Mark Zuckerberg's $2 billion buyout of Oculus Rift is just the latest step in Big Tech's creepy march from software to sci-fi: Google and Facebook have dumped billions into companies that have nothing to do with their original projects in search or social. Relentlessly, the two companies are pushing toward a dystopian future in which privacy is null and we wear social networks on our faces.

Over the past few weeks, I've heard a few stories about Google or Twitter employees letting it slip that they can check your email or read your DMs—the kind of hushed anecdotes that are hard to prove. But, somehow, Google's statement denying recent allegations makes that NSA-fueled paranoia feel more concrete.

By 2014, wearing a Google Glass on your face has become only slightly less stigmatized than a giant swastika or swath of acne. But if face computers die, Google's rep will take a hit, too: so the company just put out another try-hard list of antisocial propaganda.

This week, we learned Microsoft has been able to read anyone's Hotmail inbox, if it so pleases. But what about Google? According to TechCrunch founder and friendly VC giant Mike Arrington, his Gmail account was rifled through just the same.

Philanthropy today: Larry Page, the Google co-founder with $32 billion and little record of altruism, says he'd prefer another tech billionaire inherit his estate instead of leaving it to charity.

If you squint a little, New York by the bay is slowly turning into a cartoon. The next step in our favorite class warfare diorama: a boutique hotel bucking the backlash by offering cocktails on the house for anyone with a locally despised, $1,500 face computer.

Not only do large multinational tech firms like Apple and Google try as hard as possible to avoid playing taxes on the planet Earth, our pesky Earth laws make it easy to dodge. Just look at le Google in France.

Google's websites are safe, sterile, and boring. Its executives are anything but. Vanity Fair looked inside the secret affair that ended Silicon Valley's most prominent power couple, and found that the powerful people who run the web giant are just as horny and screwed up as anyone else—if not more.

On stage at SXSW, Wired's Steven Levy asked Eric Schmidt whether companies like WhatsApp lead to more inequality. Here's Schmidt's response: "Let us celebrate capitalism," he said, opening his arms. "$19 billion for 50 people? Good for them."

Google chairman Eric Schmidt and Jared Cohen, director of Google Ideas, just began their South by Southwest panel addressing "issues of technology and privacy, war and intervention, diplomacy and revolution around the world."

Besides air, nothing good can come from having something present in all places at all times. Not even Wi-fi. But that didn't stop Eric Schmidt from trying to make a case for Google's artificially intelligent offspring.

It would be awesome, Sarah Slocum. Also awesome if Google could throw in a self-driving car, a Starbucks gift card, and maybe some of those cool shoes that have the wheels built in—you know, the ones kids scoot around on at the mall sometimes?

Earlier this week, Bryan Seely, a network engineer and one-time Marine, played me recordings of two phone calls (embedded below.) The calls were placed by unwitting citizens to the FBI office in San Francisco and to the Secret Service in Washington, D.C. Neither the callers nor the FBI or Secret Service personnel who answered the phone realized that Seely was secretly recording them. He used Google Maps to do it.

Ever since acquisition rumors started building in late 2012, WhatsApp—the fast-growing messaging service with serious outer-bubble appeal—seemed destined for a multi-billion exit. But how, pray tell, did Facebook decide 19 was the "magic number"? One source tells Valleywag that it began with a $250 million funding offer.

In tech, as in love, things always appear more attractive when they're in high demand. According to The Information, Google devised an awkward and costly way to find out if a startup has any corporate suitors, but WhatsApp declined.

While so many scramble to find/keep housing, the idea of moving to San Francisco made Tim Bray, a well-known developer advocate for Google, give notice. "I find the Bay Area congested, racist, incestuous, and overpriced." Bray promised to keep Google's secrets, so don't expect brutal honesty about his soon-to-be-former employer.

Chevy never has to issue reminders to drivers to not deliberately steer trucks into playgrounds, but people who choose to wear $1,500 computers on their faces need an extra lesson in how to be a member of society. First up: don't be a weird asshole. How generous of Google!

As a social network, Google+ is just a bunch of empty circles spinning in a barren wasteland. But Google could give a fuck if consumers prefer Facebook. What the $400 billion data vacuum really wanted, reports The New York Times, is to track everything you do online and sell that personal information to advertisers.

Chinese citizens expect their government to censor search results. But according to The Guardian, Bing has been censoring results for Chinese language searches, even when you access the Microsoft-owned search engine within the U. S. of A.

Yesterday, we called the coalition behind "The Day We Fight Back," an initiative protesting mass surveillance, to find out why NSA-friendly tech giants had not signed up alongside Reddit, Tumblr, and other companies for today's event. Just wait, they said.