Slashdot Mirror
Google's X Files Vanish
An anonymous reader writes "News.com reports that Google's latest technology experiment paid tribute to Apple Computer, but the Mac OS X-themed version of the search king's Web site was taken down a day after its debut. Though that particular page was taken down, there is a screenshot here displaying how the icons were magnified as the mouse hovered over them."
You can see a working version (minus the images) at the google cache of the page. It is really neat. Sucks that it was taken down.
Ironically, this is still talked about on the Google's own Blog
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In case you have a good use for it, you can find the HTML here:
9 7173&st=40&p=585627099&#entry585627099
http://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=2
http://almostsmart.com
Here is a fully functional mirror of Google X:
http://www.theplaceforitall.com/googlex/
Dashboard Widgets
There's a mirror here: http://googlex.foxified.info/, from someone in ATM at DSLR.
There is a reason why the code looks like this: bandwidth. With the amount of people loading Google.com every day, even one character off their home page must make a significant difference.
Non Working Mirror of Page but it has a zip of all the files you need to run it locally, works too so I can still use it as my homepage. http://www.geocities.com/googlexmirror/
Why all this about Apple's legal department? Google Labs says that sites will be pulled down if they're too intensive on the Google Labs server, and this was a VERY popular layout today. It's quite possible that that is the reason they pulled it down. I doubt Apple would threaten them over something like this.
Quite possibly code re-coded. Ie it was obfuscated after the fact. Obfuscated might be a bad word, smallized might be a better one. ;)
It's interesting to note that the OS X dock magnifier doesn't actually work like the google representation. Note that google magnifies the icons individually while OS X magnifies a radius around the cursor where the greatest magnification occurs at the center.
The code I used is available from logjjic.net at http://lojjic.net/script-library/OSXBar-doc.html . It's available freely to use as long as it's for a non-commercial purpose. I'm not an expert at javascript or DHTML so I used that and then modified bits and pieces to display the bar the way I wanted it.
JasonBlogs
1) Slashdot loves Apple.
h tml if you are curious).
/. news worthy. However, I'm not one that makes those kind of decisions.
2) Slashdot loves Google.
3) It looks kinda nifty.
4) It's not something most people expect HTML to be able to do.
I mean your same criticims apply to the actual dock. Tog (Bruce Tognazzini, founder of the orignal Apple Human Interface Group) did a writeup on the dock and complained about it as being a nice tech demo but not good for usability. One of the reasons was no labels on icons (http://www.asktog.com/columns/044top10docksucks.
However, seems clear in the case of Google it was just a tech demo. Some guy showing off some nifty stuff with DHTML. Doesn't look like Google was at all serious about actually using it as theri new interface. They've long maintaned a very simple, clean, compatible interface and this would break from that.
But ya, neat though it is, not sure it's front page
You're thinking of the Lotus 123 case.
The difference was that Lotus didn't have a patent, they only had copyright, which as you rightly point out doesn't cover look and feel.
This time, though, Apple have a patent for the graphical design which means they may well be able to successfully sue those who copy the look and feel of their interface.
Which IMHO just goes to show how dumb patent law is these days, but hey, everyone's doing it so it might be right. Right? :-(
Andrew Oakley - www.aoakley.com
google x
Same happened in the infamous Apple vs. Microsoft lawsuit.
No, it didn't.
Instead of hearing that Apple lost that case and jumping to an incorrect conclusion about what it says, maybe you should actually read the ruling?
But, no, this is Slashdot, where people can't even be bothered to RTFA (which, talking about the current article, makes no mention of Apple legal putting pressure on Google). So, I'll sum the ruling up for you:
Apple sues Microsoft for stealing its "look and feel". Apple loses because the judge ruled that the license agreement that Microsoft had with Apple could be interpreted to give Microsoft right to the look and feel. Without the fuzziness in the license wording, Apple would have won easily.
- Tony