Google caused a stir at the weekend when it release its UFO logo in the UK:
Google Unexplained Logo
Theories and debate spread like wild fire as the twitterverse pondered into its meaning. This was fuelled further when Google tweeted the following codeded message:
I must admit it got me wondering but my main frustration was the lack of ALT tag on the image… what kind of message is this for Accessability Google? Saying that, have you ever looked under the hood of Google? (one day i tell myself, one day…)
Well, it turns out CNET have sovled the mistery for us. When you turn these numbers into their corresponding letter in the alphabet you get:
“All your O are belong to us.” – presumably ‘O’ being the one taken in the logo
This is homage to the 20th anniversary of the Japanese video game classic ”Zero Wing’ which has an intro that says ‘All your base are belong to us’.
Zero Wing Intro 'All your base are belong to us'
Wiki has an atricle all about Zero Wing’s poor grammer intro.
Well done Google, good bit of PR and kept the kids busy. I look forward to the next Doodle.
Theres been a lot of discussion since Google’s announced its realeasing operating system to compete agaisnt the likes of Microsoft.
Well today has seen the release of some proposed screenshots of the Google chrome operating system. Whether or not these are real or not who knows, but one thing seems sure, it hasn’t got printscreen functionality!
Google Chrome Desktop Screenshot
Early days yet but it looking very minamalist. personally i think this would be a great route to go down, something that is inbetween the Windows (cluttered and bloated) and the various Linux OS’ flying about where support is slim or non-existant. Sure there are alternatives but if you are like me you want your familiar creature comforts like Photoshop.
I for one can’t wait to see how this one pans out, i’ve got my fingers crosesed for Google personally!
Now i don’t know whether you’ve noticed but from time to time Google change their logo so that it themes a famous event, a birthday or a holiday etc.
This post is dedicated to Google logos and Google Doodles and will be used to display some of my favourites. If any one else out there has any they think are worth adding to the google logo gallery send them in!…
The Google Logo Gallery
Here are a few for starters:
Google 1998 Logo
Google Logo - 25th August 2009 - 400th Anniversary of Galileo's Telescope
Google UFO - 5th September 2009 - caused much debate on what it was about. turns out its homage to the 1980 arcade game Zero Wing
I remember it as clear as day, March 24th 1988, the day I turned 8 years but more importantly, the day I got my very own G1 Optimus Prime toy – the ultimate in childrens toys.
For those of you not familiar with the 1980s cartoon series ‘Transformers’ or recent hollywood remakes, Optimus Prime is the leader of the Autobots, a race of robots that fled from their planet Cybertron (it blew up) and took refuge on earth away from their arch enemies The Decepticons (bad robots).
At the time there were some absolute classic cartoons knocking around, the likes of Thunder cats, He-man and Centurions all awesome in their own right but for me Transformers was the one.
Now i wasn’t one of the lucky ones that had loads of childrens toys, I had a He-Man, Skeletor and a couple of Starwars figures but that was about it, all the rest of my stuff was the hand me downs of my two elder brothers – mainly Lego and toy soldiers (still decent).
My mates Mark and Christian had nearly every childrens toy between them – ALL the He-man stuff and ALL the Star wars figures, we’re ytalking millennium falcon, At-At, Jabba’s Palace the lot… Needless to say i practically lived at their houses and approached their parents for adoption on numerous occasions….
Anyway i digress, this was my birthday, my present and my moment. Skipping the card and gift tag I proceeded to shred the surrounding wrapping paper and was presented with:
G1 Optimus Prime Childrens Toy
I’m not being funny but look at this toy’s packaging! Seriously, the rush was like eating 20 sherbert dib dabs and washing it down with a litre of cherry aid! In my hands was the ultimate childrens toy at that time, no other kid on the block had had it, this toy was mine!
I spent the whole day with my dad carefully placing every sticker on this toy, learning how to tranform it in every possible way with my eyes shut and trying to make new variations that know one else had ever discovered.
Sat in front of me right now is a smaller remake of the original toy, its good, but its not the real thing. Gone but never forgotten. The best Toy I ever had…
I’ll leave you with a few bits of about the toy:
Optimus Prime Toy Commercial
The stuff childrens dreams are made of!
Optimus Prime Images
G1 Optimus Prime - Transformed
A recent remake of the G1 Optimus Prime Toy
Too Far!
Santa, if your out there… (wink wink nudge nudge) Either that or I’m off to find out where this guy lives.
The social networking giant Facebook look to release a new “Lite” version of their Facebook platform.
Testing is already underway with thousands of existing Facebook users being sent the following message inviting them to join Facebook Lite
Facebook Lite Invite Message
What is Facebook Lite?
It appears to be a stripped down version of the traditional Facebook with similarities to Twitter. Imaging Twitter and Facebook merged.
What does Facebook Lite look like?
The images below are some of the screenshots circulating the net, do a Google search for the others which will no doubt be appearing over the next 24 hours :
Facebook Lite Screenshot
Whats it for?
After the recent purchase of Friend Feed it makes you wonder just what Facebook are up to and what they have up their sleeve. Its clearly a direct assault towards the likes of Twitter and an attempt to secure their status as the king of social networking.
Whats next?
After the last few days who the hell knows, maybe they’ll buy Google, YouTube, the Moon or maybe your family. On no, they have them already….
Search engine Google are undertaking a new project (nicknamed ‘caffine’) experimenting with their next generation web search arcitecture.
