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."

We all know why

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple was planning to sue Google over stealing the Mac look & feel, and Google found out because Apple's lawyers were using Google to search for info.

Re:We all know why

[Anonymous Coward]

"No results for you! 1 year!"

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 [mit.edu].

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 [appleinsider.com] 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

[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

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 [morochove.com] about this sort of thing.

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

Re:We all know why

[Anonymous Coward]

google x [foxified.info]

Re:We all know why

[twbecker]

Explain to me how Google is a monopoly? People use it because they prefer it, not because they have no choice, big difference.

Re:We all know why

[SteveX]

Same way Microsoft is a monopoly. You're not forced to use it, but because everyone does, we call it a monopoly.

Re:We all know why

[Gulthek]

'Cause you always read about those abuse of power stories where Google uses their dominance to prevent competitors from entering the market.

Or uses their massive amount of cash on hand to buy out potential competitors.

Or leverages tie ins with computer manufacturers so that Google comes pre-installed on all new pc computers.

Because it is so hard to type alltheweb.com or yahoo.com instead of google.com into the address bar of the browser.

And Firefox claims that it "can't render yahoo.com or msn.com corre

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." [macminute.com] 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...

[Yeshua]

Don't listen to the parent!
It's part of the comspiracy! They're everywhere man!
Seriously though, it seems more likely that it was pulled because of internal reason at Google, rather than Apple playing Microsoft.

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.

Re:Before anyone jumps to conclusions...

[kerrle]

So did I...I wasn't sure enough to mention it here, but that was my understanding, too.

Re:Before anyone jumps to conclusions...

[GFLPraxis]

"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."

Well, they do minimize INTO the dock...

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 [apple.com] technology in it's next operating system.

Re:The Opposite Conclusion

[dn15]

But why would Google be "warning" Apple? Spotlight is for searching data on your computer, not the Internet. And Google's desktop search app only exists on Windows. It's not as if the two are in competition when it comes to searching.

PS

[dn15]

I should add that Apple *does* have Sherlock but that's been around for years...

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.

Re:The Opposite Conclusion

[mrdaveb]

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...

Hmm, yeah. The menacing threat conveyed by the Google X tagline certainly backs up your theory: "Roses are red. Violets are blue. OS X rocks. Homage to you."

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.

Re:Before anyone jumps to conclusions...

[Tablizer]

I suppose. But it was an experimental practice project. Why bother shaving microseconds off of an experiment?

Re:Before anyone jumps to conclusions...

[FLAGGR]

because when a million slashdot users click the link to see, they don't want to waste any of their massive distributed server farms resources :) And it's just good practice as a web developer. He probably has a clearer version of the code kept for himself, thats what I do.

Re:Before anyone jumps to conclusions...

[Peugeot206WRC]

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.

Re:Before anyone jumps to conclusions...

[MilenCent]

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.

I'd say that, while it is prudent to not jump to the conclusion regarding the facts behind the take down, that given Apple's past behavior in "protecting" their Aqua user interface, that some amount of suspecion aimed in their direction is perhaps justified. Even if Apple did nothing, if Google took them down out of fear out of what Apple might do to the

Google cache to the rescue!

[Markaci]

You can see a working version (minus the images) at the google cache of the page [64.233.161.104]. It is really neat. Sucks that it was taken down.

Re:Google cache to the rescue!

[Shachaf]

I just found a working version (with images) Here [djdigital.us].

Re:Google cache to the rescue!

[Shachaf]

A link that actually works can be found Here [dinkdoink.com].

Re:Google cache to the rescue!

[Celestial Avenger]

slashdot'd Lead another full mirror to the gallows for us, please!

Re:Google cache to the rescue!

[Capt'n Hector]

A link that actually works...

NOT anymore!

Re:Google cache to the rescue!

[Myrmi]

That isn't quite how it worked; that link doesn't partially zoom into adjacent icons to the one you're hovering over as the original did...

Re:Google cache to the rescue!

[shaka]

Actually, this is quite how the one at labs.google.com worked - that didn't zoom any other icons except the one the mouse was over either.

Re:Google cache to the rescue!

[Orgazmus]

This one is a bit more complete:
http://dinkdoink.com.nyud.net:8090/me/googlex/ [nyud.net]

Coral Cache

[balster neb]

Coral cache of the linked image here [nyud.net].

Roll your own

[Donny Smith]

As there's cache of the images, anyone with a Web server could run this as their homepage at http://127.0.0.1/ [127.0.0.1]

Another thought: the icons could be recycled and used for ObjectDock (http://www.stardock.com/products/objectdock/ [stardock.com]) if only the goddamned thing wouldn't crash Explorer.exe so much...

If it were Windows

[Arghdee]

Would that just make the page #0000FF and all text #FFFFFF ?

