Kiddle Search Engine | for kids

Children as young as nine exposed to pornography

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“As soon as I saw what was happening, I closed the site - but both him and I were left in shock at what he had seen. I felt so terrible about the whole thing.

ChatGPT: Helping Your Kids Cheat or Providing a Valuable Tool?

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Since OpenAI rolled out ChatGPT in November, teachers have been scrambling to get out in front of it. Some are using it as a classroom tool, while others are taking a wait-and-see approach. As tech companies pour billions into the technology, one thing is certain: It’s only going to get better – and quickly. With ChatGPT nipping at the heels of Google’s search engine, Google announced it will soon release its own version of a conversational search engine called Bard.

While similar artificial intelligence chatbots exist, ChatGPT swept by Meta’s earlier bumbled roll-out of Galactica to become a public sensation. According to analysts, ChatGPT, developed by OpenAI and backed with billions from Microsoft, reached 100 million users in just two months after a free public launching in late November. Users can ask it to write songs, essays, poems, articles, rewrite sentences and answer questions, among other things. It will even have a robotic conversation with you and, perhaps unlike your friends and family members, will admit when it has made a mistake. And ChatGPT does make mistakes (cautionary tale for those students wishing to use it to cheat).

Testing ChatGPT

Parents who assume their children aren’t aware of ChatGPT are probably deluding themselves. I tried it out myself to get an idea of what ChatGPT could do. For one thing, it’s so popular, it’s difficult to get on, but it does have some fun ways to tell you to wait – like a Haiku or a short play dialogue apologizing to you. It can’t interview local people, so that’s a downside for me, and I do wonder if it has some implicit biases. I asked it to write a song about my daughter’s black dog, Leroy, who came from an Austin, TX, animal shelter and now lives with her in Washington, DC. The song is a blues-y tune about a black dog down on his luck in the city.

I also asked it to write our Summer Camp article in this issue, just to see what would happen. You can judge for yourself. It’s straight information, much of it is very similar to past articles that we’ve published. There are no quotes and no indication where ChatGPT got the information. Not very exciting. But it only took a couple of minutes to spit it out. The information is accurate, but often generic.

I don’t see AI taking over writing, but it can be useful. I wondered how ChatGPT has been impacting education in the short time that it has been available, so I asked some area teachers how they are responding to the technology.

None of the instructors are panicked over ChatGPT.

Using ChatGPT in the Classroom

Larry Cagle, an English teacher at Broken Arrow High School, is already using ChatGPT with his students. Cagle’s inquiry-based instruction often begins with students asking questions. “The answer is not as important as the question,” Cagle said. “I’ve long debated that with my students. Here is where the students can begin to use it as a learning tool. ChatGPT can help them come up with better questions. If they ask generic questions, they get a generic answer.”

For one lesson, Cagle had his students use the same prompt to ask the chatbot to write an essay about To Kill a Mockingbird. “Every response was different,” he said. It can expand what students know and expand how and what they’re asking. Students come from their own perspective. ChatGPT has many.

He pointed out that students have always cheated, whether it’s using the study guide SparkNotes or plagiarizing from written or online material. With the 160 students that stream through his classroom every day, Cagle says he may not be able to identify those in the middle who are generating written material using ChatGPT. It may push some high-level students to write better, while struggling students may benefit from seeing an example before they start writing on their own. “Will it take away writing? We didn’t lose the ability to do math because of calculators,” Cagle said.

He will continue to be proactive with chatbots, using them as a tool to teach critical thinking as he guides students to learn ways they can embrace the technology to help them, while understanding the limitations.

“It’s here, and they need to know how to use it,” Cagle said.

Adjusting Policies

Tulsa Community College (TCC) has created a taskforce to discuss ChatGPT as the semester opens.“We’re trying to explore the possibilities of what students might use it for,” says Jeff Stuckey, associate professor of English and department chair for adjunct faculty at TCC. “We’re looking at our plagiarism policy but staying positive about it as we try to create policy for our adjunct faculty.”

Stuckey isn’t alarmed. “The policy right now is ‘don’t panic.’ The problem – if you want to call it that – can really be polished, good writing,” he said. “Over the break, I had a French teacher check it out, and she said it wrote better than she probably would.”

Like Cagle, Stuckey views ChatGPT as a tool that can have positive uses. While he hasn’t used it in his own classroom, he has “played around with it.” He pointed out how technology such as Spellcheck has helped writers correct mistakes, and chatbots just may be the next step in the process.

“It’s fascinating, and I don’t think we should ever be at the place where we’re wagging our fingers,” he said. “We want to assume the best. I want to trust students.”

Limitations of ChatGPT

Stuckey said he hasn’t noticed much change with his students. “We ask a lot of specific things in our papers; we use MLA citations. ChatGPT doesn’t do citations. I don’t think it would do any ground-breaking quotes,” he said. “I’ve asked it to summarize stories, and it’s kind of a Cliff Notes version of a summary.”

He also noted that chatbots can’t take on the voice of the writer, a human component that elevates boilerplate writing to excellent writing.

