According to Jeff Roberts of paidContent, graffiti of Google’s logo has been showing up around New York City with one very shaming alteration: the two Os in “Google” have been replaced by surveillance cameras. The photo below is the picture of the graffiti that Roberts shared earlier today.

Roberts notes that the logo hasn’t existed at that particular location longer than few weeks and that this bridge seems to attract “tech-themed street art” so it’s unclear if this is a direct reply to Google’s changes to their Privacy Policy or just general discontent aimed at the company. Regardless, whenever a company starts to share the same wall of shame as SOPA (see the message scrawled to the right of the logo), it’s a reliable sign that people are decidedly angry with you.

Google announced this morning on the The Today Show that they are starting up the fifth annual U.S. Doodle 4 Google contest. They want K-12 students to draw their own rendition of the Google logo. The winner will see their doodle on the frontpage of Google for a day. The winner will also receive a $30,000 college scholarship and a $50,000 technology grant for their school.

The theme for this year is “If I could travel in time, I’d visit…” They don’t care which direction in time kids want to go. They can even stay in the present and draw a doodle about Google telling them to draw a doodle about time travel.

Last year, Google saw 107,000 entries to the contest. They’re making a few changes this year to better accommodate more winners. Each state will have five finalists and one winner so each state will have a doodle champion to cheer on. From those 50 state winners, they will select five national finalists from which the doodle champion will emerge.

They are also partnering with Crayola this year to bring the winning doodle to a special edition of their 64-crayon box. Remember kids, draw your doodles with Roseart crayons for the ultimate irony.

They have also eliminated the registration step so parents or teachers just have to submit the artwork by March 20 with a signed and completed entry form.

Contest judging will start with Google employees and a panel of celebrity guest judges. Katy Perry, creator of Phineas and Ferb Jeff Marsh and Jordin Sparks have graciously agreed to judge the artwork alongside other unnamed, but guaranteed to be great, illustrators and artists. They will pick the state finalists and winners, then the national finalists and winners will be up to a public vote.

The doodles by the 50 state winners will be displayed at the New York Public Library and then at museums around the country so parents can take their children to see why they didn’t win.

For all the details, parents can head here to get the entry form and learn how they can get their child’s 15 minutes of Internet fame.*

*Fifteen minutes of Internet fame is equatable to 20 seconds in real time.

This morning on The Today Show, Marissa Mayer, VP of Product Management for Google, took to the show to talk about a new Google Doodle contest for K-12 students. Before they got to that though, the cast of Today took the first minute to talk about SOPA and Google’s protest of it.

Since it’s been hard to get any mainstream coverage on SOPA, it was surprising to see it being talked about this morning. Unfortunately, Today never took time out to talk about it in depth and of course, they had to give their owner’s (Comcast) weighted opinion on the legislation.

Still it’s impressive that a mainstream news network owned by a supporter of SOPA, and one that’s watched by millions of Americans every morning, would talk about the controversial legislation.

In other encouraging news, The Today Show’s top headline is about Wikipedia going dark in protest of SOPA.

Stay tuned for more on the SOPA blackout throughout the day.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

 Participants in this years Doodle 4 Google contest will have a chance to win a $15,000 scholarship and a $25,000 technology grant for their school.

The theme for this years contest is “What I’d like to do someday…” the Google Blog offers more details. “While most of this year’s contest remains the same, we’ve made some exciting changes based on your feedback. Now, parents or guardians can register their students directly, and if a school registers, there’s no limit on the number of doodles they can submit.”

“But remember, we only allow one entry per student. We’re also pleased to partner with Boys & Girls Clubs of America and Girl Scouts of the USA, two organizations that truly bring this year’s theme to life.”

“Once you’ve registered your students and they submit their artwork, Google employees and our panel of guest judges, including Whoopi Goldberg, gold medal ice skater Evan Lysacek and “Garfield” creator Jim Davis, will narrow down the submissions.”

The top 40 regional finalists will get a trip to New York City and a visit from Google in their hometown. Their doodles will be displayed in an exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art.

Parents and teachers can register students by March 2 and all entries need to be postmarked by March 16.

The Google Blog offers all the fun details. "Today, on PAC-MAN’s 30th birthday, you can rediscover some of your 8-bit memories-or meet PAC-MAN for the first time-through our first-ever playable Google doodle. To play the game, go to google.com during the next 48 hours (because it’s too cool to keep for just one day) and either press the ‘Insert Coin’ button or just wait for a few seconds."

Google says it has included all the original sounds and graphics of the original PAC-MAN along with an easter egg for Ms. PAC-MAN.