The next-generation ‘under-the-hood’ architecture was announced yesterday on Google’s webmaster central blog where they explained their main endeavours as pushing indexing speed, size, accuracy of SERP listings and overall comprehensiveness.
Although the project has yet to be completed Google have already invited users to test the new technology and feedback through on a sand-boxed environment.
Visually everything appears to be the same and at the botttom of each SERPs page you will notice a new ‘Try Google Experimental‘ link next to the usual ‘Dissatified? Help us Improve’ link:
Improve Google Search
Its clearly still in development as a click on the ‘Try Google Experimental’ produces a 404 when i click it!
Google 404
A Caffined feuled future?
Its early days yet for ‘Caffeine’ but Google are very keen for users to compare SERPs and feedback suggestion through their online feedback form. Some people are already reporting back positive results for Caffine claiming that the the search results to be more pertinent, less spammy and just generally more relevant that existing SERPS. I guess time will tell…
Search engine geeks and seo freaks, what do you think so far?
For those that don’t know, Google streetview features a rather nifty panoramic view that allows you to walk down streets and explore areas through a virtual environment. However, imagine if you could do this in video. Well, it just so happens that some clever chap/chapess’ from the Netherlands have come up with a real life working version of this.
Google Streetview
Yellowbird Camera
Yellowbird technology is actually used to capture Google Streetview images, the only difference being that the new Yellowbird camera captures video instead of images.
The Yellowbird camera consists of 6 lenses which it uses to capture any possible angle. Yellowbird can be strapped to a person (as it is in the picture above), on a tripod or even used on a steadycam to capture a truly immersive view of the environment it is filming.
Have a look at the video below to see Yellowbird in action:
The company offer the following:
Yellowbird Camera – The video camera technology (it also records 96kbs audio!)
Yellowbird Studio – provides an array of editing facilities (audio and video) to play with your footage
Yellowbird Player – see above! (online and offline 3d video)
Yellowbird Hosting – ultrafast hosting for your footage – provided by Jet-stream
YouTube have been experimenting with 3d videos over the last couple of weeks. The new YouTube experiment involves the development of their 3D Stereoscopic Video Player – YT3D.
YouTube's Stereoscopic 3d Player
Googler/YouTuber Pete said “I’m the developer working on the stereoscopic player as a 20% project.”
A discussion on the YouTube help forum is underway and there are also various 3d test popping out on YouTube itself:
Please note, in order to view YouTubes new ed content you will need the latest Flash player: http://www.adobe.com/go/getflashplayer/
Youtube 3d video tag examples
I haven’t experimented myself yet but apprantley the 3d effects are produced by taking advantage of various yt3d tags. Here are a few exmaples:
yt3d:enable=true
yt3d:enableenables the view mode.
yt3d:aspect=3:4
yt3d:aspect is used to set the aspect ratio of the encoded video.
yt3d:swap=true
yt3d:swap is used to swaps the left and right sources. Apparantly you’ll have to add this to videos when they release the player with fixed anaglyph modes .
yt3d:left & yt3d:right
These settings are used to position the x/y co-oridate of the source area of the eye, for example:
yt3d:left=0_0.1_0.5_0.9 and yt3d:right=0.5_0.1_1_0.9
Exciting stuff i’m sure you’ll agree but i can’t help but feel Googles taking over my world. Google search engine, Google Video/YouTube, Google Voice, Google Apps, Google Analytics, Google Webmaster Tools, Google Checkout, Google Chrome… whats next Google Mum?
Only one thing i ask Google, do not loose site of the Google Search
The search engine giant Google looks sure to conquer the world with the release of it new Google Voice application.
The technology was originally developed by GrandCentral which was aquired by Google in June 2007. It aims to improve the way we use our phones through a variety of neat features such as emailing you transcripts of your voice mail, archiving SMS and cheap international call rates through its VOIP service.
An absolutely awesome feature which is sure to appeal to all is the ability to have a single number to call your home, office or mobile and listen into the line before you answer (that can’t be good).
Unfortunately Google Voice isn’t available in the UK just yet and is only available in the US throguh invite. Lets hope it reaches our shores some times soon.
View the video below for more information on Google Video and some of its features:
Todays topic, my Super Sausage and Mash Recipe. I cooked this the other night and have been eating bangers and mash for breakfast, lunch and dinner!
Ingredients
Sausages and mash AKA ‘bangers and mash’, good old fashion English nosh. My recipe sticks to the traditional recipe but features a few culinary tweaks of magic.
Here’s what you need for 1-2 portions:
2-3 large potatoes
4-6 sausages (preferably finest sausages e.g. chilly/apple something with an additional twang)
a generous nob of butter
Philadelphia cream cheese
salt & pepper
1 onion
milk
How to cook
peel potatoes, slice into small chunks (not to small as they will go to mush, too big and they won’t cook properly)
boil potatoes in salty water for 12-15 minutes (if you jab them with a fork and the potato falls off you’ll know they’re done)
oven bake your sausages (see packet for time and temperature – normally about 35 mins on 220c)
dice and fry onion in oil (i use what has come out of the sausages to add flavour)
mash potatoes with butter and a couple of tablespoons of milk
add onions, pepper and a generous lump of Philadelphia to the mash and continue to mash.
slap that mash on the plate and add your sausages
for added bang serve with gravy
for a healthier option add some boiled mix vegetables
Your sausage & mash is now ready. Try the recipe and let me know your thoughts! If anyone has any further enhancements please share!
