According to reports, a Ukrainian man attempted to hijack an airliner en route from Ukraine to Turkey and divert it to Sochi where the Winter Olympics are taking place.  The man claimed there was a bomb on board the Pegasus Airlines aircraft, tried to gain access to the cockpit and was carrying a detonator, the unconfirmed reports said on Friday.

“While the plane was in the air, one of the passengers said that there was a bomb on board and asked the plane to not land in Sabiha Gokcen (in Turkey) but rather to land in Sochi,” Transportation Ministry official Habip Soluk said Friday on CNNTurk.

The pilot managed to sound the alert and an F-16 Turkish military jet was scrambled, forcing the plane with some 110 passengers on board to land in Istanbul, the reports said.

Turkish anti-terrorist commandos and armed police were searching all the passengers the aircraft for explosives, the reports said.

The Sochi Olympics are off to a very rough start.  The hashtag #SochiProblems on Twitter will show you everything going wrong with the Sochi Olympics.  Now this Sochi Hijacking is adding to the list of problems.  It’s scary to think of all of the issues that have already happened and it’s just begun.  Check out this hashtag search on twitter: https://twitter.com/search?src=typd&q=%23SochiProblems

The Emergency Alert button is right beside the Follow button, making it an easy task for users to subscribe to emergency alerts. Twitter also announced that organizations from Brazil and Australia have joined the service. The alert system is very beneficial for users. 70 organizations worldwide joined when it was announced in September and now there are over 120 organizations. Twitter’s a quick and easy way to relay information and these emergency alerts will help people know immediately about any emergencies, whether they are in their country or in another country. Especially during major events, for example the 2014 Winter Olympics in Russia or The 2014 World Cup in Brazil. Many people from all over the world will travel to these countries to witness these events and increased security and easy access to emergenciy alerts will be crucial. Everyone has a cellphone in today’s world and they have Twitter as well. It’s good that the safety of the people and access to important information is being developed.

If you are an iOS user, you get some more features. Alerts will appear on the bottom of the page in a bright orange bar. So as you are scrolling through the feed, these bars will appear every time an emergency alert is sent out. You can see that on the left picture, above. This feature is not available for Android yet, so if you’re an iPhone owner, good for you! Twitter is rapidly expanding and is more information friendly than Facebook. This new upgrade will benefit the public strongly and will urge more organization from countries worldwide to join the Emergency Alert system. We have read articles on police forces using Twitter in a productive way and so and so, it is good to see a large body like Twitter improving the safety of the people and how they react to emergencies. A big thumbs up to Twitter for doing things like this. Instead of using social media as a way to ruin people, they are finding ways to help people. Thank You Twitter!

At around midnight this morning, Google changed up their logo to celebrate the 100th birthday of Jacques Cousteau with a Google Doodle Jacques Cousteau style. I wrote a quick article about the Jacques Cousteau Google logo and someone almost immediately asked if he was still alive. The answer is “no” – Jacques Cousteau is no longer alive – he died June 25th, 1997 of hearth failure in Paris, France.

Anyway, I digress…

2010 World Cup Google Logo

Google has just recently – in fact, perhaps within the past 30 minutes or so – changed their Google logo from the Jacques Cousteau celebration to a 2010 World Cup Google Logo.

This would now be the 2nd Google logo of today.

The last time I saw Google change up their logo twice in one day was on day 2 of the 2010 Winter Olympics.

Google is now celebrating the 2010 World Cup that started today. The first game of the World Cup was between South Africa and Mexico which just ended in a tie 1-1.

Here’s the 2010 World Cup Google Logo:

Here’s the JacJacques Cousteau Google logo from earlier today:

Google’s custom logo designs, otherwise known as Google Doodles, seem to be showing up much more frequently than the past. Even entire series of Google logos are showing up such as those that were generated during the 2010 Winter Olympics. For each day during the 2010 Winter Olympics, Google celebrated with a new Google doodle logo.

Today’s Google logo is customized to celebrate the 100th birthday of Jacques Cousteau who, according to Wikipedia was a French naval officer, explorer, ecologist, filmmaker, innovator, scientist, photographer, author and researcher who studied the sea and all forms of life in water. He co-developed the aqua-lung, pioneered marine conservation and was a member of the Académie française. He was commonly known as “le Commandant Cousteau” or “Captain Cousteau“.