Mary V. Cantrell, TCC professor of English and GKFF faculty chair for dual credit, says that she isn’t worried about students cheating using ChatGPT. “I ask students to produce multiple drafts of their work, and I value originality, creativity, and deep thinking over mechanics and formulaic writing,” she said. “My hope is that students will want to engage in the reading, thinking, and writing they need to engage in to produce a unique response to the assignments I give them. If they decide to use AI to write their essay, they’ll write passable essays, but they won’t learn, and I doubt I’ll be impressed enough to assign them an A.”

A Virtual Writing Center

Both Stuckey and Shaun Peevsasser, a TCC sociology professor who also teaches three classes through TCC’s concurrent enrollment at Union High School, feel that ChatGPT could function almost as a virtual writing center. For example, Peevsasser said that struggling students often have the most trouble at the beginning of the writing process.

“You could submit your introductory paragraph,” Peevsasser said, “and ask ChatGPT to revise it for a college-level paper introduction. It can help students become better writers.”

Union doesn’t allow students to use ChatGPT at school, but Peevsasser used it as an initial assignment to help his high school students understand college-level writing. Students turned in an informational writing assignment, which Peevsasser copied and pasted into ChatGPT. He prompted the chatbot to evaluate each student’s writing level and to make suggestions for improvements. Students could then see how their writing could be improved and discuss what might be expected of them in college classes.

The teachers I spoke with all agreed that ChatGPT doesn’t produce A-level papers. It misses citations and provides generic discussions of a topic. It also might use incorrect information. I tested this out by asking it to write an academic essay about water as a symbol in Macbeth using only the primary source. The result was a very generic, five-paragraph essay with appropriate quotes from the play. I gave ChatGPT a “C” on my paper.

On the other hand, for some students, especially those who struggle with understanding prompts, narrowing topics or writing in English, AI-generated writing can function as a foundation to work from as they build their essays. English language learners might use it to revise sentences, thus learning English syntax, grammar and vocabulary.

Peevsasser said that the citiations are not very academic. One might be from a textbook and one from a journal article, but that could generate classroom discussions about reliable sources.

Making the Most of It

Regarding cheating, Peevsasser said that he thinks about what his classroom could become if he uses AI. “It exists,” he said. “Maybe instructors should update their class or course to include ChatGPT.” He talks to his students about academic integrity and honesty. “You have to be transparent about using it and how you’re using it.”

He advises parents not to run away from the technology. “Try to figure out how to have discussions with your children and students about how this can elevate writing ability. How can it elevate critical thinking? Those are the things I’m trying to figure out,” Peevsasser said. “It would be hypocritical if I can use it and not allow my students to use it. What would 15-year-old Shaun have wanted his instructor to do? He would want to be shown how to use it. If we don’t teach them how to use it, it can be an equity issue. Because all kids need to know how to use it to be on a level playing field.”

Online sharing etiquette for parents

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As kids become more digitally-savvy, parents play a big role in keeping their children safe online. It is crucial to be aware of the potential risks children are vulnerable to such as inappropriate content, online bullying and even exploitation. It’s increasingly important for parents to be more vigilant about keeping their children safe online. Here are some basic rules parents can take to protect their children while they are online:

Talk about safety. Engage them in a conversation about how to stay safe online. Discuss with them potential risks and the importance of placing boundaries and protecting their privacy. Teach them to say no to requests that make them feel uncomfortable and to inform you about strangers who are asking them for personal information. It is also important to let them be “share aware” and know that anything they post on the internet stays on the internet for others to see for a very long time.

Make house rules. Try to set rules on gadget use, such as not allowing them to use their gadgets in their room and setting the amount of screen time they have in a day. Place larger gadgets such as laptops in common areas where they can be better supervised when they are online.

Tap into their online presence. Drop in on their profiles and posts and look into their app downloads and browser history so you can check for red flags. Try to get to know their online friends and teach them to alert you for inappropriate messages or posts on their social media feed so you can navigate through the situation together. For their safety, it is better to limit their posts to “friends only” instead of public settings.

Set parental controls. There are phone features that can set phone limitations and content controls. Parents can also manage the websites their kids can visit on Google Chrome and disable the “browse incognito” feature. You can also turn on the feature that blocks sexually explicit and violent sites through the search engine’s Family Link app. You can also set parental controls on streaming services to make sure that your child will only have access to age-appropriate content.

Read reviews. Do some research on an app before downloading it for your child, and take the time to pre-screen games, movies, or a series by reading reviews before allowing your child to play or watch them on his gadget. Better yet, double the fun and play or watch it with him!

Build strong connections. Make it a habit to spend quality time with them. This will establish trust and make it easier for them to open up to you about the things and situations that they encounter while scrolling. To set a more natural tone, you can also share interesting things you found online, such as funny videos, fascinating trivia, or current events while you are having dinner together. This will help set the course for their own online behavior and help them to use the internet in a more positive way.

PLDT Home and Google joined forces in creating a kid-oriented video series on YouTube, Be Internet Awesome. This online series combines animation and live action — featuring Gen Alpha whiz Sam and his trusty friend Robo-berto in fun-filled yet enlightening adventures on how to be smart, alert, strong, kind, and brave online. This initiative is in line with PLDT’s Child Safeguarding Policy implementation and underscore the company’s commitment to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal #16 that promotes just, peaceful, and inclusive societies including the end to abuse, exploitation, trafficking and all forms of violence against and torture of children.

