LOS ANGELES (AP) — In a move that heightens the growing tension between Silicon Valley and Hollywood, Wikipedia and other websites went dark Wednesday in protest of two congressional proposals intended to thwart the online piracy of copyrighted movies and TV programs. Source: Protest exposes Silicon Valley-Hollywood rivalry – Yahoo! News.
The Google Doodle for today is a fully functional Pac-Man game complete with 256 levels and a 2-player mode and everything. That is cool – it’s the first time they’ve done it – but the really cool thing is how the world reacted. News of the doodle raced through national media and social media sources like NYDailyNews, CBS, NPR, Twitter, and Facebook, at blazing fast speeds. Of course, since it’s related to the Internet, all of the web sites that cater to computer geeks spread the word even faster: CNET, geek.com, pcmag.com. It certainly caused a spike in Google Trends.
It seemed like the whole world – or at least America – was playing today. It was so bad some people were asking the question, “How much is this costing us (American companies) in lost productivity?” It also seemed like it wasn’t tied to the generation that played the original Pac-Man when it was release in 1980. Kids to seniors were on google.com playing the game.
It’s the Pac-Man 30th anniversary this weekend, and Google is celebrating as only Google can: with a free online game embedded in its homepage logo. Source: Pac-Man 30th anniversary: Google celebrates with free online Pac-Man game hidden in logo – go play! | NYDailyNews.com
I think this video was really an ad for Google – maybe one of the long, lost tapes.
It struck me last night as I was getting ready for bed that the colors in the video match Google almost perfectly. If “red” and “green” were switched the colors would match.
Source: YouTube – OK Go – This Too Shall Pass – RGM version.
I was surfing through YouTube and found this video about Google Maps Favorite Places – really cool – so I tried to lookup some favorite places on my own. I didn’t find what I was looking for and one thing lead to another and I found the rainbow at E 14th and Broadway. Who knew rainbows dared show up over New York.
I was surfing around Google maps and look what I found – a rainbow over New York.
It was 40 years ago today that man landed on the moon. A lot has happened in 40 years; A LOT.
We have Space Shuttles and Mars Rovers and had two space stations. Today, astronauts celebrated the moonwalk by doing a spacewalk outside of the Space Shuttle, Endeavour.
We have computers that fit on one hand that are more powerful than the whole room full of computers at Johnson Space Center (Houston) in 1969.
We have the Internet and cellular phones that bounce signals off satellites.
“One small step for Google Earth is one giant step for moon buffs. Google has updated its popular mapping software Google Earth 5.0 with a complete map of the moon that lets you explore craters, historic sites, and human artifacts. You can even view the moon in the style of Google Street View, checking out astronauts as they wander the moon’s surface.” Source: PCWorld.com
Well Google has compiled their most searched list for 2008. Funny how the term zeitgeist found its way on to the name of their list. I guess it fits my definition of zeitgeist.