"We also added a little easter egg: if you throw in another coin, Ms. PAC-MAN joins the party and you can play together with someone else (PAC-MAN is controlled with arrow keys or by clicking on the maze, Ms. PAC-MAN using the WASD keys)."

For the first time, Google said it is visiting the schools of its top 40 regional finalists and will share educational Google tools with teachers while announcing online voting for the top 40 doodles.

This year’s Doodle 4 Google contest theme is "If I Could Do Anything, I Would" Google says it received more than 33,000 submissions from all 50 states.

The Google Blog offers details on online voting for the top 40 doodles. "Starting at 6:00 a.m. PDT today through May 25 at 5:00 p.m. PDT, you can cast your online votes for your favorite Regional Finalist’s doodle (one from each of the four grade groups). On May 26, we’ll announce the national winner at our awards ceremony in New York City, and the winning design will appear on google.com on Thursday, May 27."

"The national winner will also receive a $15,000 college scholarship and $25,000 towards a new computer lab for their school."
 

The theme this year is "If I Could Do Anything, I Would." Google says along with the winners Doodle appearing on the homepage on May 27, 2010, they will also receive a $15,000 college scholarship, a laptop computer and a $25,000 technology grant for their school.

Google has also put together a panel of expert judges. The Google Blog offers more details. "We’re happy to let you know that this year, we’ve also assembled a panel of well-known ‘Expert Jurors,’ including creative directors, cartoonists and famous animators ranging from Sesame Workshop to Pixar Animation Studios. Our Expert Jurors will help us narrow down the cream of the crop to 40 regional finalists, who will come to the Google office in New York City on May 26, 2010."

"For the second year, we’ll also be partnering with the Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, where the top 40 regional finalists will get to have their artwork displayed in a national exhibit. And for the first time this year, we’ll give out eight Technology Booster awards to schools that submit maximum number of doodles per school by March 10th and have students in our 400 State Finalists."

Only schoolteachers or administrators can register their schools to participate.  Registration for the Doodle 4 Google contest closes at 11:59 Pacific Time on March 17, 2010, and entries must be submitted by March 31, 2010.

Related Articles:

>2009 Doodle 4 Google Winner Announced

>Google Offers Money, Fame To Young Artists

>Doodle 4 Google Contest Launches

The danish author is best known for his children’s stories including Thumbelina, The Little Match Girl, and, my favorite, The Ugly Duckling. Born April 2, 1805, Andersen…..

…excuse me a minute. Someone’s IMing while I’m trying to crank this post out.

…….

…….

……well, apparently Google’s not celebrating Hans Christian Andersen, but Hans Christian Ørsted!

Well, that sucks!

So, what did Ørsted do to warrant a Google doodle? He what? Discovered electromagnetism? So, he didn’t have anything to do with an ugly duckling becoming a beautiful swan?

Did Danny Kaye ever play him in a movie? No? Meh!

OK, back to work everyone! Everyone except me. I’m off to read about a girl no bigger than your thumb!

Comments

This year’s theme is "What I Wish for the World." Google has also partnered with the Smithsonian’s, Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum.

From the Google Blog. "Their partnership also means that this year’s prizes not only include having your artwork on the Google homepage for a day, a college scholarship, and a technology grant for your school, but also having your work (and that of all 40 finalists) exhibited at a Smithsonian museum!"

Google says most of the contest is the same as last year but there are a few changes. "First, we’ve increased the college scholarship prize for the national winner to $15,000. We’ve also added a $10,000 prize for the school district that submits the most high-quality entries. Finally, in partnership with Cooper-Hewitt, we’ll be celebrating the 40 finalists and announcing the national winner in New York City, to coincide with the opening of the exhibit."

Only teachers or school employees can register their schools to participate. Registration for theDoodle 4 Google contest closes at 11:59 PM Pacific time on March, 17 and entries are due by 11:59 PM Pacific time on March 31, 2009.

The national winner will be announced at an event held at the Google New York Office on May 20,2009.

That’s actually pretty sweet. Last year’s Doodle was a mess, with a lot of sites reporting that Google had forgotten the “l” in Google:

Here’s the 2005 Valentine’s logo:

In 2006, Google did not celebrate Valentine’s Day because February 14 fell during the Winter Olympic Games, and Google runs special Olympic Doodles during those days.

If you forgot to get your special someone (or your pet, whatever) something for V-Day, might I recommend hitting up Rite-Aid on the way home? There’s always something there that says “I’m not a thoughtless jerk”.

Philipp notes that Google Docs is pink today, the Google Maps Street View guy is standing on a heart-shaped platform, and YouTube’s logo is heart-shaped.

Comment