Happy 13th Birthday Google celebrates with new doodle

Search engine enjoys birthday treat

 Google has used the latest Google doodle to celebrate its 13th birthday with a picture of the logo enjoying a cake. 

Unlike the usual fanfare and excitement afforded to some of the doodles of recent times, like the one that celebrated Freddie Mercury's birthday complete with moving animations or videos, Google has gone for a very simple approach with a very basic design. 

Stranger still, it seems, Google has only included 12 candles on the cake rather than 13 to represent the 13 years in business. 

That might be the case, however this year's effort is still in keeping with previous birthday Google doodles that have become a tradition since the first birthday doodle appeared in 2003. 

In what has never been fully explained the Google doodle birthday doodles in 2003 and 2004 appeared on the 7 September before moving to the 27 September where they have appeared ever since. 

As the doodles of the last eight years show Google doesn't always get a cake. Its ninth birthday was celebrated with a piñata, and its eleventh birthday an extra 11 to give the 11 in the logo.

Google's 5th birthday doodle

Google's 6th birthday doodle

Google's 7th birthday doodle

Google's 8th birthday doodle

Google's 9th birthday doodle

Google's 10th birthday doodle

Google's 11th birthday doodle

Google's 12th birthday doodle

Source: pocket-lint

Google agrees to buy Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion

Google Inc. is looking to buy Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc. for $12.5 billion in what would be the company's largest acquisition to date.
Motorola Mobility is one of the biggest hardware supporters for Google's Android mobile operating system, making both smartphones and a tablet computer, called the Xoom, that run on the software.
The deal would also give Google a hardware-manufacturing business, possibly to compete better with rival Apple Inc., which makes both the hardware and software for products such as the iPhone and the iPad tablet.
Google said that its $12.5-billion price would be a premium of 63% over the closing price of Motorola Mobility shares on Friday and that the proposed purchase was unanimously approved by the boards of directors at both tech firms.
In the proposed deal, Motorola Mobility would remain a licensee of Android and Android would remain open and available for use by other hardware manufacturers at no cost, as it is now. Google said it would run Motorola Mobility as a separate business.
"We expect that this combination will enable us to break new ground for the Android ecosystem," said Andy Rubin, who as Google's senior vice president of mobile oversees Android. "However, our vision for Android is unchanged and Google remains firmly committed to Android as an open platform and a vibrant open-source community. We will continue to work with all of our valued Android partners to develop and distribute innovative Android-powered devices."
Google is currently being investigated by the Federal Trade Commission and the Justice Department for its dominance in advertising, search and possibly other businesses. Android is the most widely used smartphone OS in the world and its usage is still growing, so federal regulators are likely to look into possible antitrust concerns with the deal.
Larry Page, Google's CEO, made his case for the deal in a company blog post, noting that Google would benefit from owning patents held by Motorola as it has been fighting against what he called "anti-competitive patent attacks on Android." These efforts, Page said, included the teaming up of Microsoft and Apple to buy mobile tech patents from the bankrupt Canadian firm Nortel.
"The U.S. Department of Justice had to intervene in the results of one recent patent auction to 'protect competition and innovation in the open source software community' and it is currently looking into the results of the Nortel auction," Page said. "Our acquisition of Motorola will increase competition by strengthening Google's patent portfolio, which will enable us to better protect Android from anti-competitive threats from Microsoft, Apple and other companies."
The takeover is also subject to approval by regulators in the European Union and Motorola Mobility’s stockholders. Google said it hopes to see the purchase approved and finalized by the end of 2011 or early 2012.

Source: latimesblogs.latimes

Interactive Google Doodle Commemorates the Holidays

Google’s officially celebrating the holidays with the launch of its latest Google Doodle, an interactive holiday card that features 17 holiday scenes from around the world. Santa Claus on a rooftop, Indian classical dancers and colorful Moroccan henna lamps are among the international illustrations found in the Doodle, which can be seen above.
Users can hover over the images to get a slightly blown-up view of each picture, and clicking on one will lead them to search results pertinent to a specific country or the particular items featured in a scene.
As the Wall Street Journal reports, this Doodle, which went up at 9 a.m. ET today, is the brainchild of designer Micheal Lopez. It took roughly 250 hours for five artists to carry out the concept, and the final piece will remain on the Google homepage until Christmas is over. Though Lopez originally planned to post the Doodle in installments over the course of three days, executives who got a look at the work-in-progress last week decided it needed to go up in one shot. After six months of planning and working on the Doodle, Lopez and his team raced to get it done.
It’s been a creative year for Google Doodles — the first video Doodle celebrated what would have been John Lennon’s 70th birthday, and a playable version of Pacman marked the game’s 30th anniversary. Of course, Doodles were also used to celebrate other events and figures in history, such as children’s author Hans Christian Andersen and American civil rights activist Rosa Parks. We’ll soon have a chance to see what Google has in store for 2011.

Source : mashable