Google celebrates Nicolas Steno's 374th Birthday

Today, January 11, 2012, Google celebrates Nicolas Steno's 374th Birthday by showing a geogologic and paleontologic-er logo (see above). Some of you would also find it weird that Google would celebrate his birthday on January 11, when Nicolas Steno was born on January 1, 1638. Well, that's because in the NS or New Style date, he was born on January 11. January 1 was his birthday in the O.S.

Now, for an additional knowledge, what is an Old Style (O.S.) and a New Style (N.S.) dates? According to the online encyclopedia (Wikipedia), they are used in English language historical studies either to indicate that the start of the Julian year has been adjusted to start on 1 January (N.S.) even though documents written at the time use a different start of year (O.S.); or to indicate that a date conforms to the Julian calendar (O.S.), formerly in use in many countries, rather than the Gregorian calendar (N.S.). That's how tough it is to be born in the 17th century when the calendar was still being decided.

Now, for those who don't know who Nicolas Steno is... he was a Danish Catholic cleric and scientist who pioneered in both anatomy and geology. He also contributed to paleontology in 1667. By 1659, Steno decided not to accept a statement as true simply because it was written in a book, but rather to rely on his own research. He is considered the father of geology and stratigraphy. He was formerly a Lutheran, carrying Martin Luther's theology, but later on converted to Catholicism. Pope John Paul II beatified him in 1987.

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Google celebrates Robert Noyce's 84th Birthday

Today December 12th, Google celebrates Robert Noyce's 84th birthday by displaying Google's logo as a Microchip.

But who's Robert Noyce?

Well, if you click the google microchip logo, it will initiate a search query using the keyword Robert Noyce.

According to Wikipedia, the online wiki encyclopedia, Robert Norton Noyce (December 12, 1927 - June 3, 1990), nicknamed "the Mayor of Silicon Valley", co-founded Fairchild Semiconductor in 1957 and Intel in 1968. He is also credited, along with Jack Kilby, with the invention of the integrated circuit (IC) or microchip which fueled the personal computer revolution and gave Silicon Valley its name. Noyce was also a mentor and father-figure to an entire generation of entrepreneurs.

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Google Bookmarks "Lists" feature soon to close

The Google version of Delicious, Google Bookmarks, will soon close its "lists feature" according to Google Inc.

Google Bookmarks is a free online bookmark storage service, available to Google Account holder. It was launched on October 10, 2005. Google Bookmarks allows users to bookmark faborite websites and add labels or tags, including notes.

Like Delicious (which is owned by AVOS), Google Bookmarks uses lists to share bookmarks with others, and the public. Many websites will encourage bookmarking to Google Bookmarks through third party buttons on their sites, knowing that Google's search engine tracks these bookmarks and considers them significant when ranking public search results.

What is Lists?

Lists is an English-only experimental feature incorporated into Google Bookmarks for sharing bookmarks and collaborating with friends.

When Facebook boomed, Google discovered that fewer and fewer people were using this feature. With people most likely sharing their links via Facebook instead.

According to Google, Lists will be totally discontinued on December 19th, 2011.

Why is Lists being discontinued?

According to Google, they are focusing their efforts on the prioritization of other products so they can make things much simpler for their users and devote more resources to high-impact products.

On this statement, Google admits that their Google Bookmarks "Lists" feature had become less significant to most users.

When is Lists being discontinued?

Lists, according to Google, will become read-only on December 12th and will be entirely discontinued on December 19th, 2011. During the read-only period, users will be able to change the public/private status of lists they own, but they won't be able to create new lists or edit existing ones.

Once the feature is discontinued, the Lists that users own (all items) will be saved as bookmarks with the label "MyBookmarkList." Comments will be saved along with each bookmark. However, all other lists (including those shared with the users) can no longer be access. Google advises that if you want to save items from these lists, you should bookmark them before December 19th, 2011.

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