Month: November 2007

Google Body: Users Find Asses with Both Hands

August 18, 2022
MOUNTAIN VIEW–Information search giant Google, Inc. announced Thursday the release of Google Body, a search service aiming to index the internal and external anatomy of every living creature on the planet. “Google has long been dedicated to making information both useful and universally accessible,” notes Google VP of Product Development Eric Hind. “We’re happy now to extend search to information about human bodies, mine and yours, inside and out, from the number of follicles on my head to the length of the President’s toenails.”

The project, known as Google Body, sees the company partnering with public transportation systems, libraries, and motor vehicle departments to place scanning equipment in high-traffic doorways and public thoroughfares. Though details of the agreements are scarce and reportedly subject participating city and state officials to strict non-disclosure terms, Google’s announcement confirmed that the project is active in several major U.S. population centers, including Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, and New York City, with agreements with at least 16 other cities in late-stage negotiation. “We’ve passed proof-of-concept at this point,” adds Hind, “and now our focus is scalability and rolling this thing out nationwide.”

The service, which has been available for some three months to invitation-only beta testers, enables users to search for aggregate information about the anatomy of user-defined groups. “The service is a boon to the medical research community,” says Dr. Jennifer Guns of the Johns Hopkins Clinic for Specialism. “Nothing will replace truly controlled trials, but the ability to get a snapshot of, say, the blood pressure of men between 50 and 65 on New York’s Upper East Side, can certainly give companies an idea of where they might best spend their research dollars.”

Early testers have remarked upon a fuzzy-logic “match my organ” feature, which helps users get in touch with the nearest, most suitable donor for multiple organ systems. “We think of Body as way to bring people together,” remarks Google’s Hind. The most common searches among testers, however, exploited the service’s ability to produce three-dimensional images of the bodies of individual subjects. “I was shocked when I saw it,” exclaims Larry Blender of Carson City. “I mean, one, where did they get a 3-D rendering of my ass, and, two, does my ass really look like that? I admit that I satisfied some of my curiosity about a few of my neighbors and co-workers before I thought to search for myself, but I was still really shocked to see it up there.”

The service has understandably raised concerns among privacy activists, who point to reports that early users include some well-known insurance companies and two prominent executive recruiting firms. “You know what the top two search terms are, after ‘ass’?” asks David Deerfield of People and Privacy, a privacy-focused community outreach group. “They’re ‘aorta’ and ‘arterial plaque.’ Who do you think is conducting those searches? There’s no doubt in my mind that there are insurance company bots scouring this thing and we think it should stop.”

Responding to criticism from privacy groups, Google’s Hind pointed to the program’s opt-out policy. “We are very concerned about user privacy, and that’s why we will not make publicly available any information about anybody who let’s us know they do not want to participate by wearing an Opt-Out headband when in public. Google archives information about those individuals, but does not make it searchable.” The yellow and black vinyl headbands can be requested free of charge by writing to the company at its Mountain View headquarters.

Socal Skyfires Scorch Subprime Skytellites

October 18, 2018
RIVERSIDE–City and county fire officials admitted Thursday that 14 of the reported 22 skyfires burning in and around Riverside county remain untamed this evening. “Crews continue to work through the night,” explains Fire Chief Lacey Birnier. “I’m told that some 400 homes have been damaged or destroyed, and that another 1,200 are threatened. Our people know what’s at stake, and, to the man, not one has faltered. The next 24 to 48 hours will determine whether these fires can be contained.”

The airborne fires, some of which have burned for more than nine days, are fueled by thermobaric clouds of atomized landfill and other condensing nano-particulates disbursed into the upper atmosphere by disposal units commonly used in the county’s tethered, low-earth-orbit neighborhoods. The roiling clouds of burning waste-vapor have been described by local witnesses as both “apocalyptic” and “breathtaking.” “I mean, I’ve seen the entire rainbow in those fires,” notes William Lennox, 43, a Plato Verde dentist and father of two. “The heat is incredible, and the smell, but the colors are really what gets you. The sky is literally burning, but the colors are just amazing.”

Though falling cinders have resulted in small, sporadic fires in the county’s traditional neighborhoods, the destruction has been concentrated chiefly in three of Riverside’s many skytellite developments. The developments consist of groups of low-earth-orbit tract homes commonly sharing a carbon-wire tether which anchors them to the county’s taxbase and supports a commuting elevator which also ferries freight and essential supplies.

Built as an inexpensive alternative for middle-class families in the inland’s overheated real estate market, many of the homes were financed with risky “subprime” financing. “The interesting thing about these inexpensive ‘skytellite’ homes is just how expensive they really were,” explains Cal State City of Industry Professor of Finance Jumra Stone. “Because of widespread contractor expense overruns associated with the difficulty of sub-orbital construction, the typical three-bedroom ranch house with a quarter-acre lawn cost the owner five to seven times more per square foot than a conventional home, requiring most purchasers to seek out riskier subprime loans.”

Temporary negotiation camps have been constructed by the Red Cross in nearby Orange County to house the teams of mortgage and insurance adjusters expected to assemble in coming days to assess the impact of the fires on lending institutions and the companies that insure them and the homes whose purchases they have financed. “We have a good supply of blankets, coffee, and document scanners,” notes the Red Cross’s David Wenk. “Green tents will house the mortgage guys, khaki tents for insurance, and, over there, the red tents for the lawyers. We should have plenty of cots for everybody.”