Today would have been Charles Addams 100th birthday who was born in Westfield, New Jersey in 1912. He was arguably most famous for creating the Addams family that has been commemorated in today’s Google Doodle. While he was still very young he had a love for coffins, skeletons, and tombstones that was used as the foundation of his later work.

In 1935 his first ever cartoon was published in the magazine New Yorker, which was long before his fun tales went mainstream. Before this it was his father that encouraged him to draw, and he went on to create cartoons for the Westfield High School magazine.

From 1938 he had regular cartoons published in the New Yorker, and served at the Signal Corps Photographic Center in New York during the Second World War. The Addams Family TV series was first started after a TV producer approached Addams for help to create it by using his own humor. The series ran for only two seasons between 1964 and 1966.

Addams passed away in 1988 on September 29th after suffering a heart attack while parking his car. Instead of a funeral Addams requested a wake and his ashes were buried at the pet cemetery of his estate that was called The Swamp. Head over to Wikipedia for more information about the life of Charles Addams.

Were you a fan of the Addams Family?

More About: Charles Addams, google, Google Doodle

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We were half expecting Google to release some kind of animated extravaganza for their annual Christmas doodle, especially after the amazing interactive game that they created to celebrate the anniversary of Stanislaw Lem.

Unfortunately, this wasn’t to be the case and if you head to Google right now, you’ll see that the search engine giant has opted for a rather simple approach with the letters of their logo lit up by various Christmas neon designs. At least they have crammed almost every single aspect of Christmas into their logo, which includes snowflakes, Santa, bells, Snowmen, candles and of course presents!

This Christmas doodle isn’t the only thing that Google has done to celebrate Christmas though. The company has also released an excellent video, in which they and many of Google’s employees have created which again wishes Android users a Happy Holiday. During the video we also see frequent appearances from the recently released Galaxy Nexus, including a slick camo from the Android Beam feature from Ice Cream Sandwich.

Just like Apple’s Christmas Ad, Google’s video also features Santa, as he makes his way through Google headquarters much to everyone’s excitement. We then see the outside of Google’s building covered with snow, to which snowball fights ensue before everyone finally huddles together for a group photo.

We liked Apple’s Christmas video and this is another great one from Google. If this doesn’t get you into the Christmas spirit, we’re not sure what will frankly, so check out the video below and enjoy it. Will you be enjoying Christmas with an Android or iPhone?

More About: google, Google Doodle

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There’s nothing special to say about today’s Doodle, although on the printed circuit you can see Google taking pride of place. It’s a nice gesture for the biggest invention for electronics to be celebrated by one of the largest companies in the technology business.

Noyce co-invented the integrated circuit with friend Jack Kilby, Noyce also went on to be the co-founder of Fairchild Semiconductor and then Intel Corporation. However, he was also tied to a number of other companies in an advisory role, as well as an investor to others.

It was when Robert Noyce left Fairchild Semiconductor that he co-founded Intel, which we have to be thankful for, where would we be now if there was no Intel? Noyce started something that we have seen the likes of Google follow, and that was to treat his workers as though they were family – not sure if Intel will still apply the same ethic now?

He had a great vision of how he would have liked to shape the US, and it all starts with the young. Preparing them for the future was very important to him, no matter what their background was. We would have liked to see him take up a position in today’s US government, maybe he could have taught the politician’s a thing or two about putting more in than you take out?

More About: Google Doodle, Intel

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If you go to the Google Home page you are met with a Doodle from the story where Tom Sawyer tricks his friends into painting a fence. The American author was most famous for his novels The Adventures of Tom Sawyer from 1876. Then came its sequel in 1885 the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, which was often called the Great American Novel.

Mark Twain was the author’s pen name with his real name being Samuel Langhorne Clemens, who was born on this day in 1835. He grew up in Hannibal, Missouri that went on to provide the setting for his novels. He began work as a printer and also worked as a typesetter and helped his older brother with his newspaper.

Twain then went on to become a riverboat pilot on the Mississippi River before turning to gold mining. This didn’t work out so he then turned his hand to journalism and wrote The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County. He made a lot of money from his writings but bad investments saw him lose a lot as well.

He was born during a visit by Halley’s Comet and famously predicted he would “go out with it”, and died on April 21st 1910 one day after Halley’s Comet passed close to earth. To find out more about Mark Twain’s life and work head over to Wikipedia.

More About: google, Google Doodle, Mark Twain

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If you are a fan of Sci-Fi novels, you’ll have probably read Solaris, which is arguably Stanislaw Lem’s finest book, although you may be familiar with some of his other books such as His Master’s Voice and Fiasco.

We’re going to focus on the Google Doodle as always though, and what a treat Google has provided everyone. Unlike their standard animation doodles (check out their Halloween one here), this one is highly interactive and it allows the user to participate in a series of games using an animated character that bears a resemblance to Stanislaw Lem.

Games include tapping digits into a giant robot’s calculator body, with the user having to alter the layout of certain digit patterns in order to get the correct math code, since the robot makes life difficult for you. Next you’ll have to allign the correct frequency patterns that you see moving across the screen, by using the buttons and arrows to select the right pattern. Each time more buttons are required to match the pattern, as you’ll see in an example below.

Finally, you just have to fire off the rocket so that the little character lands on the moving cube across the screen and once you’ve done this step, you’ll get the final piece needed to reinsert the head of another peculiar character, and pressing the button one last time will start an explosion and redirect you to the Stanislaw Lem Google search results page where you can view his Wikipedia page for further information.