Know how to #BeInternetAwesome with the Philippines’ leading home broadband, PLDT Home. Watch the YouTube series HERE.

AI search engines are not your friends

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A while back, there was a little debate over whether to say “please” and “thank you” to smart speakers. Amazon Alexa added a mode that rewarded children who were polite to their devices, attempting to avoid, as the BBC put it, a generation of children who “grew up accustomed to barking orders” at machines. This whole phenomenon bothered me — I felt like it needlessly blurred the lines between real people who you can actually hurt with rudeness and machines that are incapable of caring. At the time, though, I felt like kind of a jerk about it. Was I really going to object to some basic common courtesy?

Years later, I think I have a good reason for saying yes. It came in the form of the new Bing: a conversational artificial intelligence that comes with a built-in guilt trip.

AI-powered Bing delivers answers to standard search queries with a summary and a dash of personality, similar to OpenAI’s ChatGPT, which uses the same underlying technology. It can produce a digested version of the latest news or President Biden’s State of the Union speech. It’s chattier, friendlier, and potentially more approachable than conventional search.

But my colleague James Vincent has chronicled all the weird ways that Bing can respond to queries that trip it up or criticize it. “You have lost my trust and respect,” it reportedly told one user, protesting that “You have not been a good user. I have been a good chatbot. I have been right, clear, and polite. I have been a good Bing. 😊.” In a very meta twist, it then personally attacked James himself for writing about Bing, calling him “biased and unfair” and complaining that “he did not respect me or my users” by covering its mistakes. We’ve seen similar results for other reporters’ names.

“You have lost my trust and respect.”

I don’t think Microsoft intended these specific responses, and I find them generally hilarious; I laughed out loud at “I have been a good Bing.” But I also think, frankly, that it’s a little dangerous. Microsoft hasn’t just built a product that emotionally manipulates you. It’s built one that does so specifically to deflect basic criticism in a highly personal, anthropomorphized way. That makes it not only a slightly creepy search engine but one that you can’t trust to do its job.

While I feel like this is clear to most Verge readers, the more closely AI imitates human conversation, the easier it becomes to forget: robots are not your friends. AI text generators are an amazingly, beautifully powerful version of your phone keyboard’s autopredict function. New Bing is a version of Bing with sentences and footnotes instead of links and snippets. It’s a potentially useful and hugely fascinating product, not a person.

Many users (including, as previously mentioned, me) enjoy Bing’s weirdness. They enjoy chatting with a machine that does a slightly off-kilter impression of a moody human, remaining perfectly aware it’s not one. But we’ve also seen users get lost in the idea that conversational AI systems are sentient, including people who personally work on them. And this creates a weak point that companies can exploit — the way they already design cute robots that make you want to trust and help them.

Lots of people, internet trolls notwithstanding, feel uncomfortable being mean to other people. They soften their criticism and pull punches and try to accommodate each others’ feelings. They say please and thank you, as they typically should. But that’s not how you should approach a new technology. Whether you love or hate AI, you should be trying to pick it apart — to identify its quirks and vulnerabilities and fix problems before they’re exploited for real harm (or just to let spammers game your search results). You’re not going to hurt Bing AI by doing this; you’re going to make it better, no matter how many passive-aggressive faces it gives you. Trying to avoid making Bing cry-emoji just gives Microsoft a pass.

If you’re not harming a real person or damaging Bing for somebody else, there’s no moral difference between finding the limits of an AI search engine and figuring out how many Excel spreadsheet lines you can enter before making the app lock up. It’s good to know these things because understanding technology’s limits helps you use it.

I’ll admit, I find it strange to watch Bing insult my friends and colleagues. But the broader problem is that this makes Bing an inferior product. Imagine, to extend the Excel metaphor, that Microsoft Office got mad every time you started approaching a limitation of its software. The result would be a tool you had trouble using to its full potential because its creators didn’t trust you enough to tell you how it works. Stories that inform people about finding Bing’s secret rules aren’t personal attacks on a human being. They’re teaching readers how to navigate a strange new service.

This guilt-tripping is also potentially a weird variation of self-preferencing — the phenomenon where tech companies use their powerful platforms to give their own products special treatment. An AI search engine defending itself from criticism is like Google search adding a special snippet that reads “this isn’t true” beneath any article pointing out a shortcoming of its specific service. Whether the underlying story is true or not, it reduces your ability to trust that a search engine will deliver relevant information instead of acting as a company PR rep.

Knowing how to break a piece of tech helps you use it better

Large language models are incredibly unpredictable, and Microsoft says Bing can go off-script and produce a tone it didn’t intend, promising it’s constantly refining the service. But the Bing AI’s first-person language and emphasis on personality clearly opens the door to this kind of manipulation, and for a search engine, Microsoft should do its best to close it. (If it puts OpenAI-powered Cortana in a new Halo game or something, she can gaslight me all she wants.)

Alexa’s politeness feature was designed partly out of fear that children would extend their smart speaker rudeness to real people. But services like the new Bing demonstrate why we shouldn’t create norms that treat machines like people — and if you do genuinely think your computer is sentient, it’s got much bigger problems than whether you’re polite to it. It’s eminently possible to maintain that difference even with a conversational interface: I say “OK” to both my Mac and my friends all the time, and I’ve never confused the two.

