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

Before anyone jumps to conclusions...

[daveschroeder]

...as others in many other forums today have, there is, at least at present, absolutely no proof that Apple legal necessarily did anything here. By all accounts, it was a project by an individual Google engineer that a manager liked enough to display publicly via Google Labs. The creator himself said it was the result of "a fun late-night coding jaunt to help me learn Javascript and DHTML." After other Google managers, executives, or legal staff saw it, there is a distinct possibility that Google itself pulled it because of anything from concerns over possible infringement, to the product not being approved by by the proper authorities before public consumption, to internal disagreement about the rollout process to Google Labs.

To those who may be so inclined to immediately blame Apple, I would say: wait until any facts in this particular instance actually support that position.

Re:Before anyone jumps to conclusions...

[Tablizer]

The creator himself said it was the result of "a fun late-night coding jaunt to help me learn Javascript and DHTML."

Well if I am looking at the right one, he should first learn about descriptive variable namees. There are a lot of single-letter variables and function names in there.

Re:Before anyone jumps to conclusions...

[Anonymous Coward]

Umm... The script is post-processed. It's
been removed of white space, and all functions
renames to single or double var names--all to
save space the speed loading.

*Obviously* people don't code this way.

Code Still Available

[ewithrow]

In case you have a good use for it, you can find the HTML here:

http://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=29 7173&st=40&p=585627099&#entry585627099

Mirror of X

[sammykrupa]

Here is a fully functional mirror of Google X:
http://www.theplaceforitall.com/googlex/

Re:Variable names...

[lukewarmfusion]

Not easy to read or manage, but it sure downloads fast. And if you're serving it to a few million visitors a day, those add up fast in bandwidth savings.

He shouldn't have to keep his mouth shut

[SweetAndSourJesus]

Some guy noodling around in his 20% time to profess his love for OS X hardly seems like something the legal department (or any damn department) should concern themselves with.

Then again, I've had a few beers and can imagine the world, with a few minor tweaks, being perfect like that.

Re:Google cache to the rescue!

[Shachaf]

A link that actually works can be found Here.

Speculation

[daitengu]

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.

Re:Speculation

[Bullet-Dodger]

Speculation (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Speculation (Score:3, Informative)

Bumbling idiot like a fox!

Re:Variable names...

[GoClick]

Quite possibly code re-coded. Ie it was obfuscated after the fact. Obfuscated might be a bad word, smallized might be a better one. ;)

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:my version

[no1here]

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.

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

I'd love to be a large company in the internet age

[kidventus]

Steve Jobs: What is on the agenda today?
Secretary: Well sir, while you were sleeping a Google employee wrote 9 lines of JavaScript and made a blog entry, which because everytime Google farts the world sniffs.., spead around the world through other blogs as world changing. However, because it linked to an external site Google took it down without explination cause they are all "mysterious" and better than other companies, and then someone said you did it on Slashdot and now we have a mob with pitch forks and torches outside 1 Inifinite Loop.
Steve Jobs: Pitch forks already? I haven't had my coffee yet!

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.

Re:We all know why

[cmallinson]

...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

Precedents aside, the look and feel of software is not always separate from the functionality. The function of a lot of software these days is to make hard things easy, and much of that has to do with the GUI.

Re:We all know why

[evilandi]

'look and feel'

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? :-(

Re:We all know why

[Anonymous Coward]

google x

Re:We all know why

[tdemark]

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