Cousteau was born on 11 June 1910, in Saint-André-de-Cubzac, Gironde, to Daniel and Élisabeth Cousteau. He had one brother, Pierre-Antoine. Cousteau completed his preparatory studies at the prestigious Collège Stanislas in Paris. In 1930 he entered the École Navale and graduated as a gunnery officer. After an automobile accident cut short his career in naval aviation, Cousteau indulged his interest in the sea.

More than likely you’ll be able to find a lot of content and information about Jacques Cousteau, his birthday, and the Google logo that is now celebrating his 100th birthday.

And so it continues! Google’s Pacman Logo is up for a 2nd day as Google celebrates Pacman’s 30th birthday by not only creating a Google Pacman Google Doodle logo, but by turning the Google Pacman Logo into a live game of Pacman that you can actually play.

Play 2 Players on Google Pacman

Here’s something that you may not have noticed. Where the “I’m Feeling Lucky” button used to be is not a button called “Insert Coin”. If you push the “Insert Coin” button once, the game will launch. If you push the “Insert Coin” button a second time, then Ms. Pacman will appear and you can now play simultaneously with two players!

Google Pacman Logo Not Using Flash

The other cool part of the Google Pacman Logo is that it is not using flash – only Javascript, HTML and CSS. So the Google Pacman Logo is something that even Steve Jobs would be proud of.

And since the Google Pacman Logo is not using Flash – this must mean that you can play the Google Pacman Game on your iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad.

Has anyone played the Google Pacman Logo game on their iPad?

How long will Google Celebrate the Pacman 30th anniversary?

There have been several instances in the past where Google carried on for days with a Google Logo celebration.

For example, Google celebrated Sesame Stree’s 40th Anniversary with 7 days of Google logos (see all 7 Sesame Street Google Logos).

Also, for this year’s 2010 Winter Olympics, Google celebrated the Olympic games with a new Google Logo for each day. During the 2010 Winter Olympics, Google decided to highlight one specific winter Olympic game with their Google Logo. And the day 2 Winter Olympic Google Logo actually saw 2 different logos because of the Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili incident where he died during a luge practice run.

I covered all 18 days (I think it was 18 days) of Google’s 2010 Winter Olympic Logos.

So how long exactly Google will continue on with the Pacman 30th Anniversary Logo is unknown at the moment, but since the Pacman Google Logo is the same today as it was yesterday, then I would guess that it will not be up for much longer. Perhaps through the weekend…

What do you think?

So have you played the Google Logo Pacman game yet?

Have you found any little secret golden nuggets or tricks that Google has placed in the Google Pacman game that aren’t obvious initially?

Antonio Vivaldi Google Logo

Today marks the 332nd birthday of Antonio Vivaldi.  The Italian composer is best known for his famous “‘The Four Seasons” composition.  Google has recently finished a 16 day Google Olympic Logo Series where it had a custom Google logo for each day of the 2010 Winter Olympics.  And now with only a few days since the closing ceremony, Google has again come out with a custom Google logo – this time celebrating the birthday of Antonio Vivaldi.

Here’s the Antonio Vivaldi Google Logo:

Google Olympic Logo – The Closing Ceremony

Today is February 28th, 2010 and it marks the 16th day of the 2010 Winter Olympic Games.  The Closing Ceremony is scheduled today and Google is celebrating the event with what will more than likely be the final Google Olympic logo of the 2010 Winter Games.

Here’s the Google Olympic Logo for the last day of the Olympics:

Google continues to celebrate the Winter Olympics with it’s Google Olympic logo series.  Today, Google is featuring the sport of speed skating.

Yesterday, I incorrectly labeled the Google Olympic logo by calling is “Speed Skating”, whereas the correct term would have been “short track”.

Today would be the more appropriate label of speed skating.

Also today, the Google logo has gone back to a much more colorful arrangement of greens, yellows, and blues.

Here’s today Google Olympic Logo:

Google continues to celebrate the Winter Olympics with it’s Google Olympic logo series.  Today, Google is featuring the sport of speed skating.