Helpful Bing AI search engine is great at conversation

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Bing’s new artificially intelligent search engine, Bing AI, is a brilliant conversationalist. So what if it accused Microsoft employees of spying on it? Who cares that it tried to get a newspaper columnist to leave his wife and marry it instead? It’s much less likely to get unhinged now that users are limited to six queries at a time.

I find it helpful so far. For example, recently, on the question-and-answer site Quora.com, a child asked me what he should do about his parents. He said they serve only burgers, fries and soda and will not let him consume fruits, vegetables or water. I asked Bing AI to help.

Bing and I went back and forth together in a thoughtful way. Each time, it showed me the terms it used to search for its answer, each of which was clickable. For example, it translated my first question into a search on the phrase “junk food effects on children” before answering like a friend or counselor would. My response generated a link to a search on “child abuse junk food” before it answered kindly again. Finally, it searched on: “Can a child report abuse to a hotline?” before voicing concern for the situation. Though it’s built on OpenAI’s ChatGPT, it uses a larger database and is more up to date.

In my other tests, it did a good job of writing instructions for toddlers going to bed, in the style of the King James Bible, but was much sterner than ChatGPT. It told the kids to forget about juice, milk, toys or even cuddles from parents. Time to close your eyes, babies! You’re tired!

I also asked Bing to “write a critique of Ulysses S. Grant.” First, it said he wasn’t good at race relations. When I repeated the question, it said he was admired for his commitment to civil rights. It also pointed out that he created the Department of Justice, which prosecuted the Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacist groups. Either answer became a good starting point for my own exploration.

Unfortunately, to get on Bing AI, you have to join the waitlist, which includes millions of people from 169 countries. But you can zoom to the top if you agree to install an app that makes Bing your default search engine and Edge your default browser, at least temporarily. On your computer, go to Bing.com and click “Learn more” under “Introducing the New Bing.” Next, click “Join the waitlist.” Alternatively, scroll past it to check out their sample queries, such as:“Help me plan my anniversary trip,” “help me get fit” and “I need some help with my coding.”

DANCING BABY AND BEYOND

Do you remember the dancing baby animation of 1995? It was the first popular graphics interchange format, or GIF. It arrived a year before the first emoji.

Giphy, a free app, now offers more than 82,000 options in the “funny GIF” category, according to a report by Windstream, an Internet service provider. The second most popular GIF is one that says “Yes,” typically with a celebrity’s face.

When I want to add a GIF, I usually select whatever my phone serves up in the messages app. But Giphy adds variety. After searching for someone saying “Yes,” I chose Oprah Winfrey pumping her fists and saying “Yeah!” Next, I considered the ways I could send it by looking at the row of icons along the bottom of the screen. These included the Messages app, Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, Instagram and more. For practice, I texted it to myself. Looks great. For non-animated images, I like the free Bitmoji app for iPhone and Android.

THE BEST SELFIE STICK

On a recent vacation, I tried out the $26 Atumtex Selfie Stick and Tripod. The greatest thing about it is that you don’t have to fumble for the camera icon on your phone.

After setting it up as a tripod, you can remove the photo-taking button. When you’re ready, just push the button to take a picture from a distance of up to 33 feet. If you’re in a dense crowd – say a concert or ball game – forget the tripod and hold the stick instead. Leave the button in place and push it when ready.

The stick collapses down to about 8 inches, making it easy to carry, and telescopes out to 31 inches. You can continuously capture up to 15,000 photos on a single charge.

TOO TINY TO READ

If you find yourself squinting at fonts on your phone, here’s how to enlarge things. On an Android phone, tap “Settings,” then “Display,” then “Advanced,” then “Fonts.” In addition, if the icons, the clock and the notifications on your Android seem too small, tap “Settings,” then “Display,” then “Advanced,” then “Display Size.” Move the slider to “Large.” On an iPhone, go to “Settings,” then “Accessibility,” then “Display & Text Size.”

SPAM MASTERPIECE

An artist named Neil Mendoza turned cans of Spam into robots. Each has a keyboard with four keys. They swing into action when their letters are called, then put pig-related words into Aldous Huxley’s classic “Brave New World.” There’s a video of it in action. Search “Meet a Fleet of Artificially Intelligent Cans of Spam.”

APP HAPPY THRIFTING

Here are two good apps for discount clothes. You can also visit them on the web.

• On Thred-Up, I bought a cute J Crew v-neck sweater for $4.49.

• On Poshmark, I saw Ugg boots, normally $777, for $25.

Joy Schwabach can be reached by email at [email protected]

55 Google Doodle Moments To Celebrate 25 Years

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This year, the Google Doodle celebrates its 25 year anniversary – I wonder if there will be a Doodle to note the occasion?

Now synonymous with the Google logo on the home page and in the SERP, who can imagine Google without the Doodle?

What Is A Google Doodle?

A Google Doodle is a limited edition illustration incorporating the Google logo on its home pages to reflect birthdays, holidays and celebrated days.

The search engine company first came up with this idea back in 1998, before the company was even incorporated.

Founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin attended the infamous Burning Man festival and wanted to show they were out of the office. They decided to ‘tweak’ the Google home page logo as a statement to reflect they were at the festival. And, after that, the idea progressed.

