doodles

I worry that Google's doodlers have been given a little time off, just at the time when something supremely animated was needed to lift America's dreariness on July 4.

Today, instead of some glorious and uplifting doodle, Google offers a very simple affair, the logo spelling out the words: "This Land Was Made For You And Me."

The only unusual accompaniment is that of an acoustic guitar, a homage to Woody Guthrie, whose "This Land Is My Land" includes the doodle's line.

Guthrie was very keen to offer of his guitar that "… Read more

Normally, when Google creates doodles, it uses its brains to create art that everyone can grasp and feel.

For tomorrow in the U.S. (and today in places like New Zealand), however, the company has decided to offer no such creative mercies.

June 23, 2012 would have been the 100th birthday of Alan Turing. And you can hardly celebrate his memory with something fluffy and brightly colored.

Instead, there are a series of 1s and 0s and arrows pointing to left and right.

Here's what I know: there is a green start button, which I am sure one is … Read more

Google is cuddling up to governments more than ever.

Like the wiliest of lovers, the company is doing this so that it can keep the vast, elected egos in their place.

However, who could have imagined that part of this affection would consist of allowing world leaders to draw their own doodles?

I bow to The Jerusalem Post which revealed that Google Chairman Eric Schmidt met with Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu in Israel yesterday.

During this meeting, Netanyahu presented Schmidt with a doodle, allegedly the first ever by a world leader.

Yes, this was an homage to the Google … Read more

We have much for which to thank Richard Nixon.

If it wasn't for him, the phenomenon that is the Google Father's Day doodle might never have occurred.

For it was one of America's more dramatic presidents who signed Father's Day into law in 1972. So now we can look forward to Google celebrating it the way it forgot to celebrate Flag Day earlier this week.

Generally, Google has looked upon fathers in a traditional manner. Last year, it offered Dad a necktie.

This year, we see Dad in need of a mug of coffee (it might … Read more

Mother's Day doesn't fall on the same day everywhere.

Somehow, the card companies that invented it couldn't quite manage worldwide co-ordination. So while the U.S. and Australia seem to celebrate their mothers today, the British and the Saudi Arabians, for example, honored their mothers on March 18. (They had their own doodle, embedded below.)

Still, Google is a quintessentially profit-oriented American company, so today its doodle shows how mothers can profit from the affections of their little offspring.

Yes, it's 'o" for offspring, as two little o's in Google's logo come racing … Read more

One would like to be a fly in the distilled water at one of Google's doodle team meetings.

One can only imagine the fierce debates, the intellectual swordplay and -- surely -- the research that goes into deciding who deserves a doodle.

I am grateful to the Washington Post for waking me early today to tell me that the winning recipient of Google's grace for May 9 is Howard Carter.

In 1922, Carter decided to go to Egypt, in the company of the Earl of Carnarvon in search of Tutankhamun's tomb. Having found it, he spent another … Read more

In today's show, it's time to get touchy with BlackBerry, bite your nails over courtroom drama, and share your spleen on Facebook:

Research in Motion showcased the new BlackBerry 10 operating system and its new touch-screen keyboard. Senior Editor Brian Bennett called the keyboard 'freakishly smart, and it was as if the device could read his mind.

On Facebook, you can now add organ donor information to your timeline. To add it to your profile, select life event, and find it under health and wellness.

The first phase of the Oracle v. Google trial heads to jury. Google argues it used Java fairly … Read more

Though I had often been grateful for it, I had never thought who had actually invented the zipper until tonight.

Again, Google's fine polymathic doodlers entered my mind and implanted another chip of knowledge.

For it seems that a Swedish-American electrical engineer named Gideon Sundback was the man who perfected the zipper.

Britain's Guardian, which, thanks to the time difference, must have enjoyed an early exposure to Google's latest doodle, explained Sundback's technological breakthrough.

While interlocking teeth had been around for a while, Sundback had stuck a dimple on the underside of each zipper tooth and … Read more

The uplifting thing about Google's doodlers is that, unlike many of their engineer colleagues, they don't often resort to the obvious.

How lovely, therefore, to awaken this morning and see a doodle commemorating the 100th birthday (had he still been alive) of Robert Doisneau.

Doisneau was the Frenchman who wandered around Paris and photographed people in natural, compromising positions. You know, like kissing.

I only mention the kissing because that particular photograph -- of two people loving each other up in the middle of the street in 1950 -- has surely been seen on more college dorm room … Read more