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He named it World Wide Web

How well are we connecting?

The Internet - a decade later

Happy birthday, Google!

Fifteen years ago this month, two Stanford grad students founded a company called Google, named after the mathematical term googol, which represents the number one followed by a hundred zeros. Today’s Google Doodle, a keyboard piñata game, commemorates the big day.

The company that Sergey Brin and Larry Page founded was actually established on September 7, 1998, but the official “birthday” was later switched to September 27, as noted by SearchEngineLand’s Danny Sullivan. Before the search tool had even launched at google.com, Page told Sullivan, “I’d like to build a service where the priority is on giving users great results.”

Fifteen years later - after expanding to everything from email to mobile operating systems to a quest to conquer death - Google has changed the technology landscape forever. And it still boasts a whopping 66.9% marketshare among search engines in the U.S., according to ComScore’s latest rankings. For some extra fun, try typing “google in 1998″ in the google search box to see how far the company has come.

In, TIME

Image credits: GOOGLE    

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Google's Doodles

April Fools & Google

Google's Project Glass

April Foolery on the Web

April Fools' Day is a trial for readers of newspapers and other media as they attempt to spot the anagrams and other clues that tip the wink that a particular story is a work of fiction. BBC New Magazine has selected a round-up of some of this year's bizarre stories that are true, or seriously intended at least. Read about the ten stories that look like pranks but aren't HERE. Olivia B. Waxman, from TIME NewsFeed, writes about April Fool's 2013 and the 10 best pranks from aoround the web, among which are YouTube's announcement of shutting down and Google Nose (Beta). 'Google celebrates April Fool's Day in its usual style' is also a very interesting article about this web foolery, by Prasad, for Gsmarena Blog.

Image by Google Nose (Beta)

Nevertheless the above fabulous pranks, Harry MacCracken, from TIME Tech, explains what was Google’s Greatest April Fool’s Hoax EVER, which turned out to not being a hoax, after all! 'It was Google that kicked off the age of Internet April Foolery back in 2000, and the company continues to ratchet up the quantity and ambition of its hoaxes each year. I cheerfully concede that it does a much better job than most of the others which have followed its lead. Still, Google has never topped a prank it played in 2004 - one which was so effective that most people, to this day, don’t think of it as a prank. I speak of the launch of Gmail, on April 1, 2004. (...) But improbable though Gmail seemed - and despite the April 1 timestamp on the news - it was real. The hoax was that it wasn’t a hoax. Instead, it was one of the most important web services that anybody ever unveiled. Genius. Back in 2004, a gigabyte of online storage was such an impossibly copious amount that Google said it would eliminate the need to delete messages, period. Wrong! Now Gmail offers 10GB of space, and while that amount is generous, it’s far from being all the space anyone could conceivably need: I pay for 25GB of space and expect to fill it all up within the next few years. (At the moment, I have 13.5GB of stuff.) What seemed unimaginable in 2004 - enormous amounts of cloud storage, for free - is now utterly mundane, thanks in part to Gmail’s pioneering largesse.

Source: TIME Tech (abridged)

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The origins of April Fool's Day
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Hackers, beware!

Is Wikipedia an academic source?

According to Stacia Levy, neither Wikipedia, nor Google are trustworthy academic sources! Why? Let's take a look at the article she wrote for BusyTeacher.org about appropriate research: 'Almost every time I assign a research paper, I’ll get completed papers turned in that list Wikipedia as a source and sometimes even Webster’s Dictionary. I have a required number of sources, so students apparently sometimes 'pad' their numbers. But I think there is something else going on here. Students have the entire Internet at their disposal, after all, so certainly they can find more appropriate sources. But that may just be the problem: what’s an appropriate source? Students today are exposed to an unprecedented glut of information, and have no way to evaluate it. It becomes our job to teach them how, and this is teaching the research process itself. (...)

Also discuss places to locate scholarly articles: Google may not be the best way. An example I like to give is from my own experience doing some research on The Holocaust. If you Google 'Holocaust,' perhaps millions of search results come up, many of them are the home pages of hate groups whose mission is Holocaust denial. However, if you use a more select search engine like Academic Search Premier, available through many universities, most of the hits you get, while smaller in number, will be the work of scholars writing in their area of expertise. It is much better to get a select group of articles you can actually use than a lot of material of dubious quality.'

In, BusyTeacher (abridged)

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The Internet - a decade later

Google's Doodles

I couldn't finish this week's main topic without mentioning the Google's doodles!... Like many people, I am a Google's doodles fan. So here goes some information about this fantastic every now and then Google's logo metamorphosis!... 