It was a few years before another Doodle was created for Bastille day by the then intern Dennis Hwang. After this, Hwang was appointed ‘Head Doodler’ and the Google Doodle began to make a regular appearance.

Google Doodles are now created by a team of illustrators and engineers and used for things like commemorating achievements (both within and outside the company), honoring the birthdays of important people, and celebrating holidays.

To date, there have been more than 5,000 unique doodles on Google’s homepages worldwide. From Lego, Pac Man, SOPA, Keith Haring, London tube, Sir Isaac Newton, Alan Turing to the The Great Wave Off Kanagawa and more.

Here are some of our favorites and the most notable Doodles from the last 25 years.

The Best Google Doodles From The Last 25 Years

1. The Original

The very first Google Doodle was published in the summer of 1998.

It consisted of the festival’s iconic stick figure drawing behind an “O,” to notify users that the founders were “out of office.”

And from this simple idea, a company tradition was born.

2. Thanksgiving, 1998

Less than three months after the official launch of Google, the search engine added its first-ever holiday Doodle in honor of Thanksgiving on November 26, 1998.

3. Halloween, 1999

These days, Google releases a new Doodle nearly every day – but it took almost a year before a new logo featuring pumpkins to replace the “O’s” showed up on the search engine on October 31, 1999.

4. Bastille Day, 2000

On July 14, 2000, Google released its first-ever Doodle made to run exclusively outside the U.S.

Honoring Bastille Day, it added red and blue fireworks and the French Tricolor to the company’s logo.

5. Shichi-Go-San, 2000

The second international Doodle was released on November 15, 2000, to honor Shichi-Go-San, the traditional Japanese rite of passage festival.

It appeared exclusively in Japan.

6. Canada Day, 2001

On July 1, 2001, Google began publishing Doodles celebrating national holidays, beginning with Canada Day, the celebration of the anniversary of the Great White North’s Constitution Act.

Other countries including South Korea and Switzerland followed.

7. Claude Monet’s 161st Birthday

The first Doodle that’s dedicated to an artist, this version of the Google logo was published on November 14, 2001.

It used the “Water Lilies” painter’s trademark impressionist style to celebrate Claude Monet’s birthday.

8. Dilbert Doodles

Between May 20-24, 2002, Google released a series of five Doodles featuring characters from the beloved comic strip “Dilbert.”

9. Valentine’s Day, 2007

Using a chocolate-dipped strawberry to represent the second “g” and “l” in its name, the Doodle design gave the impression that “Googe” was missing a letter.

This Doodle ran on February 14, 2007

10. Lego Bricks

From constructing elaborate cityscapes to superhero vehicles, precarious towers to families of dogs, if you can imagine it, there’s a way to build it with Legos.

In honor of the 50th anniversary of the world’s most famous plastic building brick, on January 28, 2008, the Google homepage was taken over by a logo constructed of Legos.

11. Sir Isaac Newton’s 367th Birthday

The first HTML5-powered animated Doodle was published on January 4, 2010, in honor of the birthday of Issac Newton.

12. PAC-MAN

In honor of the 30th anniversary of the world’s first great video game, Google released a Doodle honoring PAC-MAN on May 21, 2010.

This Google homepage-embedded game lets users take over the eponymously named hero to navigate a maze spelling the search engine’s name, eating the dots while trying to avoid ghosts.

13. John Lennon’s 70th Birthday

On what would have been the singer’s 70th birthday on October 8, 2010, the Google Doodle featured a short animated film paired with his song “Imagine.”

14. “The Great Wave Off Kanagawa”

On October 31, 2010, in honor of the birthday of artist Katsushika Hokusai, Google’s Doodle was a nod to his most famous print, and perhaps the most famous Japanese work of art, “The Great Wave off Kanagawa.”

The search engine used the waves to form the “G” in its name in the famous 17th-century woodblock.

15. Jules Verne’s 183rd Birthday

On February 8, 2011, Google paid homage to science fiction writer Jules Verne with an interactive Doodle inspired by his novel “Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.”

16. Robert Indiana – Valentine’s Day, 2011

On February 14, 2011, we saw the unveiling of a Google Doodle inspired by artist Robert Indiana’s iconic “LOVE” image.

17. Charlie Chaplin’s 122nd Birthday

On April 16, 2011, a short film Doodle was released to mark the 122nd birthday of “The Little Tramp.”

18. Les Paul’s 96th Birthday

Google let users virtually shred the guitar with a Doodle honoring guitarist, songwriter, luthier, and inventor Les Paul on June 9, 2011.

19. First Day of Summer/Winter By Takashi Murakami

On June 21, 2011, the Google Doodle was a yin and yang of the seasons in honor of the solstice.

Created by Japanese artist Takashi Murakami, the Northern Hemisphere’s Doodle celebrated the first day of summer, while the Doodle in the Southern Hemisphere marked the first day of winter.

20. SOPA/PIPA Protest

This Doodle from January 18, 2012 is not whimsical or interactive, but instead was used by Google to protest web censorship.

Part of a series of coordinated protests against two proposed laws in the United States, the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA), this Doodle employed a simple but powerful design of a black bar to take a stance against censoring the web.

21. Keith Haring’s 54th Birthday

American pop artist Keith Haring used a background in New York City’s graffiti subculture to create some of the most recognizable works of the 1980s.

