Today marks the 18th birthday of the world"s largest search engine, Google. The company has put up a special Doodle, as it does for most significant events and also made a few announcements earlier in the day.
According to Google"s own records, the company"s founders filed for incorporation on September 4, 1998. However, 27th September was chosen as its birthday some time ago. To mark this occasion, the search giant put out an animated Doodle featuring the letter G creating the remaining letters from the word "Google" using a balloon.
Earlier today the search giant held an event in India where it announced products targeted towards the developing nation, some of which will also be made available in more markets. The main announcements from the event were as follows:
- Google Station - Free Wi-Fi hotspots in partnership with local ISPs, organizations and venue owners
- YouTube Go - App for offline video viewing and sharing
- Hindi language support for Google Assistant - The newly introduced Assistant from Google"s Allo messenger will be able to understand Hindi conversations
- Chrome Data Saver for even slower networks - Chrome will be able to perform much better on slow 2G networks in the country and other developing markets. The change will include both mobile and desktop versions of the browser.
- Google Play wait for Wi-Fi feature - Google Play Store will receive the ability to queue up downloads until Wi-Fi is available to prevent unnecessary downloads over slow networks.
- Lite mode for News & Weather app - The Google News & Weather app will be optimized for slow networks and provide essential information to the users
India is one of the key markets for Google, where it aims to get its next billion users, and the company chose its 18th birthday to make some interesting announcements in the country. It remains to be seen whether it has something else up its sleeve for the rest of the day.