*grin*

Already?

[kristopher]

Is there a screen shot of the screen shot?

Re:Already?

[Shachaf]

I was lucky enough to see the page before it was taken down, but a (non-zoomed) screenshot is linked from the article [com.com].

X-Files

[koko775]

The truth is out there. Or here: http://68.7.205.246:9500/googlex/Google.htm [68.7.205.246]

Still blgged on the Google's Blog

[xmas2003]

Ironically, this is still talked about on the Google's own Blog [google.com]

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.

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.

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 [neowin.net]

Re:Also know as. . .

[FLAGGR]

Remember your <BR>'s

The perfect thing to have left...

[Faust7]

...would have been a lone picture of a smushed Morley cigarette.

Mirror of X

[sammykrupa]

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

Mirrored copy

[SoLO]

here [dinkdoink.com] and
here [comcast.net]

Mirror

[boredMDer]

There's a mirror here: http://googlex.foxified.info/ [foxified.info], from someone in ATM [dslreports.com] at DSLR.

Re:Mirror

[Atmchicago]

That's funny, the chicago branch of ATM wasn't aware of this!

All your bases... belong to Apple Legal

[digitalgimpus]

All your bases... belong to Apple Legal

Re:All your bases... belong to Apple Legal

[shadowbearer]

While apparently all the karma belongs to people offering mirrors.

Ah, the opportunities of a slashdotting... ;-D
SB

A working cache

[DarkMantle]

A working cache of the original site is available over here [comcast.net]

You're welcome

Congratulations

[Zorilla]

You win the award for First Ever Comcast-hosted Personal Page That Actually Works!

mirror dot

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's the mirrordot [mirrordot.org]

Local Copy

[pseinstein]

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/

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

[daitengu]

Because I'm a bumbling idiot, I forgot to include the link...

Google Labs FAQ [google.com]

Re:Speculation

[Bullet-Dodger]

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

Bumbling idiot like a fox!

Meh.

[sakusha]

I saw it when it was active, my reaction was about the same as when I saw the Magnification feature in the real MacOS X dock, "cool, now let me turn that off and never use it again."

It's actually kind of cute

[hey!]

I think a lot of bad ideas are actually good ideas made to do things they aren't suited for. Rollerskates are a great idea for moving from one end of the neighborhood to another, but pain if what you're spending all your time going up and down the staircase from the first floor to the fifth.

The dock is a great idea for a launcher for a small, fixed handful of applications. It makes efficient use of space, it gives feedback about what you are about to do (when you click, it's the big one that be launched). I can imagine how well the original demos went. It's all the other stuff the dock is forced to do, like tell you about the state of your session, that are a bad idea.

Host it locally

[Sergeant Beavis]

Just host the code locally on your drive and bookmark Google to it. Then you can enjoy it as your Google homepage for now on.

Re:Host it locally

[Sergeant Beavis]

Yes, and thank you for putting it there. Good netizen, here's a bone for you ;)

Neat poem

[oskard]

From the google cache page: "Roses are red. Violets are blue. OS X rocks. Homage to you." Sure hope Apple didn't yell at them, after such a nice complement. I don't own any Apple products but they seem like a cool, hip, and forgiving company. This would change my perspective of them, much like when Google went after XGoogle.

This is NOT useable

[GoClick]

Mod me down, do whatever you want, just because I'm not impressed every time Google jumps.

Part of the goodness of Google is how simple it is.

I'm sorry but I don't associate a compass with local searches, The word Local is much better, I can read 10 links in the same time it takes to move the mouse over 1 icon to figure out what it does.

It's just a script-trick. Yes it's fun, yes it's good looking, no it's not accessable or bandwidth friendly. It's not even that well coded.

This is just another stupid trick but because it's Google it gets press attention?

Frankly, that's kind of silly. There are a lot more cutting edge things floating around out there than images that resize when you roll over them.

Re:This is NOT useable

[kidlinux]

Well, maybe if you'd step back and look at the larger picture, you'd realise some of the implications this presents.

If and when google does its thing and releases a client/server OS or platform where all the apps are served up over the web, this little trick demonstrates that it's possible to make a very nice looking, very slick, and user friendly interface similar to that of a full blown OS currently on the market.

Eye candy is apparently possible, and it is necessary. The average user will most likely select their platform based on the look and feel first, then functionality - which is about the same way most people make all their purchases.

This IS usable.

Re:This is NOT useable

[Forbman]

Look (how I think you will think I look with it) and feel may be first, but then comes imagined/perceived/possible utility, and a distant third, whether it's actually the best tool to do what it will actually be doing at the right price.

It gets press because

[Sycraft-fu]

1) Slashdot loves Apple.
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 [asktog.com].h tml if you are curious).

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 /. news worthy. However, I'm not one that makes those kind of decisions.

