NewsQueek

[kweek] (n) 1. Queer geek

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CNBC Host Accidentally Outs Apple CEO Tim Cook During A Live Segment

New York Times columnist James B. Stewart appeared as a guest to discuss his column about former BP CEO John Browne. “There are gay CEOs in major companies, and I reached out to many of them,” Stewart said. “I got an extremely cool reception, not one would allow to be named at all.”

During the discussion, co-anchor Simon Hobbs chimes in with this comment:

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The desk falls completely silent.

CNBC

Hobbs backtracks quickly adding, “I thought he was open about it.”

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Stewart’s response: “Hmm, no.”

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Stewart continues, “I don’t want to comment about anybody who might or might not be. I’m not going to out anybody.”

Though Cook has yet to speak directly about his sexual orientation, he consistently speaks about LGBT rights as a human rights issue.

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Allstate Insurance is showing their support for LGBT Pride Month with an emotional 90-second ad campaign titled “Safe In My Hands.” The animated ad features a gay love story to celebrate pride and to send a message of acceptance and love. According to Pink News on June 14, the ad also features a song by openly gay singer-songwriter Eli Lieb.

To coincide with the ad, the insurance company also launched the #OutHOldingHands campaign, promoting equality by visiting Pride events across the United States to collect photos, video and other images of people holding hands as the campaign websites states, “We believe everyone should be treated with respect and without judgment no matter who they love. We believe everyone deserves to feel comfortable showing affection out in public.”

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This is Alan Turing.

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Mozilla under fire: Inside the 9-day reign of fallen CEO Brendan Eich

EDITOR'S NOTE: Most stories covering Eich's reign gave the organized LGBT movement credit for his ouster. CNET has done a better job of covering the full details and being clearer who the players were. Despite some media reports, the organized LGBT movement had very little to do with Eich's resignation.

On a Friday night flight home to San Francisco from Boston in March, Brendan Eich should have been unwinding. It was the end of his first week as chief executive of Mozilla, the nonprofit organization he'd co-founded 16 years earlier to promote an Internet built on open technology. On top of that, he'd just spent a long day talking about data privacy at a Harvard University seminar.

Instead, Eich was tapping out emails as he worked to dampen the firestorm over his long-held opposition to gay marriage. Many in and around the Mozilla community were incensed, even though his personal views on the issue were old news. His beliefs first surfaced when Eich was chief technology officer for Mozilla, and revered as the father of the most popular programming language for the Web. But after his appointment as CEO, the scrutiny became broader and more intense, and the story about his stance on gay marriage went viral.

It was clear the controversy was blowing up, not blowing over.

On April 1, just nine days after being named Mozilla's chief, the man Silicon Valley tech insiders hailed as a member of the "pantheon of the Web" resigned. He also quit Mozilla and disappeared from Twitter, leaving his 35,000 followers in the dark.

From the outside, it may seem that the gay-marriage issue brought Eich's CEO career to an abrupt end. But accounts from those with inside knowledge make it apparent the embers were already smoldering. Mozilla's board struggled to find a new CEO, settled hesitantly on Eich, and didn't support him strongly. The gay-marriage issue may just have accelerated a falling-out that would have happened anyway.

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GAMING IN COLOR exists for anyone who believes that the pixelated world can be a better place for everyone, no matter who they are. It is not too uncommon a tale where a bullied, abused youth seeks solace in a video game, only to find that their one hope of sanctuary, their escape into a virtual universe, is plagued with floods of more vitriol and hatred. This exists doubly so for anyone who is a minority, including people of color, women, and members of the LGBTQ community.

A lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or otherwise queer gamer has a higher chance of being mistreated in a social game. The power dynamic of a geek society tips against them. Diversive queer themes in storylines and characters are still mostly an anomaly in the mainstream video game industry. However, the gaming community is far more colorful than one may expect. Gaming In Color shows that there is a full spectrum of gamers picking up their controller to play.

This feature length documentary explores the queer side of gaming culture and the game industry's LGBTQ presence. The GaymerX convention that took place in 2013 was a huge step forward for the queer geek community being recognized on a worldwide industry scale. In the same year, more popular mainstream and indie games featured a greater amount of gay and lesbian characters than ever before, helping with visibility and acceptance. The video games universe will only continue to improve and diversify both in its community and industry if we elevate the conversation about inclusion and respecting one another - not in spite of our gay geekiness, but because of it!

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"Have you ever dropped the soap? I did once...it was great!"

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GaymerX2 to be the Queer Gaming Con’s Last

GaymerX made history when it became the first ever queer-centric video game convention of its kind. The con’s founder Matt Conn made headline after headline as he spearheaded an endeavor to bring his dream to life: a safe space where queer and allied geeks could gather together to play the games that they love. GamerX famously made four times its Kickstarter goal in 2012 before welcoming thousands of gay geeks from all over to the halls of San Francisco’s Hotel Kabuki last August.

