Mark Twain celebrated in Google doodle | Technology | guardian.co.uk

Mark Twain celebrated in a Google Doodle

Google celebrates Mark Twain's 176th birthday today with its latest doodle, which depicts a famous scene from The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.

The full-width illustration greeting web users logging on to the search engine portrays an episode in the novel in which the protagonist is made to whitewash a fence. Resembling a drawing from a children's story book, the picture appears to show Tom and his friend Ben at various stages of the paintwork job, with the 'e' and half the 'l' of "Google" subjected to their brush.

Although the writer's 176th birthday may seem a somewhat arbitrary milestone to mark, he remains a towering figure in American literature whose works enjoy an enduring popularity today.

via guardian.co.uk

Google Doodle celebrates Mark Twain's 176th Birthday today.

Stanislaw Lem gets animated Google doodle treatment | Books | guardian.co.uk

Stanislaw Lem's anniversary Google tribute. Photograph: Google

A spiky-haired, bespectacled animation of the Polish science fiction author Stanislaw Lem marches across Google's doodle this morning, as the search engine marks the 60th anniversary of the publication of his first book, The Astronauts.

Lem remains best known for his cult novel Solaris, the story of an incomprehensible intelligence encountered on an alien planet. It has been adapted for cinema twice, by Andrei Tarkovsky in 1972 and by Steven Soderbergh, starring George Clooney, 30 years later, and was first published in 1961, during the author's most fertile period, when he also produced his most famous works including Hospital of the Transfiguration, The Invincible and Tales of Pirx the Pilot.

via guardian.co.uk

60th anniversary of Polish author Stanisław Lem's first book, The Astronauts.

Google Doodle honours Louis Daguerre | Technology | guardian.co.uk

Google's Louis Daguerre doodle. Photograph: Google

Inventor Louis Daguerre, who created the world's first commercially successful way of capturing permanent photographs, has been celebrated with a Google doodle marking his 224th birthday.

The French physicist is credited for developing the daguerreotype photographic process which enabled images from a camera to be captured on a silver-coated copper plate.

He experimented with earlier processes which were able to capture images but would subsequently fade in order to create an effective method of producing permanent images.

via guardian.co.uk

224th birthday of Louis Daguerre

BBC - Schools - Festivals & Events: Remembrance Day

In Flanders Fields

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead.
Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch, be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

John McCrae

via bbc.co.uk

Remembrance Day 11/11/11

Edmond Halley's birthday celebrated in Google Doodle - Telegraph

Edmond Halley's birthday celebrated in Google Doodle 

The search engine's logo on it home page has been transformed for the day to depict Halley's comet soaring past planets hanging on strings.

The nursery-like scene shows the comet, whose orbit Halley famously calculated, passing Saturn with the Sun, Moon, stars and a rocket in the background.

The Google doodle honours the mathematician, who became Britain's second Astronomer Royal.

via telegraph.co.uk

Edmond Halley 335th Birthday today!