Experimental Webpage VANISHES! News at 11!!

[mekkab]

Slow news day, eh?

It was very cute, though. Even funnier was how people who've never used OS X had a reaction akin to: "Uhm, so what?"

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/ [shiwej.com]

Mod parent up

[Ellen Spertus]

Very cool. I wish I had moderator points.

Re:my version

[no1here]

The code I used is available from logjjic.net [lojjic.net] at http://lojjic.net/script-library/OSXBar-doc.html [lojjic.net] . 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.

Full Mirro

[Warthog9]

I was able to get a full working mirror before it went down, it can be found here:

http://www.eaglescrag.net/Googlex/ [eaglescrag.net]

Re:Full Mirro

[DiSKiLLeR]

Another mirror here (http://cable.diskiller.net/google/ [diskiller.net] ).

They even took down the cache of the mirror.

[infonography]

courtesy of the Gcache extension in firefox [216.239.63.104]

Of course I am trolling. It's not been up long enough for google to cache it.

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.

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!

Swiki

[mccoma]

The dock theme for swiki (squeak wiki) also does this. It isn't quite as good, but it is a nice demo (more readable javascript).

Get your own copy ...

[jdeitch]

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

Local Mirror

[burns210]

Hope this isn't redundant, but here is a (my) server that you can /. for a little while.

Be Gentle [mirwin.net]

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.

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. ;)

Re:Variable names...

[Ohreally_factor]

smallized might be a better one.

I think the word you want is "optimerized".

No, I'm not George. Good guess, though.

Re:Variable names...

[nmoog]

I just expanderised the whole thing to have a look at how it works and there are some cool smallerizing tricks going on. Like the text that appears above the icons is actually the images alt tag ( title.innerHTML = k.getElementById( imagename ).alt ) . great idea.

Also the declaration of z = Array thats cool

I wonder if it was hand-smallerized, or via machiney, 'cause there is "x = false;" but no "y = true;" - true is only used a couple of times throughout the script.

Re:Variable names...

[KiloByte]

In fact, Google seems to be doing this on all their pages.

For example, Google Maps [google.com] sports a 90KB file named "maps" (no extension) that is included from the main page and contains nothing but such compressed javascript.

Re:Variable names...

[Philippe]

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.

Obfuscated..

[cmburns69]

Apparently, anything put out to the public for google must run through an obfuscator/compressor.

The reasons would obviously be:
a) Bandwidth: All those extra characters (newlines, variable names, etc) can really add up.
b) Security: Competitors can't steal what they can't read.. or can they?

Definately cool, though!

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

Re:Variable names...

[syphoon]

It's quite possible Google have an inhouse Javascript formatter to replace variable names with single and double character names when the time comes to go public with the code, just to save on bandwidth.

Re:Bummer!

[FLAGGR]

How would zooming help your blind friend? AFAIK no matter how far you zoom, it doesn't get any clearer to people that can't see. Or am I missing a joke or something?

Re:Bummer!

[Sleepy]

Not everyone who is "legally blind", is "totally blind".

While I don't think the demo was intended to be accessible, larger images and text DO help vision impared people...

Jumping to conclusions

[Thu25245]

It's flamebait becauas you're jumping to an unjustified conclusion. There's no evidence that anyone from Apple was involved in the takedown. Yes, sometimes it seems Apple sues everything in sight, but to say that "Apple sucks for doing this" is not warranted at this juncture.

What if he was RIGHT to jump to conclusions?

[DesScorp]

And should it become known that Apple WAS responsible for this, will you then apologize and say "yup, he was right, Apple does suck for doing this?".

As you yourself noted, Apple has now accumulated a reputation for "suing everone in sight"; isn't that reputation their own fault? And aren't people justified somewhat in suspecting Apple to be at fault here, BECAUSE of that litigious reputation of theirs?

Re:Flamebait?

[jbarket]

Where did it even mention that Apple had seen this, let alone stuck their lawyers on Google?

More importantly, do you really believe that the machine that is Google would simply cowtow to Apple over javascript rollovers with larger mouseover images? I think not.

Re:Big deal..

[QuantumG]

blah, it's slightly cooler than that. The images are being dynamically resized. You can actually see in-between frames where the images are in different degrees of magnification. But hey, it is just a stupid trick, nothing to get excited about.

Re:Big deal..

[passion]

Ahhh... then you weren't paying close enough attention. They all move out to the sides when you enter... it works a lot like the dock.

Re:Big deal..

[skiflyer]

That's the same thing that happens when you use different sized images on a mouse over vs non-mouse over if they're lined up like that.

The peculair part of this setup is the dynamic scaling, that is that it's not just jumping from one size image to the next as a snap, it's actually growing and shrinking by increments.

woohoo.

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?