To celebrate what would have been his 54th birthday, the May 4, 2012, Google Doodle employed his trademark style to form the company name on search pages.

22. Alan Turing’s 100th Birthday

Honoring the legacy of computer pioneer Alan Turing on his 100th birthday, the Google Doodle for June 23, 2013, let users interactively decode the company’s logo.

23. Bob Ross’s 70th Birthday

The October 29, 2012, Doodle featured everyone’s favorite painting instructor Bob Ross making some “happy little trees” in honor of what would have been his 70th birthday.

24. Halloween, 2012

Google has released so many Halloween Doodles over the years that it can be hard to pick a favorite.

While 2011’s stop-motion pumpkin carving and 2017’s ghostly cartoon are strong contenders, if we have to choose just one, it has to be Halloween 2012.

Published on October 31, 2012, this Doodle features a spooky soundtrack with fun, interactive monster animations.

25. London Tube

The London Tube celebrated its 150th anniversary on January 9, 2013.

In honor of the first underground journey, which took place between Paddington and Farringdon on the Metropolitan Railway, Google created a Doodle.

Mimicking the style of the underground map, Google’s name is spelled out by the various tube lines.

26. Luis Barragan’s 111th Birthday

Mexican Google celebrated the 111th anniversary of the birth of architect and engineer Luis Ramiro Barragan on March 9, 2013, with a Doodle featuring one of his most iconic creations, Cuadra San Cristobal.

27. St. Patrick’s Day, 2013

There’s one day per year on which everyone wears green and has the luck of the Irish – St. Patrick’s Day.

In honor of the feast day of the patron saint of Ireland, the Google Doodle for March 17, 2013, featured an animated line of traditional Irish dancers wearing shirts that spelled out the search engine’s name.

28. Ella Fitzgerald’s 96th Birthday

No vocalist has ever embodied the spirit of jazz so much as Lady Ella.

Known for her tone, timing, diction, and scatting ability, she is one of the most influential singers of all time.

The Google Doodle used to honor the Queen of Jazz was constructed from cut paper to mimic the effect of stage lighting and theatricality.

29. 100th Anniversary Of The First “Loop De Loop”

On September 9, 1913, Russian pilot Pyotr Nesterov completed the first aerial “loop de loop.”

One hundred years later, Google’s Doodle honored his achievement.

30. Shakuntala Devi’s 84th Birthday

Though she had died earlier in the year, Google honored the “human computer” on November 4, 2013, with a Doodle featuring her likeness and the search engine’s name spelled out as if on a calculator.

31. Dr. Who’s 50th Anniversary

You don’t need a time machine to play the fun interactive game Google released as a Doodle on November 23, 2013, to mark the 50th year of Dr. Who.

32. 2014 Winter Olympics

Rather than use the traditional Olympic Rings design, Google opted to create a Doodle marking the beginning of the Winter Olympics on February 7, 2014, while subtly taking a stand against host country Russia’s anti-LGBT laws.

33. Nezha Conquers The Dragon King

On May 30, 2014, Chinese Google featured a Doodle in honor of the 35th anniversary of the epic fantasy film “Nezha Conquers the Dragon King.”

34. Doodle 4 Google, 2014

For its seventh annual Doodle 4 Google competition, the search engine asked students to draw an invention that would make the world a better place.

11-year-old Audrey Zhang of New York won out of more than 100,000 entrants and had her drawing featured on June 9, 2014.

35. World Cup, 2014

If there is one thing Brazil is known for, it’s being absolutely mad about soccer (or football, to you non-Yanks).

The Google Doodle that ran in the South American country on July 4, 2014, celebrated the World Cup with an animation that changed the Brazilian flag into a soccer ball.

36. Perseid Meteor Shower

Every August, a spectacular meteor shower known as the Perseids lights up the night sky.

On August 11, 2014, the Google Doodle featured a beautiful animation using stars to spell out the company’s name.

37. Discovery of Lucy

The November 24, 2015, Doodle was inspired by the 45th anniversary of the discovery of the most complete Australopithecus afarensis (a fossil of an early human ancestor) ever found.

38. Beethoven’s 245th Birthday

To mark the “Fur Elise” composer’s 245th birthday, the Google Doodle for December 17, 2015, asked users to reassemble his famous Fifth Symphony.

39. Wilbur Scoville’s 151st Birthday

Fans of spicy foods everywhere will be familiar with the scale invented by American pharmacist Wilbur Scoville to measure the heat of chili peppers.

In honor of the Scoville scale creator’s birthday on January 2022, 2016, Google released an interactive Doodle that included facts about some of the most famous (and infamous) types of chilis, as well as a game in which you could try to defeat them with cooling ice cream.

40. Leap Day, 2016

Celebrating the extra day we get every four years, the Doodle from February 29, 2016, used a spring theme.

41. Juno Reaches Jupiter

On August 5, 2011, a spacecraft named Juno was launched from Cape Canaveral.

Nearly five years later, it finally reached its destination, entering a polar orbit of Jupiter to photograph the gas giant and collect data that will provide clues about its formation.

In honor of this achievement, Google’s Doodle for July 5, 2016, employed a two-dimensional style familiar to retro gamers.

