Google has introduced an interactive piñata doodle to celebrate its 15th birthday.
Users take control of the second G in the Google logo to smash a swinging star-shaped piñata using the space bar to release the sweets and achieve high scores.
The doodle is part of Google’s birthday celebrations that marks 15 years since PHD students Larry Page and Sergey Brin started in a garage as part of a research product called BackRub.
There has been some debate over the actual date of Google’s birthday, as September 7 was when the website was incorporated and September 15 was when the Google.com domain name was supposedly first registered.
However, September 27 has been named as the search engine’s official birthday and seemingly stemmed from an argument between Google and Yahoo in 2005 over each site’s growth rate and size.
Google also announced today that it has made its search algorithm to make it more responsive to user requests as part of the new Hummingbird update.
Having been gradually rolled out over the past month, Google has yet to disclose the full modifications the update has made to the search engine.
It may well mean websites experience a major impact on their daily hits, as Amit Singhai, one of Google’s senior vice presidents, said the update is the most dramatic alteration to the search engine since the Caffeine update three years ago.
For users, the Hummingbird update aims to help Google understand concepts rather than single words, meaning users will be able to enter longer questions and receive more accurate answers.
Google Voice and the increasing use of voice-recognition technology has also meant users are asking the search engine more questions as part of an ongoing conversation, which has also influenced the Hummingbird update, said Singhai.
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