Meet the Creative Doodlers of Google Logo

Aside from being an ideal search engine, what makes me want to visit Google is the excitement of seeing the doodles on its logo! Who can’t forget Pac-Man’s 30^th anniversary Google logo where you can actually play the game? I can also remember the playable music video of Imagine on John Lennon’s birthday this year. And who would have thought that the main doodlers of Google have already attained a unique career in their company?

Yes, the team of the talented and clever google doodlers of the search engine led by Chief Doodler Michael Lopez has already become a regular job position and they are really doing great works every now and then. But though this Google job has formally started only in 2003, the tradition has already started years ago even in the early days of the search engine. According to the founders of the company Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the first doodle that they can remember doing was making the second ‘O’ of the logo a stick figure using a clip art.

According to the former lead doodler Dennis Hwang, "Larry and Sergey had done some of these themselves and they used freelance artists. The doodles didn't have any consistency, and they covered mainly the big U.S. holidays. So when I joined, we started a slightly more formal process and looked at how to have more fun with it."

At present, the doodler team is composed of four people led by Lopez where they think of ways on how they can make great logo tweaks that will somehow become fun, informative, and timely.

Photo credit: Lea Suzuki - The Chronicle via Gizmodo

Blackbox Macbook Cases Goes Naturally Wooden

When sometimes we feel like metal and glass are all over our gadgets then it’s time to look back for wood designs. The wooden Blackbox Macbook now offer this vey posh and stylish cases that will really give you a new feel of technological devices. The natural design is more detailed and it is so far the only one’s that I have seen so far.

This wooden case available in the market now is hand-oiled and hand-sanded individually to give each of it a high-class quality. This case is lightweight that it only weighs 1.5 pounds.

Photo credit: Blackbox

Bike-Sharing Scheme Using WiFi and GPS – New York

If you think cars can only have wireless Internet system and satellite tracking technology, now, bicycles can also be equipped with WiFi and GPS. In fact, the Department of Transportation in New York City is proposing to equip the technology to 10,000 bikes. This scheme is actually a pimped community bike plan that was already started in places like Denver, Minneapolis, Washington, and Amsterdam.

When this happens, it will become the largest bike-sharing system in the entire United States. Aside from the number of bikes, they can also be available 24 hours a day with unlimited 30-min long hire periods. Hiring a bike can be done by subscription which is also accessible in 30 docking stations strategically located in the city. This can also be the greenest ever cycling experience since 600 of these bikes are solar-powered.

This can be a new amazing experience for bikers that is on its way.

Photo credit: Fastco

Update Your iPad and iPhone with the Latest iOS 4.2

The honest-to-goodness iOS 4.2 is now out to give iPad and iPhone users the newest features that will give additional experiences such as multitasking, AirPlay, and Find My iPhone free service.

Multitasking

If you are an “appoholic” and you love to use different kinds of apps switching them back and forth, now you can get rid of flipping through page after page of them because switching is made easier. Finally, you also get a unified inbox! Another extra that you will love is the change of orientation lock to a mute switch. By just double-tapping the home button, the orientation will be locked. To reach a soft switch, all you have to do is to swipe it to the left.

AirPlay

This feature lets you wirelessly stream music and videos from iPad or iPhone to an Apple TV without the fuss. Another called AirPrint, on the other hand, will let you print docs and webpages to a printer wirelessly.

Find My iPhone

This service is free though limited only to iPhone4, iPod Touch 4^th gen, and iPad. By using a map, you will be able to find your lost iOS device by using this service. You just have to make sure that the service is activated.

Other iOS 4.2 features

You can get new ringtones for your iPhone4, text searching inside Safari webpages, and different fonts that you can select to use in the Notes app.

You can get the iOS 4.2 update by plugging your device in iTunes and then check for updates.

Photo credit: Apple

Train’s Railway Becomes Pasta ‘Al Dente’

It’s not like you are seeing a Photoshop’d funny picture featuring a warped railway but you are actually looking at a real photograph.

This picture scene was an after-effect of the recent earthquake that hit the countryside of Canterburry in New Zealand last September. The said calamity had caused several traces of destruction in the area which includes land deformation.

According to Dave Petley via the American Geophysical Union, the above picture of land and railway deformation might be caused by weak points being hit by the tremors. He speculates and I quote:

“The compression on the very strong railway line was accommodated when a weak point was found, leading to a comparatively rapid deformation to form the main buckle on the left. This then concentrated stress on both sides of the buckle, allowing the other (right side) bends to form."

The lesson that we can get from this photograph is to be always prepared whenever Mother Nature starts to shake our grounds.

Photo credit: AGU.org via Gizmodo

Tizi Box Lets You Watch Live TV on Your iPad!

With the new Tizi service, you can now get live TV watching experience right on your iPad using Eye TV. This service requires computer streaming which can work anywhere but people from Europe will be the first ones to enjoy this offer.

The secret to the Tizi TV technology is the pulling of DVB-T/DT signals by using its ARM 9 process in decoding. The decoded signal will then be streamed to an iOS device using WiFi technology. You can even enjoy watching your favorite programs with this service by having an app that will let you use an on-screen channel guide to help you tune-in different programs.

The gadget just looks likes a tiny box which is convenient enough to be carried anywhere you want with your iPad, iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, and latest iPod Touch. The battery can last up to 3.5 hours. Though it is only available in selected countries in Europe, there are big hopes that this gadget will soon be conquering the US.

Photo credit: Tizi via Gizmodo