GaymerX2 or GX2, will take place this upcoming July in San Francisco’s Intercontinental Hotel, a significant upgrade in size. It is expected to be even crazier than last year’s event, and will see special guests like WWE’s Darren Young alongside BioWare’s David Gaider, Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, indie game writer/developer Mattie Brice, and many more.

It will also be the con’s last…for now.

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Final Fantasy 14 Introduces Same-Sex Marriage into Gameplay

Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn is adding a controversial feature to its massive multiplayer online game, the option to have a same-sex marriage.

According to Polygon, producer and director of the game, Naoki Yoshida made the announcement during the E3 developer talk. He said this option will become available with the game's next patch.

"People within Eorzea will be able to pledge their eternal love and or friendship in a ceremony of eternal bonding. And this will be open to people regardless of race, creed, and gender. Two players...if they want to be together, in Eorzea, they can-through this eternal bonding ceremony," he said through a translator.

He continued, "We discussed it and we realized: within Eorzea, why should there be restrictions on who pledges their love or friendship to each other? And so we decided to go this way."

Polygon reported that the game considered doing this back in 2012, but never moved past a discussion.

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Johnny Scruff On Sex, Style, and Technology

If you’re a gay man with a smart phone in the Portland area, it’s more than likely that you’ve given SCRUFF a try. The GPS-based gay men’s social app has accrued over five million users in five years, dramatically shifting the ways that gay men worldwide meet and date. PQ’s Nick Mattos chatted with 33-year-old SCRUFF co-founder Johnny Skandros — better known as Johnny Scruff — to find out how he sees his app changing the landscape of gay life and aesthetics; along the way, we also discovered that he definitely does not want to talk about the technological singularity.

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CloudFlare launches Project Galileo to protect civil society websites from attack

Online security company CloudFlare announced the launch of Project Galileo, an intitiative which aims to protect civil society organizations and other public interest groups from distributed denial of services (DDoS) attacks. Access, along with 13 other human rights organizations, helped advise CloudFlare on the creation of the project, and will continue to work with the compnay to protect websites at risk. 

"Project Galileo shows how Silicon Valley tech companies can actively create a more secure and safe internet for the world's most vulnerable internet users. Civil society actors around the world are under attack and this service helps create a level of protection we would otherwise not be able to access. The right to freedom of expression now has a new ally online,” said Access Executive Director Brett Solomon.

On Access’ 24/7 Digital Security Helpline, around the world we’re increasingly seeing civil society websites come under attack. Whether an independent news site reporting on election irregularities or a LGBT organization fighting for their very right to live, activists and NGOs are under threat globally, often from the most well-funded adversaries around the world. With Project Galileo, CloudFlare will extend its full, enterprise-class DDoS attack protection to the websites of high-risk civil society groups at no cost.

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America's Most LGBT-Friendly Cities Ranked By Vocativ's 'Queer Index'

What is life like for the queer community in the United States?

That's the question Vocativ, the global media organization for the Digital Generation, set out to answer with their new Queer Index, "a thorough examination of dozens of quality-of-life factors for America’s LGBT communities, based on Vocativ’s proprietary technology that mines the 'Deep Web' –- the 80% of the Internet outside the scope of search engines," according to a statement from the company.

The Queer Index incorporates data from open databases, public sites and social networks, including Craigslist, Facebook, Yelp, Rentboy, the US census and the FBI crimes database. Vocativ used this information to determine its definitive listing of the top 35 most LGBT-friendly cities spanning the United States. 16 "key lifestyle metrics" were measured, Vocativ notes, and "specific factors explored include the size of cities’ LGBT communities, number of 'out' singles, openly gay and lesbian politicians, queer-friendly businesses, hate-crime rates, and even the ease of casual hook-ups."

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Zynga affirms its support of LGBT people & their rights after launching Duck Dynasty slots game

Zynga launched a new game, Duck Dynasty Slots. The publisher has moved aggressively into the booming social-casino game segment, a multibillion-dollar worldwide industry and one in which mobile is becoming a bigger share of the revenue. But it’s now also promoting a game that includes a homophobe: Phil Robertson, the Duck Dynasty patriarch whom A&E suspended from the show — the network later backpedaled and relented – for his anti-gay comments.

GamesBeat contacted Zynga about Robertson’s inclusion. It confirmed that Robertson is in the game. This virtual slot machine focuses on things that happened in the series. None of his controversial comments appears in it.

It also affirmed its support of LGBT people and universal equality.

