

Google.com has an animated logo using an HTML/JavaScript particle simulator - bgentry
http://www.google.com

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rubypay
Here's a copy for anyone that can't see it:
<http://www.rubypay.com/google/Google.htm> The version on Google's site is a
little different, it clears away the static particles when the logo is in
motion.

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supadog
Love it, one of the more interesting google logos. I'm still not sure whether
dynamic identities are good or bad for a brand. The pros are it keeps the
brand fresh, it allows the users to interact with the brand. But the cons are
it can make the brand less recognisable and maybe the confusing for some
users. Thoughts?

~~~
davidcann
Sure, that's a consideration for smaller brands, but I don't think google has
any trouble with consistent brand recognition.

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1amzave
Anyone else finding it...slightly annoying? I mean it's neat-looking, but
having a big distracting animation pop up every time I open a new browser
window (google.com is my home page) is a little less neat.

~~~
mike-cardwell
The SSL version of Google doesn't have it:

<https://www.google.com/>

~~~
niels_olson
or use IE 7 :-)

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modeless
The particles are divs styled with border-radius and position:absolute. Seems
like SVG, Canvas, or CSS transforms would be better; I wonder if they chose
border-radius and position:absolute for speed or compatibility? I don't have a
copy of IE around to try; do they do something different there?

It's amazing the hoops people are willing to jump through to get fast graphics
on the web. When WebGL comes out and makes all these hacks obsolete you're
going to start seeing some _really_ amazing stuff.

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rythie
IE doesn't support SVG, Canvas, or CSS transforms.

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modeless
Or border-radius. So they have to have a special IE mode regardless.

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rwmj
They should just have used a static logo for IE ...

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rlm
I don't see it in ANY browser.

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thenbrent
Try <http://www.google.co.uk>

That is the only Google site I found it on.

~~~
rlm
Thanks! It worked there for me too.

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thisisblurry
Here is a gist of of the JavaScript file that helps to create the experience:
<https://gist.github.com/eeae3d6aa1ac04f074cf>

At a glance, it looks remarkably simple. It also looks as though Google is
using parts of the Closure library as well.

~~~
eclark
Most of google's js web apps use closure pretty heavily. It's not that big a
stretch to think that there would be some cross pollination.

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points
Never mind that, does everyone else get the funky new streaming search results
on google using Chrome?

    
    
      1. Go to google.com
      2. Start typing
      3. It moves the search box while you're still typing
      4. It starts streaming and updating results in real time as you type.
    

It's crazy awesome.

~~~
eogas
Strange, mine doesn't do that. I'm even on chrome.

~~~
points
Looks like I'm one of the privileged few! ;)

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MJR
This is seriously distracting and I really wonder how many users are going to
be completely dumbfounded by the circles floating around where the logo used
to be.

An event-based illustrated logo is a simple switch-out. There's not much
resistance to understanding the meaning there. The Pac-Man game logo was a bit
more complete, but Pac-Man is universally recognized. This on the other hand -
how may people will see the logo when they move their cursor away and
understand that something on the page isn't broken - that it's intentional?

It will be interesting to see the larger reaction from everyday Google users.

~~~
yanw
Tweeps seem to like it, and it doesn't showup in IE.

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bd
It works in IE7 (pretty fast), just all particles have the same size.

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ericz
Anyone know if the logo has any meaning beyond the cool tech demo?

~~~
tdmackey
Google's birthday, I am assuming. Although they tend to flipflop between the
7th and 27th.

~~~
studer
[http://searchengineland.com/google-balls-logo-not-googles-
bi...](http://searchengineland.com/google-balls-logo-not-googles-
birthday-49965) claims to have an official statement:

"Today’s doodle is not related to a birthday but is fast, fun and interactive,
just the way we think search should be."

and mentions that there's a Google press conference tomorrow.

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Judson
Really interesting (at least a few drinks into the night). I tried to click on
the logo (obviously to no avail).

Anyone know if it has any deep meaning?

~~~
kprobst
That Google engineers are bored?

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brianpan
That they have a new toy to play with. It looks to me like the part of the
Arcade Fire video where the birds are flying away from your mouse cursor.

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pmorici
I surprised they screw with their logo as much as they do. I know for a fact
this confuses the heck out of less technically savvy individuals.

~~~
hellweaver666
I'm not... I must have seen about 100 tweets today from people talking about
the logo, plus stories on social news sites like HN and Reddit etc.

It's a genius idea because the frequent changes are enough for some people to
keep Google.com as their homepage and it gets people talking about Google as
well.

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pjscott
It's really cute and clever, and if my grandmother has used Google today, she
was probably overcome with fright that she had broken something.

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thu
I don't like their links fading-in (I could click faster on, say, language
tools if I had not to wait). Now they make my browser choke (firefox on
netbook, cpu in powersave).

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fookyong
any way to direct-link to it? I think it might not show up for non-US
locations. certainly nothing to see on google.co.jp

~~~
bgentry
Tried to think of a way before I posted it but couldn't come up with anything.
I would happily change the URL if somebody knows how to direct link.

~~~
igravious
As somebody above says, <http://www.google.co.uk> works :)

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oliveoil
hmm.. a clever trick for non-chrome users to realize how slow the javascript
in their browser is?

~~~
endtime
If we're playing that game, I suspect the reason it doesn't show up in Opera
is that Opera's JS engine is faster. ;-)

~~~
photon_off
I've been developing a Javascript intensive bookmarklet for the past month or
so. It works on FF, Chrome, Safari, even IE6. But on Opera, I cannot figure
out why it behaves so glitchy. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, but
it never, ever shows me any errors. Maybe this has to do with the fact that it
caches things even when you tell it not to. In addition to that, AFAIK there's
no way to deselect text (without breaking other things), which makes
developing drag and drop pretty much impossible on it. It's "developer tools"
show you a big list of "errors" which are mostly it knit-picking various CSS
properties things that it doesn't support, like rounded corners for example.

Perhaps I'm wrong. Maybe my code is getting run perfectly, but it's just
happening so blazingly fast that it doesn't affect anything at all. In which
case, I'd still give Opera the big "fuck you" that I'm feeling after writing
this.

But hey, when you open a new tab it animates.

~~~
sgift
> that it doesn't support, like rounded corners for example.

Maybe you should use the current version for your tests, which supports
rounded corners.

~~~
photon_off
I am. Or at least the update checker says I am. I'm running windows if that
matters.

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olalonde
Works on <http://www.google.co.uk>

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meemo
fun game: try to see how many particles you can trap in a corner while the
rest of the logo stabilizes. I can get two easily and have almost gotten
three.

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kwamenum86
I see it in Firefox but not in Chrome from some reason...

~~~
d2viant
Working for me. Running 7.0.514.0 canary build.

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rakkhi
very cool love it, html5 I assume?

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tommizzle
Best Google Doodle of all time?

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yanw
What's really cool is that when you move the browser window around, the
particles move accordingly.

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neilk
I really hope this is part of a campaign to kill off IE6.