As far as we’re aware, we haven’t seen such an interactive homepage game from Google before, one which requires users to think a bit. The Pacman Doodle was great of course, but this just might be a close contender for the best Doodle yet. You can check out the design for yourself now, providing that your time zone has already reached November 23. For those of you that can see, what are your thoughts on Google’s design – did you play the game till the end?

More About: google, Google Doodle

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The Noble prizewinning scientist is celebrated on the Google homepage with a simple image with her working away at her work bench. She was born in Poland and is best known with her work in fighting cancer and her part with radioactivity. According to Wikipedia she was born today in 1867 in Warsaw, Poland, but moved to Paris in 1891.

Working with her husband Pierre she discovered polonium and radium, and along with her husband received the Nobel Prize for physics in 1903 with Henri Becquerel for the discovery of radioactivity. She also helped to develop mobile x-ray units during the First World War that were used to diagnose injuries on the battle field.

Then in October 1914 she went to the battlefront and worked with her 17 year old daughter working to help wounded soldiers using the x-ray machines to locate bullets and shrapnel. Curie also helped to train doctors and other staff in the new techniques, before going on to win another Nobel Prize for chemistry in 1911. Unfortunately her work contributed to her death in 1934 of pernicious anemia, which was a result of exposure to radiation.

She was probably the first woman to be interred in the Pantheon in Paris for her achievements, and possibly the first to get recognition for her work in science. For more information on Marie Curie go to Wikipedia.

More About: google, Google Doodle, Marie Curie

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Depending on which area you’re living in at the moment, you may not be able to see the new design yet. That means that those of you in the US should see it live in the next hour or so, but those in the UK and parts of Asia and Australia will already be able to see the video on their homepage.

It shows a speeded-up video of employees actually designing the Google Halloween doodle from scratch. The Google letters have been created with pumpkins, with each pumpkin being cut out to correspond with a letter to spell out G-o-o-g-l-e from left to right. In a further twist, each pumpkin has been fitted with glow in the dark lights to create that spooky Halloween effect and at the end of the clip, we see Google switch off the lights and show the finished design in full force.

It is another stroke of genius from the search giant and another logo which we’re sure users will love seeing in the morning. Some of you are probably still out partying in your costumes right now so the logo will serve as the icing on the cake if you decide to hop on online when you get back. For those that can’t see the video yet on Google’s homepage, we’ve added it for you below, as well as a few screenshots showing the design process.

Is this one of the best Google doodle ideas yet in your opinion? We’re loving the randomness going on in the video as well, did anyone else spot the totally random Santa Claus? Happy Halloween everyone!

More About: google, Google Doodle

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Google’s latest homepage design celebrates the 100th anniversary of Mary Blair, and the search engine giant has paid her a fitting tribute by giving her a doodle in the style of one of her works.

Depending on your location, you may not see the Doodle yet until the clock strikes after 12, but surfers in the likes of New Zealand, Australia, Hong Kong and other parts of Asia should already be able to see it on Google.com. If not, here is the image that you’ll see:

From 1950 through to 1953, Blair was credited wtih color stylings for some very famous Disney films that we have all come to love today, these are Cinderella in 1950, Alice in Wonderland in 1951 and also Peter Pan in 1953.

As Disney fans ourselves, we have picked out some of some favorite work from Blair to give you a reminder that she was part of the creative team behind some of the most memorable Disney films in history.

[Cinderella]

[Peter Pan]

[Alice in Wonderland]

As you can see, Google has tried to recreate her style as much as possible with the doodle, and we’d say that they are pretty spot on. She was also responsible for many children’s books so maybe you even have some old Disney books lying around, featuring some of Blairs work inside.

Are you familiar with this artist, or are you just finding out about her now thanks to Google’s doodle? That’s another great thing about these doodles – aside from usually being visually impressive, they also have their educational purposes for perhaps the younger generation who are just finding out about key figures in life for the very first time.

What are your thoughts on today’s doodle, do you like it? Are Peter Pan, Alice in Wonderland and Cinderella some of your favorite Disney films of all time?

More About: Google Doodle, Walt Disney

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When you land on Google’s homepage you’ll see the gang invade your screen, as always there are a few tricks to figure out, although this Google Doodle is not as impressive as others we’ve seen in the past, but it’s still welcomed.

What memories do you have of the TV character Gumby and the popular TV Show? Do you remember the video game based on Gumby, which was released by Namco?

The last few doodles included one for The Muppets last month, and also a 13th birthday doodle for Google themselves. We didn’t see much for Breast Cancer Awareness month, although we can slightly understand why this might be but something would’ve been nice.

Do you have a favorite doodle, and what do you think of todays? As always, you can see a nice list of Google logos going right back to 1998 at google.com/logos, and up to the last one, which was just two days ago in celebration of Fridtjof Nansen’s 150th Birthday.

More About: google, Google Doodle

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Within the last couple of days we also heard that Microsoft had apparently spent over five billion dollars on Bing, and wondered how much this had helped the software maker take on Google. Now we’ve had some news sent to us about Microsoft wanting to bring a little animation magic to Bing, and this was detailed in a post here, which explains that Bing now features a “HTML5 Google Doodle”.

Google has become well known for their doodle’s that honor people and events around the world, with some being featured only in certain countries. This has become very popular with searches, and when they see a new Google Doodle, the hunt to find out more about the person or topic begins, also many interactive doodles have the user playing for a while. In the case of Pacman some people were on the Google homepage for hours.

It’s doubtful you can call the Microsoft version “Bing Doodle”, but some cool names given by readers so far included “Bing Bling”, which we thought was pretty smart. If Bing’s new HTML5 features showing different images were going to be similar to Google’s Doodle animations, what name would you give Bing’s version? Do you like “Bing Bling”?

More About: Bing, google, Google Doodle, microsoft

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