What’s Up With Google’s Bouncy Ball Logo?

Google launched another Google Doodle guessing game Tuesday, with a new interactive Google logo that you can manipulate with your mouse. Google replaced its static logo with a set of dynamic colored balls that make up the Google logo. Move your mouse pointer near the logo and all the balls disperse and don’t settle down until the pointer stops moving.

It’s a lot of fun to try out, and will most likely be blamed for another dramatic dip in worldwide productivity. Another neat trick you can do is to get the balls to move by shaking your browser window.

What’s behind Google’s balls?

It’s not clear what prompted Google to launch the playful design, but many are guessing it’s a celebration of Google’s anniversary. The company was incorporated on September 7, 1998.

Softpedia points out that Google’s logo is a JavaScript-based particle movement simulator, suggesting the logo may be in honor of a scientific achievement or notable personality. You may remember that Google released a series of sci-fi related Google Doodles in September 2009 to celebrate the 143rd birthday of author H.G. Wells. So this may be the first doodle in a series of tributes just like last year.

Modern Web

Whatever the occasion for Google’s new Doodle, the search giant’s design team has also used the occasion to show off the capabilities of modern Web technologies. The logo depends largely on JavaScript to create the particle simulator effect.

This is the fourth interactive design that Google has used on its front page. In January the search giant celebrate Isaac Newton’s birthday with a falling apple animation, according to Search Engine Land. In May, Google turned its logo into a Pac-Man game to celebrate the iconic video game’s 30th anniversary. Most recently, the Google logo was changed to an interactive Buckyball on September 4 to celebrate the 25th anniversary of its discovery. The Buckyball, also known as the Buckminsterfullerene C60 is a molecule made entirely of carbon. It was named after the engineer and architect Richard Buckminster Fuller who invented the geodesic dome. The Buckyball is one of many tech-related silver anniversaries being celebrated in 2010.

One More possibility

It’s also worth noting that JavaScript was first released on September 1995 under the name LiveScript as part of Netscape Navigator 2.0, according to JavaScript Basics by Christian Wenz. So maybe this doodle has something to do with the 15th anniversary of JavaScript.

Google logo hates mouse:

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