: 4:42 pm, January 9th, 2009 - 2 comments

Nikki Kaye might be right to fear Google’s watchful eye but police in Massachusetts have used streetview to solve the alleged kidnapping of a 9-year-old girl by her grandmother. A Massachusetts-based officer used the phone company’s GPS records to narrow his search then used Google’s streetview to take a guess at the likely hideout – a hotel, hundreds […]

Google “In Quotes”

Written By: - Date published: 12:34 pm, October 23rd, 2008 - 1 comment

This is clever from Google labs – In Quotes. It allows you to compare people’s quotes on a variety of issues, having pulled them from online news. The default “speakers” are McCain and Obama but you can change them. I tried with Clark and Key but there isn’t really enough data by the looks of […]

Who’s clueless?

Written By: - Date published: 8:48 am, September 12th, 2008 - 50 comments

Visit google.co.nz search for the word “clueless” then hit “I’m feeling lucky”. I wonder where you’ll end up… Update: Make sure you select “pages from New Zealand”

TV3 promoting a National/NZF government?

Written By: - Date published: 2:23 pm, August 1st, 2008 - 12 comments

It seems TV3 has decided to promote a marriage between John Key and Winston Peters this week.   They appear to be paying for ads on Google that come up when you search for “John Key” or for “Winston Peters“, but not for other leaders like Helen Clark or Jeanette Fitzsimons. What’s more, when you […]