New Delhi: Google has put up a digital version of the legendary electric guitar, the Gibson Les Paul, in place of its logo to celebrate the 96th birthday of the country and jazz guitarist, songwriter and inventor, Lester William Polsfuss, better known as Les Paul.
The Google doodle in honour of Les Paul is playable by hovering the cursor over the doodle and even by the computer keyboard. "For the next 24 hours on the Google homepage, you’ll find an interactive, playable logo inspired by the guitar developed by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee that made the sound of rock and roll possible," Alexander Chen, a designer with Google's creative lab posted on the official Google blog. Users in the US can also record the their own 30-second track.
The doodle was made with a combination of JavaScript, HTML5 Canvas, CSS, Flash and tools like the Google Font API, goo.gl and App Engine. Google engineers Kristopher Hom and Joey Hurst and doodle team lead Ryan Germick helped put together the innovative doodle.
Les Paul was known for his innovative and experimental guitar playing style. Born on June 9, 1915 in Waukesha, Wisconsin, Les Paul developed an interest in music at the age of eight when he started to play the harmonica, followed by banjo and finally moved to the love of his life - the guitar.
He had formed his own Les Paul Trio in the 1930s and performed long with Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters in the 1940s. He also had his own radio program.
He designed a solid body electric guitar in 1941, but it finally went on sale by the Gibson Guitar Company in 1952. He also pioneered the development of multi-track recording and invented the eight-track tape recorder and the technique of overdubbing.
In 1988 he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and in 2005 in the National Inventors Hall of Fame.
He continued to play and perform live well into his 90s. In 2006, aged 90, he won two Grammys. Les Paul died on August 12, 2009. He was 94.
Google has now become more frequent with animated and interactive doodles. Of the last 10 Google doodles, five included animations or were interactive.
The Google doodle had first gone interactive in May 2010 to celebrate the 30th birthday of the popular Pac-Man game.
For a dozen years, Google has been occasionally swapping its everyday logo for a doodle. The Google doodles, an artistic take on the Google logo, have gained immense popularity over the past few years and the Google doodle team has put out commemorative doodles on numerous events of international or national importance, ranging from news events, civic milestones, birthdays, death anniversaries and important dates in history. Google estimates it has created more than 900 doodles since 1998, with 270 of them running in 2010. Some appear globally, and others are tailored for local markets.
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