If we are what we Google, then Google Hot Trends—an hourly rundown of search terms “that experience sudden surges in popularity”—is the Web’s best cultural barometer. Here’s a sampling of today’s top searches. (Rankings on Hot Trends list current as of 9 a.m.)
No. 4: “google operating system.” A day after finally taking Gmail out of beta , Google announced its newest project, the Chrome Operating System. Chrome OS (not to be confused with the Google browser of the same name), will be targeted at “people who spend most of their time on the web,” according to Google’s official blog . Since this statement describes an increasing number of mainstream computer users, the Google system could end up in direct competition with Windows: “The Internet is Everything,” writes TechCrunch.com ‘s Michael Arrington, “all the OS has to do is boot the damn computer.”
No. 28: “sevin nyne.” “civil conspiracy” and “theft of trade secrets” could be the newest addition to Lindsay Lohan’s impressive rap sheet: The 23-year-old embodiment of the phrase “hot mess” is being sued by a Florida chemist for allegedly filching her artificial tanner formula and passing it off as her own designer line, Sevin Nyne. The product’s provenance might not be its biggest problem if this Amazon review is accurate: “It turned me orange. Enough said.”
No. 68: “4chan down.” 4chan.org, possibly the fourth-largest bulletin board on the Internet , has been brought down by a sustained denial of service (DoS) attack. It’s just desserts for the site, probably best known as the unruly spawning ground of some of the Web’s oddest pranks: In May, 4chan users bombarded Youtube with porn, and they were probably to blame when “#gorillapenis” appeared at the top of the Twitter trends list on Sunday. (An unrelated DoS attack linked to North Korean hackers was launched yesterday against the Washington Post. )
