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."

Comments

Admitted is was influenced by OS X

[bsharitt]

I wonder if them admitting that it was modeled after OS X quickened its demise. Maybe if they kept their mouths shut nobody would have said anything.

Re:Before anyone jumps to conclusions...

[Breakfast Pants]

The article mentions that Apple has sought patent on the genie effect... I thought the genie effect was an animation Apple used when minimizing/maximizing windows, not the dock magnification effect.

The Opposite Conclusion

[buckhead_buddy]

My conclusion was just the opposite.

I thought that Google had doctored up this obvious territorial infringement on the Mac OS X desktop as a warning shot fired across Apple's bow since Apple is apparently making a big deal out of searching interfaces and algorithms with it's forthcoming Spotlight technology in it's next operating system.

Re:The Opposite Conclusion

[ricotest]

In fact, Google's Mac port of their desktop search program was first only hinted at, and then cancelled as Spotlight grew nearer. They know when to stay out of something not worth their time.

my version

[no1here]

Before there were mirrors I created my own version of Google X using a script I found. It works more like an actual OSX dock because the images gradually get bigger as you move through them all.

http://shiwej.com/googlex/

Re:Obfuscated..

[mshaslam]

Not obfuscated, just compressed. I saw it this morning and wanted to learn how it worked so I tabbed it out and changed some of the var names to something more human readable. It only took a few minutes.

...
function gidle(){
var l=0;
for(var i=1;i<b.length;i++){
var imagename="image"+i;
var imageElem=doc.getElementById(imagename);
if(c!=i){
if(b[i]>35){
b[i]-=h;
if(b[i]<=35){
b[i]=35;
imageElem.src=images[i]+"-sm.gif"
}
imageElem.width=b[i];
imageElem.height=b[i];
if(c==0){
var g=floor(255-255*(b[i]-35)/35);
title.style.color="rgb("+g+","+g+","+g+")"
}
p=1
}
l+=b[i]
}
}
...

If someone like me can get the basics this way, you can bet a real coder can follow it without a problem.

MSH

Google Interface

[daniel_mcl]

I attended a lecture by Peter Norvig, old-school AI researcher and now director of Google's search quality. He mentioned that occasionally they will try some new feature out by randomly showing it to 1% of their visitors, or showing it for a couple minutes, and seeing whether they get any positive or negative feedback. It seems like a pretty good idea. Between that and the nofollow attribute, they have a lot of very good out-of-left-field solutions to what could otherwise be viewed as *huge* CS/HI/business problems.

Re:Google Interface

[moonbender]

How would they get feedback? There's a feedback link at the bottom of every search, but I can't imagine a lot of people using that. The only thing I can imagine is they served additional feedback interfaces to those random people.

Re:Not that great

[Forbman]

So, using CSS, someone could probably do it with a series of overlapping images, right, and just pop z-orders for the images as the mouse pointer approaches the "icon"? Or maybe use a clever image-scaling JavaScript function, possibly invoked by code that ensures only the icons adjacent to the pointer are being actively scaled (and let the browser move the pieces around), and not evaluating the entire strip of icons?

Get your own copy ...

[jdeitch]

http://terminus.litz.org/googlex.tgz

Re:We all know why

[supachupa]

Sorry I don't have my references at hand, but in Australia there was a famous law suit against a software product and it was decided that you cannot patent or copywrite the 'look and feel' of software.. only the code underneath. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

Seriously, you're right.

[fm6]

No joke. Ever notice that Java's pluggable L&Fs include a Windows L&F that only works on Windows? No technical reason it can't work with any Java runtime -- but if it did, Microsoft's lawyers would be on Sun in a heartbeat.

If anything, Apple is even more uptight about this sort of thing.

Google X was one of those ad-hoc projects that Google encourages its employees to get into. Which results in cool stuff, but also stuff that should have been run by the lawyers first.