Google Celebrates 14th Birthday With Cake Doodle
Google is growing up. The search giant is celebrating its 14th birthday today with an animated, birthday cake doodle on its homepage.
Google is growing up. The search giant is celebrating its 14th birthday today with an animated, birthday cake doodle on its homepage.
The chocolate cake, adorned with 14 candles, sits atop a platter featuring the Google colors. The candles are then blown out and pieces of cake distributed, revealing the Google logo spelled out in leftover dessert.
Google has celebrated its birthday with doodles for the past few years, each one more sophisticated than the last.
Last year, , the homepage doodle featured the company's logo surrounded by presents and a cake. The image was framed as if it were a snapshot in an old photo album, and several letters in the Google logo were donning party hats for the occasion.
Back in 2008, the company celebrated a decade in business by displaying the original Google logo, also adorned with party hats. The following year, the company replaced the L in Google with two ones to . In 2010, 89-year-old Los Angeles painter Wayne Thiebaud , with a single candle replacing the L.
While Google.com was registered on September 15, 1997, Google didn't actually incorporate as a company, release early technical specs, or hire its first employee until September 1998. Now, more than a decade later, the company has 54,604 full-time employees; 34,311 in the Google business and 20,293 at Motorola, which it acquired in Aug. 2011.
2012 has been another busy year for Google, with the release of Android 4.1 Jelly Bean and its well-received Nexus 7 tablet. The firm is also with its Google Fiber effort, as well as , and the , among other things.
For more on Google's doodles, meanwhile, see the below. Recently, the company has honored , , and , considered by many to be a pioneer in the electronic music space, as well as , zipper pioneer , and , a British archaeologist best known for uncovering the tomb of King Tutankhamen in Egypt.