Doodle

Google's Jim Henson doodle lets you be the puppeteer

If you're going to make a Google doodle to celebrate what would have been Muppet master Jim Henson's 75th birthday, September 24, there's no point doing it by halves.

Henson didn't.

So Google worked with both the Jim Henson Company and the Creature Shop to allow everyone in the world to become a puppeteer for a day.

This delightful doodle lets you operate six new, engaging Henson characters digitally.

You are given a hand with which to operate each character. Click on that hand once, the puppet will follow your mouse pointer. Click twice and the … Read more

Google Doodle celebrates Vitamin C pioneer with oranges

Google continues its growing tradition of celebrating scientific and cultural pioneers who might not be household names, but whose work is part of our daily lives. While today's citrus-filled doodle on the search engine front page first appears to indicate that Google has sold out to Tropicana, it's actually a tribute to Albert Szent-Györgyi's 118th birthday.

What, you weren't already taking the day off to celebrate? In case you're not in the know, Albert, whose full name is Albert von Szent-Györgyi de Nagyrápol, is the person credited with discovering Vitamin C and the citric acid cycle. That work earned him a Nobel Prize in 1937. He was also one of the first to look into connections between free radicals and cancer, and according to the U.S. National Library of Medicine, "his discoveries about the biochemical nature of muscular contraction revolutionized the field of muscle research."… Read more

The 404 897: Where you both owe me 14 bucks (podcast)

Remember the story we told you last week about the woman who spent $180 on what turned out to be a wooden Apple iPad? It happened again! In the same city! There's a lesson to be learned in all of this, and that lesson is to never trust anyone with more than four gold teeth.

Same rule goes for mustaches, and Google's celebrating Freddie Mercury's 65th birthday with a Web app that lets you add a mustache to every face on the Internet! We'll demo it today using someone else's face, however, since none of us are creepy enough to grow our own mustache.

We'll also talk about Amazon.com-branded delivery lockers popping up in select 7-Eleven stores, adding fuel to the fires already burning through the United States Postal Service, and introduce a new photo caption segment that Wilson cooked up over the weekend.

The 404 Digest for Episode 897

This is why Jeff and Wilson owe me 14 bones. After the $180 wooden iPad comes the $250 paper laptop (same city). Google honors Freddie Mercury with Mustachify.me. Google doodles a complex piece for Freddie Mercury. Amazon starts putting the USPS out of work, one 7-Eleven at a time. The U.S. Post Office says a winter shutdown is possible. Did somebody ask for pizza on a bullet-capsule to the moon? Check out this 404 photoshop, courtesy of Captain Carlos! Join The 404 Facebook Group! Add The 404 on Twitter, and while you're logged in, follow Jeff, Wilson, and Justin too!

Episode 897 Subscribe in iTunes (audio) | Subscribe in iTunes (video) | Subscribe in RSS Audio | Subscribe in RSS Video… Read more

Google doodles a complex piece for Freddie Mercury

Freddie Mercury would have been 65 today (Monday).

That seems a very peculiar thought. Still, in his honor, Google's doodlers--who have truly risen to their metier over the last year--have labored with verve to deliver a doodle of which the shy and understated lead singer of Queen would have been proud.

To the tune of "Don't Stop Me Now," we see the full gamut of Mercurial splendor, animated with amusement and complexity. NBC Bay Area reports that the doodle took three months to put together. That's about as long as "Bohemian Rhapsody."

"… Read more

Donkey Jump soars

Donkey Jump is a vertically scrolling platform-jumping game very similar to another popular mobile hit, Doodle Jump. In Donkey Jump, your character, a spitting image of Donkey from Shrek, keeps jumping automatically, while your job is to tilt your device to maneuver him onto clouds. The higher you go, the more points you accumulate. Miss a platform, and you'll have to start all over.

As with Doodle Jump, we enjoy the simplicity of Donkey Jump's controls. It's easy to learn and easy to pick up on a whim, even when you only have a couple minutes of … Read more

Google's smartypants math doodle

It's another confusing day on Google.com, with a foreign-looking (for most of us) equation greeting visitors to the search engine's front page. Wednesday's Google doodle is a tribute to mathematician Pierre de Fermat on his 410th birthday.

de Fermat spent most of his life working as a lawyer, but became the father of modern number theory in his spare time. Apparently the lack of e-mail, Facebook, and Twitter in 17th century France allowed the smartypantses of the era to be a lot more productive.

The equation in Google's doodle, x^n + y^n = z^n, … Read more

Google loves Lucy with a doodle

Google loves Lucy.

In order to demonstrate that love, the company's doodlers have created something special for Lucille Ball's 100th birthday.

Well, it would have been her 100th birthday today, but Lucy is sadly no longer with us.

Still, in a blog post, Google doodler Jennifer Hom explained: "Lucy's creativity, absurdity, and ever-changing facial expressions (especially when she was scarfing down candy, stomping on grapes, or touting a new energy drink) have brought joy and laughter to generations of viewers."

Google's doodle offers a click and play feature, through which you can watch clips … Read more

Google's Calder doodle sways with laptop tilt

Google published a doodle today that commemorates artist Alexander Calder with an interactive sculpture that sways when a person tilts an accelerometer-equipped laptop.

Calder is famous for sculptures he called mobiles--hanging weights and struts that are carefully counterbalanced so they slowly drift into new configurations. The doodle, published on Calder's 113th birthday, tilts when a laptop tilts and slowly spins if a person clicks and drags on the sculpture.

The swaying feature requires not just an accelerometer-equipped laptop but also a browser that can expose that information to a Web application. In my tests on a Mac this morning, … Read more

Google's July 4 doodle: Gosh, no American flag

Symbolism is very important when you celebrate your independence.

Each gesture, each flag, each word, each song, each barbecued chicken wing expresses a feeling, a meaning.

So it must have taken some time for those fine doodlers to decide just what they would put into their July 4 doodle.

In the end, they have presented an uplifting and artistic doodle to celebrate America's unique form of independence. Already, though, viewers have been inclined to infer interpretations both from what is included in the doodle and from what is omitted.

There is no American flag, for example, which has already … Read more