Harass women in every language with this translation device

Dean doesn't speak Japanese, but with ili, sexual harassment has no language barriers!



Ili is a cool-looking new wearable device that translates speech into different languages. The user speaks into the device in English, Japanese or Chinese (Mandarin, presumably?) and it will reproduce the words in any of those languages. Pretty great idea. It's, like, the future.

The commercial that's been circulating for the product, however, is pretty gross.

In the cringeworthy ad for the device, created by a Japanese company called Logbar, a white spokesman named Dean is seen roaming the streets of Tokyo and using the device to ask random women to kiss him. Dean is from the United Kingdom and doesn't speak Japanese, but with ili, sexual harassment has no language barriers! At one point, he actually chases a woman demanding "just one kiss."

Where are the Asian American executives at top tech firms?

New report says Silicon Valley companies are bypassing Asians for exec jobs.



Anyone familiar with the tech industry is well aware that Asian Americans are significantly represented within the ranks of Silicon Valley. However, according to a new study released this week, major technology companies like Google and Yahoo are far more inclined to hire Asian Americans as computer programmers than to promote them to become managers or executives. Raise your hand if you already knew this.

Study: Top tech firms bypassing Asian workers for exec jobs

Asian Americans tech workers make up roughly a third of the workforce at companies like Google, Yahoo and Facebook, but they are severely underrepresented in leadership positions, according to a report released Wednesday by the Ascend Foundation, a nonprofit organization focused on issues of Pan-Asian leadership.

The report, titled Hidden in Plain Sight: Asian American Leaders in Silicon Valley, analyzed 2013 data filed with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission by five Silicon Valley companies -- Google, Yahoo, Intel, Hewlett-Packard and LinkedIn -- found that white employees had a massive advantage (surprise, surprise) over Asian Americans when it came to being promoted to the executive level.

Memoji Keyboard allows you to emojify yourself

Create and send personalized animated emojis. No yellow skin necessary.



So a lot of people were less than enthused by the weird yellow skin emoji that Apple recently unveiled. Johnny Lin, an ex-Apple engineer, was pretty disappointed and decided to do something about it. He created an app called Memoji Keyboard -- a better, more personalized way to send emojis.

Instead of pre-defined (and rather unsightly) skin colors, you use your own skin. In fact, it's your own face, emotions and expressions. The Memoji Keyboard allows you to create and send custom animated emojis of yourself doing the smiley face, sad face, thumbs up, and other emoji classics.

HBO's 'Silicon Valley' is set in the world of tech startups

...so dude, where are all the Asians?



Oh snap! A comedy set in the world of tech startups by Mike Judge, writer/director of Office Space. Count me in. Just watched the trailer for HBO's Silicon Valley, which revolves around quirky characters navigating the high-tech gold rush of Silicon Valley. It's a milieu that's certainly ripe for comedy.

I'm pleased to see one of my favorite comedians Kumail Nanjiani in the cast... but yo, a show set in the Bay Area's tech industry? There should be waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more Asians on this show. Check it out:

Make a racist meme with the new Yahoo! Sports app

Sadly, to some people, two kids enjoying a basketball game will always be just be a couple of "chinks."



Hey, Yahoo! Great job on the new sports app. That "loop" feature is all sorts of meme-making fun. It's just too bad you didn't quite account for the fact that a lot of your users are complete assholes, like the racist piece of shit who created the image above and shared it on the app Saturday night. (I've blocked out the kids' faces.)

Allow me to explain. Yahoo! Sports recently introduced its newly redesigned mobile app, including a "Loop" feature which allows users to create, customize and share GIFs from real time sports footage.

The Most Hated Man in San Francisco

The city hates you back, Peter Shih.



Here's how to piss off an entire city. Write a ridiculously shallow, unfunny and infuriating blog post entitled 10 Things I Hate About You: San Francisco Edition. Peter Shih, the founder of payment startup Celery, penned this charming post on Medium.com, immediately drawing backlash (and doing all sorts of wonders for San Francisco's contentious relationship with the tech startup community).

When Shih started feeling the heat, he posted a disclaimer with the piece: "This post is an opinion piece by me. It was intended to be humorous satire. Hate all you want, but please stop bringing my company into this." (Peter, your credentials paint you as a fairly intelligent individual, but you do not know what "satire" means.)

The post was disclaimed, edited, then eventually taken down altogether. But Uptown Almanac has it archived (with scathing commentary) for safekeeping. Here's the original post, in all its homophobic, transphobic, misogynistic, and general jerk hater asshole glory:

Conan O'Brien talks to teen inventor Eesha Khare

Meet 18-year-old Eesha Khare, a Harvard-bound high school graduate from Saratoga, California who took the top prize last month at the 2013 Intel International Science and Engineering Fair for her groundbreaking experiment, "Design and Synthesis of Hydrogenated TiO2-Polyaniline Nanorods for Flexible High-Performance Supercapacitors." In simpler terms, she invented a device that can charge a cell phone in 30 seconds.

Eesha recently appeared on Conan to talk about her invention:

asian americans make up the majority of bay area tech jobs

Fom the department of things-we-already-knew... According to new Census Bureau data, Asian Americans make up half of the Bay Area's technology workforce: Asian workers now dominate Silicon Valley tech jobs.

The percentage of Asian high tech workers grew from 39 percent in 2000 to just more than 50 percent in 2010 in Santa Clara, San Mateo, Alameda, Contra Costa and San Francisco counties combined.

Of course, this also signaled a significant decrease in tech industry jobs for white, African American and Hispanic workers, with percentage declines across the board: