doodle

Let Google eat cake. Today, the Web giant turns 14 years old, and to celebrate, it's serving up an animated chocolate cake filled with Google-colored candles on its homepage.

It seems like just yesterday that the tech company was born, and now it's old enough to go to high school.

Last year when Google officially became a teenager, it celebrated with a doodle that showed a cake, some balloons, candles, and a few party hats -- but it wasn't animated. Apparently, this year it has upped its sophistication.

There must have been some who, crawling out of bed this morning, told themselves that surely this is the 46th anniversary of "Star Trek."

I don't think I know any of these people. Perhaps I've seen them in bars, perched over their Kindle Fires, reading science fiction.

However, Google has decided that this is the time to create a touchingly quirky doodle featuring some of the great characters of the original series -- all made out of letters and shiny wigs.

In fact, the actual anniversary of the first episode -- alluringly entitled "The Man Trap" -- isn't today. It's tomorrow. … Read more

We've all watched Google's evolution from student idealist to strident actuary like uncles at successive weddings.

Once Google was shy and disdainful of ancient, grubby ways. Now it embraces them as if it's worried about its 401(k) -- that's $401,000 profit for every ad run on Google.

The concept of doing no evil has taken on a dreamy, nostalgic quality. The concept of brand advertising, once derided as faintly sad, is now at the core of Google's attempt to gain some Apple-y emotions.

Still, this morning some were vaguely stupefied that the company … Read more

Google's ingenious marketing and creative departments -- the folks who tirelessly reinvent the company's logo in the form of "doodles" (and by so doing seem to have taken branding to a whole new realm) -- have produced a new and equally irresistible gimmick.

This time around, as noticed by AllThingsD's Mike Isaac, it's a change to the Google home page's iconic "I'm Feeling Lucky" button.

When you mouse-over the button, it "spins" like the display on a slot machine and stops on any one of several "I'… Read more

Think you have what it takes to be Hope Solo on the Internet?

No, not on Twitter, telling Brandi Chastain to pipe down but with a virtual soccer goal net behind you and an opposing player in front of you, peppering you with shots.

That is the challenge Google's latest interactive Olympic doodle presents. After sending would-be Web Olympians over the hurdles, to the hoop, and downstream in a kayak, the Web giant's test for today is serving as goalkeeper.

Soccer -- or football as most of the world's population calls it -- is the world's … Read more

Google has floated out what may be its most difficult interactive doodle for the Olympics -- so far.

After launching the hurdles and basketball free throw games earlier this week, the Web giant is highlighting the slalom canoe event at the 2012 London Games with a doodle. Users get a virtual canoe and virtual paddle and try to paddle over a water course as fast as they can. (Yes, the Olympics calls it a canoe event, but the event itself, and the doodle, clearly feature kayaks.)

Competitors use the left and right cursor buttons on their keyboard to maneuver their … Read more

Google is trying hard to get its users into the Olympic Games.

After yesterday's hurdles challenge, the Web giant is tapping our hoop dreams with another interactive doodle that allows users to take the rock to the hole for Olympic gold. Using the space bar (or even the left-click button), would-be Dream Teamers try to shoot as many free throws as possible in 24 seconds.

Oddly, while the hurdles doodle demanded users to use two hands, the basketball doodle requires only two clicks with one hand to shoot a basket. But the trick is that the time between those … Read more

Google's latest Olympic doodle is designed to give your fingers a run for the gold.

In a Web version of the classic Olympic event, The Hurdles is an interactive keyboard sprint that tests users' ability to make their athlete run as fast as they can with one hand, while using another to decide the proper time to begin each leap.

Click the "play" button to get your race started. A helpful onscreen tutorial coaches you to alternately tap the left and right cursor keys to get your virtual track star moving, while the space bar signals when … Read more

I fear that Google might be afraid of being treated like the butcher of Weymouth.

You might not have heard the meat of this, but Dennis Spurr tried to put sausages up in his butcher's shop in Weymouth, England. They were in the shape of the Olympic rings.

The Olympic thought police came and ordered his rings unhung.

I mention this because, in celebration of today's Olympics opening ceremony (no, of course it's not being transmitted live in the U.S., not even online), Google has created a doodle.

It is lovely little thing. But in order … Read more