Google is celebrating its 15th birthday with an interactive Google doodle that features a piñata game.
A piñata is a fancy container that is filled with sweets and goodies which is later broken as part of a celebration. Piñatas are popular in Mexico. Friday's Google doodle features a piñata that sports the colours of the Google logo. The alphabets in the Google logo are part of the celebration and the blindfolded, second 'G' alphabet holds a stick with which users have to hit the piñata when it comes close, to try and extract the maximum number of sweets that fall with each hit, in ten limited chances. Users can play with the Space bar key of their keyboards or even with the computer mouse. They can even share the score on Google+.
Last year, Google's 14th birthday was marked with a doodle that featured a cake with 14 candles. The cake transformed into a Google logo, as each candles was blown out.
In addition to the doodle, there's an Easter egg that lets you search on Google's 1998 search avatar. Enter the term 'google in 1998' and you'll see how Google used to look in 1998.
The first time Google created a doodle to celebrate its birthday was way back in 2002, to mark Google's 4th birthday. It's worth pointing out that September 27 is actually not the date of the company's incorporation. Google started celebrating its birthday on this date after 2005 when it made an announcement about indexing a record number of pages. Google acknowledges that the exact date when it celebrates its birthday has moved around over the years.
Google was founded on September 4, 1998 by Larry Page and Sergey Brin. At that point in time, the two were Ph.D. students at Stanford University.
To mark its birthday Google has also announced an updated search algorithm called Hummingbird.
The algorithm was rolled out a month back and aims at making Google search better at answering long, complicated queries. It has also introduced comparison filters, improved exploration for songs and revamped mobile apps for search.
Last year, Google's 14th birthday was marked with a doodle that featured a cake with 14 candles. The cake transformed into a Google logo, as each candles was blown out.
In addition to the doodle, there's an Easter egg that lets you search on Google's 1998 search avatar. Enter the term 'google in 1998' and you'll see how Google used to look in 1998.
The first time Google created a doodle to celebrate its birthday was way back in 2002, to mark Google's 4th birthday. It's worth pointing out that September 27 is actually not the date of the company's incorporation. Google started celebrating its birthday on this date after 2005 when it made an announcement about indexing a record number of pages. Google acknowledges that the exact date when it celebrates its birthday has moved around over the years.
Google was founded on September 4, 1998 by Larry Page and Sergey Brin. At that point in time, the two were Ph.D. students at Stanford University.
To mark its birthday Google has also announced an updated search algorithm called Hummingbird.
The algorithm was rolled out a month back and aims at making Google search better at answering long, complicated queries. It has also introduced comparison filters, improved exploration for songs and revamped mobile apps for search.
Google Search is turning 15. Remember what it was like to search in 1998? You’d sit down and boot up your bulky computer, dial up on your squawky modem, type in some keywords, and get 10 blue links to websites that had those words. It seemed like magic (and it was way way faster than card catalogs and microfiche!).
The world has changed so much since then: billions of people have come online, the web has grown exponentially, and now you can ask any question on the powerful little device in your pocket. You can explore the world with the Knowledge Graph, ask questions aloud with voice search, and get info before you even need to ask with Google Now.
But 15 years on, google are just getting started. They want to help you make more of each day. Here are a few of the latest features you can try out:
Comparisons and filters in the Knowledge Graph
Google keep expanding features of the Knowledge Graph so it can answer more questions—even those that don’t have a simple answer. Let’s say you want to get your daughter excited about a visit to the Met. You can pull up your phone and say to Google: “Tell me about Impressionist artists.” You’ll see who the artists are, and you can dive in to learn more about each of them and explore their most famous works. If you want to switch to Abstract artists, you can do that really easily with our new filter tool:
Or let’s say you want to compare two things: How much saturated fat is in butter versus olive oil? Now you can simply tell Google: “Compare butter with olive oil.” Our new comparison tool gives you new insights by letting you compose your own answer:
You can try this for some other things you might be curious about, such as dog breeds (“compare pekingese vs. chihuahua”) or celestial objects (“compare earth vs. neptune”)—and it keep adding more.
Get things done with Google across your devices
Having a “conversation” with Google should also be more natural. Ideally, you wouldn’t need to pull out your phone or tap buttons to use Google. You can do a lot with just your voice. In the next couple of weeks, you’ll be able to download a new version of the Google Search app on iPhone and iPad. With this update, you can get notifications across your devices. So if you tell your Nexus 7, “OK Google. Remind me to buy olive oil at Safeway,” when you walk into the store with your iPhone, you’ll get a reminder. They also show you Google Now notifications so you’re not late to your cooking class.
A simpler, more unified design on mobile devices
You’ll also notice a new look and feel for Google Search and ads on your phones and tablets. It’s cleaner and simpler, optimized for touch, with results clustered on cards so you can focus on the answers you’re looking for.
They keep improving Google Search so it does a little bit more of the hard work for you. This means giving you the best possible answers, making it easy to have a conversation and helping out before you even have to ask. Hopefully, it'll save you a few minutes of hassle each day. So keep asking Google tougher questions—it keeps Google on our toes! After all, they’re just getting started.
Data/info sources:
2. http://gadgets.ndtv.com/others/news/googles-15th-birthday-celebrated-by-interactive-doodle-424399