Image credits: Google

'Over the years, doodles on the Google homepage have made searching on Google more fun and enjoyable for its users worldwide. When doodles were first created, nobody had anticipated how popular and integral they would become to the Google search experience. Nowadays, many users excitedly anticipate the release of each new doodle and some even collect them! Doodles are known as the decorative changes that are made to the Google logo to celebrate holidays, anniversaries, and the lives of famous artists and scientists. Whether it is the beginning of Spring, Albert Einstein's birthday, or the 50th anniversary of understanding DNA, the doodle team never fails to find artistic ways to celebrate these unique events.'

Source: Doodle4Google (abridged)

I would suggest you a visit to TimePhotos to know more about this topic through a fantastic photo gallery, as well as to Google Doodle, where you can take a look at the most amazing doodles ever! 

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Google's Project Glass

One Giant Fun House...

... named Googleplex!

Google needs its engineers to come up with brilliant ideas, and to help them do that, a highly creative, relaxed and exciting environment apparently seems to do the trick. Take a look at the pictures and video below... Don't they make you wonder whether it is actually possible that people do work HERE? The photos' credits go to Google.

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Behind Google, Inc.

Who needs Teachers?

'Why do I need a teacher when I’ve got Google?' is just one of the challenging, controversial and thought-provoking questions Ian Gilbert poses in his long-awaited follow up to the classic Essential Motivation in the Classroom. Questioning the unquestionable, this book will make you re-consider everything you thought you knew about teaching and learning, such as: What’s the real point of school?; Exams – so whose bright idea was that?;  Why ‘EQ’ is fast becoming the new ‘IQ’; What will your school policy be on brain-enhancing technologies? (...)

With his customary combination of hard-hitting truths, practical classroom ideas and irreverent sense of humour, Ian Gilbert takes the reader on a breathless rollercoaster ride through burning issues of the twenty-first century. This book is designed to challenge teachers and inform them – as well as encourage them – as they strive to design a 21st  century learning experience that really does bring the best out of all young people. After all, the future of the world may just depend on it. You can take a look inside the book, if you please, by following this link!...

Found both text and picture at amazon.co.uk (abridged and adapted)

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Rebranding teachers

Google's Project Glass

I first heard about this project via The Blog Teacher, whose author and editor is my PineTree mate Filipe Mendes!... At the time I thought this was kind of an awkward project but now I don't find it that unmanageable anymore!... Do you remember people's first reactions to mobile phones? Or even to computers? Well, to know more about this intriguing project, watch the video below and follow this link!... I can only say: perilously tending to cause addiction!...

Credit: Google

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One Giant Fun House...

April Fools & Google

April Fools' Day happens on the first day of April, but do you know why we play tricks, gags and practical jokes on one another? 

History

In the 16th century, France celebrated the New Year just like we do today, except they partied on April 1st. In 1562, Pope Gregory changed the calendar to the one we use today and from then on, the New Year began on January 1st. Lots of people didn't know about the new calendar, or they ignored the new calendar and kept celebrating on April 1st. Everyone else called them April fools and played tricks on them.

Fools Around the World

In France today, April 1st is called Poisson d'Avril, which means April Fish. Children tape paper fish to their friends' backs and when the young 'fool' finds out, the prankster yells 'Poisson d'Avril'. In England, tricks can only be played in the morning. If a trick is played on you, you are a 'noodle'. In Scotland, you are called an 'April gow', which is another name for a cuckoo bird. In Portugal, April Fools' is best known as 'Dia das Mentiras'.

Practical Jokes on April Fool's Day

April Fools' practical jokes should be done in good fun and not meant to harm anyone. The best jokes are the clever ones where everyone laughs, especially the person who had the joke played on them.

Found information
@April Fools' Day (adapted)

Google is a great fun of April Fools...

The first Google April Fools's joke dates back 2000. Last year, Google April Fools' joke was about Gmail Motion '(...)which was a new way to communicate. The mouse and keyboard were invented before the Internet even existed. Since then, countless technological advancements have allowed for much more efficient human computer interaction. Why then do we continue to use outdated technology? Introducing Gmail Motion — now you can control Gmail with your body.'

Rumour has it, this year's Google doodle will be something like this...

Find out more
@April Fools' Day Jokes by Google

Thank you, Google

              Google's doodle and video to celebrate this year's IWD