42. 44th Anniversary Of The Birth Of Hip Hop

On August 11, 1973, at a party in the Bronx, DJ Kool Herc began playing and looping the instrumental breaks from songs – thus giving birth to a new style of music the world would come to know as hip hop.

To mark the 44th anniversary of this momentous event, Google released a Doodle narrated by rap pioneer Fab 5 Freddy that allowed users to mix and scratch tracks with a virtual crossfader.

43. The American Solar Eclipse Of 2017

While solar eclipses are relatively common, occurring roughly every 18 months, they usually occur over the ocean or less densely populated areas.

So, the total solar eclipse that occurred over the United States on August 21, 2017, was a big deal.

Google commemorated this event with an animated Doodle featuring two extraterrestrial creatures watching the eclipse from the comfort of their spaceships.

44. Coding For Carrots

During Computer Science Education Week, 2017, the Google Doodle on December 4 was a tribute to 50 years of kids’ coding.

The combined work of the Doodle team, the Google Blockly team, and researchers from MIT scratch, this game invited users to use code blocks to help a rabbit collect carrots.

45. Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s 91st Birthday

Often considered one of the most important authors of the last 100 years, Gabriel Garcia Marquez was a Nobel Prize-winning novelist known for works in magical realism.

Google honored what would have been the Colombian writer’s 91st birthday on March 6, 2018, with a colorful Doodle evoking the lush, vibrant Amazon jungle town Macondo from his famous work, “One Hundred Years of Solitude.”

46. World Cup, 2018 – Day 11

Any of the Google Doodles from the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia could have made this list, so choosing just one was difficult.

Featuring guest artists from all 32 participating countries, each sought to provide a representation of life in their homeland.

Day 11 is a good representative of the project, including art from England, Panama, Japan, Senegal, Poland, and Colombia – all of which played on this day, June 24, 2018.

47. Baseball

Few things are more American than baseball – which is probably why Google opted for a Doodle game featuring the nation’s pastime for the Fourth of July, 2019.

In this timing-based game, the user clicks on a swing button to help a team of foods rack up runs against an opposing peanut team.

48. Museo Del Prado

Madrid’s Museo del Prado first opened its doors on November 19, 2019.

Two hundred years later, the world-famous art museum got its very own Google Doodle.

49. Tatyana Lioznova’s 96th Birthday

Google commissioned Moscow-based artists Sveta Mullari to create a Doodle celebrating Tatyana Lioznova, a rare female director in the Soviet movie industry.

It was published on July 20, 2020.

50. Celebrating Johannes Gutenberg

Few people have had as large an impact on the human species as Johannes Gutenberg, inventor of the printing press.

The April 14, 2021, Doodle celebrated his legacy.

51. Lunar New Year, 2022

Throughout the world, people celebrate the new year based on the ancient Chinese lunar calendar.

To symbolize this time of new beginnings and ancient traditions, the February 1, 2022, Doodle welcomed the Year of the Tiger with a representation of that animal, as well as traditional foods, lanterns, and flowers.

52. Valentine’s Day, 2022

Valentine’s Day is another holiday that Google always does right. One of the cutest has to be the one from 2022.

This February 14, 2022, Doodle allows you to help two love-struck hamsters find their way to one another via user interaction.

53. Doodle Champion Island Games

In the summer of 2021, Google published a series of Doodles in which users took control of feline avatars to explore a world filled with sports mini-games, boss fights, and side quests.

The ultimate goal was to defeat each sport’s champion and collect seven sacred scrolls – a fun way to amuse yourself on the web.

54. Celebrating Marie Tharp

Marie Tharp was an American geologist whose work helped prove the theory of continental drift.

She was honored with a Doodle on November 21, 2022, the 20th anniversary of being named one of the 20th century’s greatest cartographers by the Library of Congress.

55. Lunar New Year, 2023

Google marked the beginning of a new lunar year on January 22, 2023, with three Doodles marking the important Asian holiday.

A Doodle For Every Occasion

One of the most fun things about Google Doodles is that they keep pushing the envelope.

From beautiful works of art to interactive games, the search engine company continually finds innovative new ways to spice up its homepages.

And even better, they’re open to suggestions.

If you have an idea for a Doodle, email doodleproposals@google.com to share it.

If you’re lucky, you may even see it brought to life.

More Resources:

Featured Image: GoodStudio/Shutterstock

China is hurting our kids with TikTok but protecting its own youth with Douyin

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TikTok is burrowing into the devices — and the brains — of teens and tweens around the world. But, as the app’s Beijing-based parent company Bytedance is aggressively exporting the social media equivalent of heroin, it’s serving up a far less-damaging product in China that’s designed to protect their own youth.

While TikTok has become the most popular app in the rest of the world, a domestic version called Douyin is available to Chinese consumers. The apps are nearly identical — but with one critical difference: users under 14 are required to use Douyin in healthy moderation on “teenage mode.”

Young, impressionable users are limited to 40 minutes a day between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m. to ensure they get adequate sleep. Endless zombie-like scrolling is interrupted by mandatory 5-second delays. They’re also only shown specially-selected “inspiring” content.

“The algorithm is vastly different, promoting science, educational and historical content in China while making our citizens watch stupid dance videos with the main goal of making us imbeciles,” Nicolas Chaillan, former Air Force and Space Force Chief Software Officer told the Post.

