Colin McDermott

Archive for the ‘News’ Category

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Google have celebrated Keith Haring’s 54th birthday with a Google Doodle on the homepage of Google worldwide.

Keith Haring (May 4th, 1958 – February 16th, 1990) was a hugely influential figure in the street art and graphic design world.

Haring’s designs have inspired many with their simple, yet expressive vibrancy.

He painted large murals all over the world, from New York to Amsterdam, Sydney, Paris and the Berlin Wall.

Haring was said to have himself been influenced by the anti-Apartheid movement, AIDS awareness, and the crack cocaine epidemic.

In 1988 Keith was diagnosed with AIDS, and the following year created the Keith Haring Foundation.

As of March 2012 there is a retrospective exhibition of Haring’s work at the Brooklyn Museum in New York.

Google have celebrated the 30th anniversary of the ZX Spectrum and St George’s Day with a Google Doodle combining the two.

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Google have celebrated Mother’s Day 2012 with a new Google Doodle on the Google homepage.

The super-cute design looks like it has been drawn in crayon, and has two cute little children – a young girl and boy – as the two “O”s in “Google”.

It has also has a few scattered love hearts and a sun in the background.

Two crayons are placed to the right of the image.

Mother’s Day – Mothering Sunday in the UK –  is celebrated every year on the fourth Sunday of Lent, between the 1st March and 4th April.

Google have celebrated St. Patrick’s Day 2012 with a new Google Doodle.

Saint Patrick’s Day (in Irish: Lá Fhéile Pádraig) is celebrated annually on the 17th March.

The day celebrates the life (or in fact death) of Saint Patrick, the most commonly known saint of Ireland.

St Patricks day festivals take part all over the world, and many people get very, very drunk.

Find out more about St. Patrick’s Day:

• http://stpatricksday.com/
• http://www.stpatricksfestival.ie/
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Patrick

Google have celebrated International Women’s Day 2012 with a Google Doodle on their homepage.

The Google Doodle is a simple design, with a crafty, almost retro look that wouldn’t be out of place on Etsy.

Thursday 8th March 2012 is the 101st International Women’s Day (IWD).

Events all over the world are taking place today to celebrate. “Connecting Girls, Inspiring Futures” is the theme for the 2012 on the IWD website, though there are many different themes around the world.

Source: internationalwomensday.com

The 2012 IWD doodle follows a much more classicly styled IWD Google Doodle design in 2011.

IWD is celebrated regularly by Google. You can see the last few years of designs here on Doodle news.

The Google Doodle is being displayed world-wide on the Google homepage, on Google.co.uk, Google.com, Google.jp, Google.com.au, Google.nz, Google.ca, Google.co.in and more.

Useful International Women’s Day 2012 links:

• InternationalWomensDay.com
• InternationalWomensDay.org
• Oxfam.org.uk
• Guardian.co.uk
• Manchester.gov.uk

Google have celebrated St David’s day with a fresh Google Doodle on their homepage.

The doodle has a Welsh Dragon (Y Ddraig Goch) smelling a daffodil flower. Google is written in stone in the background, with the dragon’s tail curled around the “l”.

The red dragon appears on the national flag of Wales.

The oldest official recorded use of the red dragon to symbolise Wales was in the Historia Brittonum, written sometime around 829 AD.

St David is the patron saint of Wales. St David’s day is a celebration of both St David and Welsh culture, in Wales, as well as internationally.

The Welsh flag adorned with the red dragon is often prominently displayed.

Additionally the daffodils (or leeks) are pinned to clothes as they are a symbol of Wales.

As well as St David’s day, the 1st of March also marks the day Google push ahead with their changes to their privacy policies.

I personally think it is a big storm in a tea-cup, surely merging all the long complicated individual privacy policies into one simple one is a good thing.

Until today only Google+ brand-page owners could use the profile badge feature. Users complained that when they tried to add a badge, it wouldn’t show up, even when using the preview tool.

Google have just announced via an email to to members of the Google+ preview group and also via a blogpost that it is now possible to create a profile badge for personal users.

To create the badge, there is a new page called “Profile Config Tool” under Plugins > Badge on the Google+ Developers site.

Enter a valid Google+ profile ID in the box to start creating the badge.

You can see an image of the badge above.

Using the advanced options it is possible to adjust the width of badge from the default 300px.

It is possible to create a more squared shaped badge by reducing the width below 170px, which seems to be smallest size the badge can be made before the shape changes.

The inital design with width at 300px appears initially to have a lot of white space on the right side of the badge. However the reason for this is made clear if you see a the badge after adding someone to a circle. The circle someone is added to is displayed in the whitespace, filling the gap nicely.

You can see a badge side by side with a brand badge here.

Why are the new Google+ personal badges useful?

The badges will most likely fit the requirement for personal blogs/websites/portfolios, places where you don’t necessarily that don’t necessarily want people to +1 you or your content, but you do want people to follow you on Google+. The badges are similar to the Twitter “Follow” button in this respect.

The change is part of a wider aim for Google to make it easier for users to follow friends, family and favourite users on Google+.

In addition to the personal badges, Google have also released updates to the +1 button and brand badges.

Google have also released a Google+ style guide [PDF] for brands/businesses.

Had to do a quick post on the latest “World record for the largest observed snowflake” Google Doodle.
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Google are celebrating the 118th birthday of Albert Szent-Györgyi with a fresh doodle on their homepage today.

Hungarian Szent-Györgyi is credited with leading the team that played a major part in discovering Vitamin C in 1933.

Chemist Tadeus Reichstein was later able to synthesize the Vitamin C in bulk, leading to it becoming the first mass produced vitamin.

For Szent-Györgyi’s part in the discovery he was awarded the 1937 Nobel Prize in Medicine.