Zynga is committed to supporting diversity and the rights of our players and employees, including the LGBT community. As a company, we recently took a stance on gay rights by taking part in filing amicus briefings before the U.S. Supreme Court opposing the discriminatory actions of DOMA [Defense of Marriage Act] and Proposition 8 [California's ballot measure banning gay marriage]. Zynga’s Duck Dynasty Slots is based on the television show and does not reflect the personal beliefs of one individual. We are deeply committed to fostering a community built on respect and equality and we will be listening to our players to incorporate their feedback into our games in order to create the best possible experience.

Zynga joined a number of companies in amicus briefs filed with the Supreme Court in cases against the DOMA and Prop. 8.

This isn’t Duck Dynasty‘s first appearance in a Zynga game. The show is also in Zynga’s Hit It Rich slots offering.

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Apps for gay, bisexual men tied to STI risk

Gay and bisexual men who use smartphone apps to meet other men for sex are at an increased risk of some sexually transmitted infections, suggests a new study.

Men who used the apps were more likely to be diagnosed with gonorrhea and Chlamydia than men who met potential partners in other ways, researchers report in the journal Sexually Transmitted Infections.

"We want to make people aware of the risks and benefits with any new technology," Matthew Beymer said. “We just want gay and bisexual men to love safely and love carefully.”

Beymer is the study’s lead author and an epidemiologist at the Los Angeles LGBT Center.

He and his colleagues write that apps such as Grindr and SCRUFF have become increasingly popular among members of the gay and bisexual community since their introduction in 2009. 

The apps, which are marketed toward men who have sex with men, use the GPS capabilities of smartphones to find other people nearby using the same apps. Similar products exist for people seeking opposite-sex partners, and for women looking for other women.

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Transgender business leader, inventor, and Sirius Satellite Radio founder Martine Rothblatt on The Colbert Report talking about her latest invention - a black lesbian robot with a radical agenda.

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Nerds Under the Rainbow Tonight in Detroit

This month, Nerd Nite Detroit will be contributing to metro Detroit's LGBTQ* celebrations with a night filled with science and discussion. They invite you to come out and hear some great speakers as they help us understand some of the issues, history, and biology of gender, sexual orientation, and LGBTQ* communities. Leading the scientific discussion will be Dr. Marc Breedlove from Michigan State University. His project "Whom Do You Love: The Biology of Sexual Orientation" completed a successful Kickstarter campaign to fund a documentary to "explore the evidence that non-social factors, like the prenatal environment and hereditary factors, affect the likelihood that a person will grow up to be gay." Our second speaker is Shea Howell who will be presenting "Women's Music and the Detroit Connection. Challenging oppression and creating new visions." Shea is a community-based activist in Detroit for the last 4 decades and the co-founder Detroit Summer, Boggs Center. Shea also writes a weekly column for the Michigan Citizen, currently challenging the destruction of democracy and take over of Detroit. We'll also have Emell Derra Adolphus, associate editor of BLAC Detroit Magazine giving his talk "Mightier than the Sword". Surprise! They have four speakers! This is going to be such a great night! The fourth speaker is James Felton Keith, an engineer, ethnographer, and entrepreneur recently relocated home to Detroit and appointed by the Mayor Mike Duggan in 2014 as a business consultant. Keith is the author of Integrationalism, a board member of the newly established Detroit Regional LGBT Chamber of Commerce, and the Keith Institute in Detroit. He'll be presenting "#BeOut - The business value of identity".

They also have Sidecar Detroit with food and Alibi Crew with tunes.

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Major Game Companies Join GaymerX2

GaymerX2 is only five weeks away (how time flies!). This year may be the queer gaming convention’s last for the foreseeable future, but it’s going to go out with a bang. While event organizer Matt Conn has previously expressed his frustration with major game companies being unwilling to support GX2, today it’s been announced that several well known game-makers are putting their money where their pro-gay mouths are, making appearances at the show. Ubisoft, NIS America, and OUYA have all stepped up to show support for their LGBTQ fans, joining the previously announced BioWare, Indicade, and Cards Against Humanity.

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A Q&A With The Designer of the First LGBT Computer Game

Caper in the Castro no longer exists. All images and code has been lost to time. There’s scarcely a flicker of information on the internet. Programmed by CM Ralph in the late 80s and distributed on underground BBS networks, it stands proudly outside of public perception despite boasting one of the most important accomplishments in the history of interactive entertainment. Caper in the Castro is probably the first LGBT videogame ever made.

I learned about Caper like a whisper. It was just some scarcely acknowledged footnote in time. But it seemed wrong to me that such an undeniably important moment had never gotten its just due. I went searching for CM Ralph, and through a particularly lucky combination of Google searches, I found a mysterious little blog and an email address. My query? “Are you CM Ralph?”

After a few more emails, she agreed to an interview. The following is a brief Q/A that has CM Ralph speaking about the groundbreaking game she programmed nearly 30 years ago. We hope it gives the historical record a little more context.