Google uses accelerometer API in Jules Verne Google Doodle

Here are the images if you want to cheat.<p><a href="http://www.google.com/logos/2011/verne-hp-1.png" rel="nofollow">http://www.google.com/logos/2011/verne-hp-1.png</a><p><a href="http://www.google.com/logos/2011/verne-hp-2.png" rel="nofollow">http://www.google.com/logos/2011/verne-hp-2.png</a><p><a href="http://www.google.com/logos/2011/verne-hp-3.png" rel="nofollow">http://www.google.com/logos/2011/verne-hp-3.png</a><p><a href="http://www.google.com/logos/2011/verne-hp-4.png" rel="nofollow">http://www.google.com/logos/2011/verne-hp-4.png</a>

FYI, the accelerometer works on a MacBook Pro with Chrome or Firefox as well. I remember when Kris showed me the demo on his Mac, I was like "Wow, you can do that on a normal laptop?"

And which devices that support Firefox or Chrome actually have accelerometers? It doesn't work on my Froyo phone...

Spec (for webkit based browsers): <a href="http://dev.w3.org/geo/api/spec-source-orientation.html" rel="nofollow">http://dev.w3.org/geo/api/spec-source-orientation.html</a> of how to access acceleration data.<p>Mozilla does it somewhat differently:<p><a href="https://developer.mozilla.org/en/Detecting_device_orientation" rel="nofollow">https://developer.mozilla.org/en/Detecting_device_orientatio...</a>

The accelerometer interaction hooks into javascript via browser events.<p>Here's the basic usage for chrome: (for firefox the event is MozOrientation, and values are radians rather than degrees)<p><pre><code> window.addEventListener('deviceorientation', function(evt) { var x = evt.gamma, y = evt.beta; }, false);</code></pre>

Doesn't work on my 2010 Macbook Air. I was a little confused until it dawned on me that due to the SSD, Apple had no reason to build in an accelerometer.

I navigated through the entire doodle just to see if there was something encoded in it as well, like in the cr-48 ad.

Huzzah for Whale Sharks[1]! Funky critters. The "Google" at the bottom is a nice touch, too.<p>[1]: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whale_shark" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whale_shark</a>

It would be interesting to log this data, and try to figure out how many users are leaning back, in a car, etc. I wonder what kind of patterns you'd see.

Doesn't work on Android? Sometimes Google confuses me.

I didn't know they'd done it. I opened Firefox and grabbed my Macbook to head for the couch and was most surprised by the awesome.