We all know what Google is (well I hope you do if you're on this page), we've all used it, and I'm going to bet a fair number of us love it. There's more to this company than just fantastic search engines, office suites, and Google Earth however! Here's eight different things you might not have known about Google.
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1. The first Google storage system was made of Lego.
The first Google storage system was built in 1996 and housed in a lego storage container. The actual storage capacity of the storage system was 40 gigabytes, less than many hand held devices today. The reason they chose Lego is that they needed a cheap and easily expandable material to build the housing out of.
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| Notice the Colors, it matches Google's logo of today |
2. The name Google was an accident.
It was a spelling mistake made by the founders who thought they were spelling Googol. A Google is a huge number, 1 with 100 zero's after it or 10000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000.
3. Google's first twitter post was I'm feeling lucky, in binary.
On a side note, the "I'm feeling lucky" button is apparently hardly ever used. Google found that removing the button reduced the user's experience however, and decided to keep it.
4. Google uses goats instead of lawn mowers.
5. Google was added as a verb to the Oxford English Dictionary.
This occurred in 2006 and actually didn't make Google very happy, as they replied to the news as follows:
“We’d like to make clear that you should please only use ‘Google’ when you’re actually referring to Google Inc. and our services,”
The reasoning being that they didn't want people using the term in reference to say, Yahoo or Bing, and wanted to make sure that the term "Google it" referred only to their brand. Who can blame them? It took alot of work on their part to become the search engine giant they are today.
6. They have a full T-Rex skeleton at the Googleplex
Google has tons of decorations at their offices, but perhaps the most unique is a full scale T-rex skeleton! The Skeleton has been dubbed "Stan" after another nearby dinosaur that was uncovered.
7. The Lunar Google X Prize
Google is actively encouraging space exploration, and offering cash prizes to do so! They are offering a total of $30 million in prize money to the first of a group of privately funded teams to land a robot on the moon. The teams robot must travel 500 meters or more across the surface and send back information (pictures, video, etc) back to earth, and they have until 2015 to do this!
8. There is a Google Moon and Google Mars!
In addition to mapping out the world, in two different ways, Google has a Google earth style Google Moon and Google Mars. The really cool thing about it is that you can look at pictures from the apollo landing on Google Moon, as well as spacecraft activity on Google Mars as well!
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