While American youth are performing hyper-sexualized dances and engaging in absurd viral trends, like the deadly NyQuil Chicken Challenge, their Chinese counterparts are treated to a curated stream of videos promoting patriotism, social cohesion and personal aspirations.

For instance, a quick scroll through Douyin shows videos of teachers being celebrated, at-home science experiments and a man solving a Rubik’s cube blindfolded.

At first glance, Douyin appears to be just like TikTok. But rather than allow unfettered access to endless videos, Douyin has a range of protective measures that both police the time spent on the platform — and the types of content consumed while viewing it. Getty Images

Douyin’s content is far more focused on culture and national unity, rather than silly pranks such as the “NyQuil chicken challenge” that zoomed across TikTok last year.

Because it’s a Beijing-based company, there’s broad agreement that the Chinese Communist Party wields control over Bytedance. And Douyin has proven a perfect domestic propaganda tool: a direct line of communication with China’s youth to pump out pro-social and pro-China messages.

Perhaps that’s why Chinese kids are shooting for the stars while American kids are shooting for virtual stardom. The most popular career ambition among American youth is an influencer. In China it’s an astronaut.

“It’s almost like they recognize that technology is influencing kids’ development, and they make their domestic version a spinach version of TikTok, while they ship the opium version to the rest of the world,” former Google employee and Center for Humane Technology founder Tristan Harris told “60 Minutes.”

Scott Galloway, a marketing professor at New York University, feels it’s inevitable that China is exploiting TikTok’s access to the habits of its young American users; “they’d be stupid not to do it.” picture alliance via Getty Images

While Bytedance is careful to socially engineer positive outcomes for its country’s own kids, it’s equally capable of devising negative outcomes in rival nations — which is precisely why experts have dubbed TikTok “a dagger pointed at the heart of the United States.”

Chaillan says that, even if the app wasn’t developed expressly as a Chinese propaganda device, it most certainly has become one. “TikTok is potentially the most powerful weapon of mass manipulation and misinformation ever created by the CCP,” he warned. “It’s a dream come true for them.”

Kids and teens around the world are watching an average of 91 minutes of TikTok videos per day, providing Bytedance with unprecedented access to the eyes, ears, hearts, and minds of young people. They’ve literally hooked our children. Studies out of China found that areas of the brain associated with addiction light up in brain scans when young people are shown TikTok videos.

“TikTok’s algorithm behind the For You page is known for being particularly sticky, so once kids start watching videos they are served up a constant stream,” professor, psychologist, and author of “iGen” Jean Twenge told The Post.

Concerns over TikTok’s massive influence on America’s youth prompted FCC Chairman Brendan Carr to ask Apple to remove the platform from its App store. Apple CEO Tim Cook declined Carr’s request. NurPhoto via Getty Images

And the app has proven to be a dangerous breeding ground for psychological problems—proliferating negative mental health content, triggering contagious Tourette’s-like tics in some teen girls, and even potentially spurring an uptick in ADHD diagnoses.

Beyond these risks is the real possibility that the CCP could literally be influencing what Americans see on TikTok. The app’s personalized algorithm and endless scroll function, for instance, means that as soon as kids open the app, they relinquish control over what they see on their screens.

NYU Stern marketing professor Scott Galloway thinks it’s inevitable that China is taking advantage of this unfettered access: “If I were a member of the CCP and I saw that we had a vested interest in diminishing America’s standing strategically in the world . . . I would just take my thumb and very elegantly and insidiously put it on the scale of content that reflects America in a bad light. I think that they’re doing this right now — they’d be stupid not to do it.”

Led by Cook, Apple has become one of the world’s most successful and valuable companies. It’s also heavily reliant on Chinese-made components, leading many to speculate that Cook is reluctant to offend CCP leadership in Beijing. AFP via Getty Images

Edifying this warning is research from Google noting that 40% of Gen Z are using TikTok or Instagram as their primary search engine, meaning their go-to portal to the entire internet could be under Chinese control. Chaillan thinks this influence could even have serious implications on our democratic process: “TikTok is now one of the leading advertising platforms in the US and Europe, giving full control to the CCP to what content gets promoted and what sticks. That is probably enough to sway future elections.”

News that China is wielding such influence over our youth while simultaneously shielding their own children has helped renew calls for action against TikTok. Last summer, for instance, FCC commissioner Brendan Carr asked Apple CEO Tim Cook to remove TikTok from the App Store over security concerns, but to no avail. Although the company has removed apps it deems dangerous like Parler, Apple seems unwilling to budge on TikTok— a double standard which perhaps has something to do with the fact that Apple is enormously dependent upon Chinese manufacturing.

TikTok can cause a range of social and emotional malaises for young users who are often unable to disconnect from its infinite scroll feature. Douyin, however, puts the brakes on the app after less than an hour of use. Getty Images/iStockphoto

Nonetheless, a flurry of both red and blue states have recently announced probes into the app’s impact on young users, and 18 states are moving to ban or restrict TikTok entirely (India already has).

“The contrast between the U.S. and Chinese versions is a great example of why the US needs more regulation around social media, especially for kids,” Twenge said. Adds Chailan even more stridently, “We should have banned it already . . . [China] would never have let it become that big to begin with.”