You can learn more about speed skating, get medal counts, and view schedules at the official Vancouver Winter Olympics website.

Here is today’s Google Olympic Logo:

Kim Yu Na Wins Gold

South Korean figure skating Kim Yuna has won the gold medal at Vancouver 2010, while simultaneously setting a new world record with a score of 228.56 points.  There will not be a throne luxurious enough for her in South Korea, where they already call her “Queen Yuna”.

In the gold medal performance of her life at the Winter Olympics last night she conquered the field with an amazing score of 228.56 points, followed by Japan’s Mao Asada taking silver, and then in the bronze medal position Joannie Rochette of Canada.

Kim Yu Na Gold Medal & World Record Skate Performance {VIDEO}

Google continues with it’s celebration of the Olympic games with their Google Olympic logo series.  Today, Google is featuring the sport of cross country skying.

What’s unique about today’s Google logo is that it’s one of the most colorful Olympic logos we’ve seen up to this point.  For the past few days, the Google Olympic logos have been all blue.  Only occasionally did we see logos with greens and yellows added in.

Today’s logo has taken a dramatic turn from the color trend by making the blues the minority color!

And I have to say that it is something of a relief!  I was quite frankly getting bored with the dark blue logos.

So enjoy today’s logo and it’s use of colors.  Tomorrow we may be back the dominant blues.

Here’s today’s Google Olympic Logo:

Australian Cheltzie Lee competes in the women’s short program figure skating on day 12 of the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.

Google continues with it’s celebration of the Olympic games with their Google Olympic logo series.  Today, Google is featuring the sport Ice Hockey.

Here’s today’s Google Olympic Logo:

Current Most Popular 2010 Olympic Videos

Over the past 2 weeks, I find myself frequently visiting the NBC Olympic website to watch the videos.  The website has full length, high quality videos of all of the events, you just have to put up the commercials at the beginning.  And I like how NBC tracks the views of each video and gives you a “Most Popular” category.

2010 Olympic Video: Ice Dancing Wild & Wacky Costumes

The current most popular video on the NBC 2010 Winter Olympics’ website is called “Ice Dancing Wild & Wacky Costumes”.  And as you can guess, it highlights some of the wackiest costumes worn by the ice skaters during competition.

Unfortunately, I can’t embed the video here because of Olympic copyright limitations, but click the image below to view the full length, high quality video at the NBC Olympic website:

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Google is continuing is celebration of the Olympic games with their Google Olympic logo series.  Today, Google is featuring the sport of Freestyle Skiing.

Today is a big day for the ladies events in Freestyle Skiing, with 5 different events scheduled.

Here is the Google Olympic Logos Day 12

Google is continuing is celebration of the Olympic games with their Google Olympic logo series.  And today Google is featuring figure skating.

What’s unique about today’s Google Olympic logo is that there is only one color utilized, and that’s blue.  Although it looks like several different shades of blue were utilized, blue is the predominant color.

The color choice for the Google Olympic logos has been interesting to follow.  Some days we’ll see a wide range of colors such as blue, yellow, and green.  Yet other days we see something more simple, like today’s use of blue only.

Here’s Google Olympic Logos Day 11

Google is continuing is celebration of the Olympic games with their Google Olympic logo series.  And today Google is featuring the bob sled competition.

With today’s Google Olympic logo, they are using the color red.  Red highlights in the Google Olympic logo series has only been used twice before – on day 3 for figure skating, and on day 5 for curling.

Here’s the Google Olympic Logo day 10:

Google is continuing is celebration of the Olympic games with their Google Olympic logo series.  And today they are featuring the ski jump competition.

Today, Google has gone back to the more traditional Google Olympic logos from the first couple of days.  There is no presence of greens, and the image consists of only yellows and blues.

The ski jump Google logo shows a jumper who looks like he / she has just left the ramp and is on their way to an Olympic gold medal!  I love the swirls and swishes that accompany the Google Olympic logos, these effects really bring the images to life.

Here’s Google Olympic Logo Day 9

Google is continuing is celebration of the Olympic games with their Google Olympic logo series.  And today they are featuring downhill skiing.

One change that I’m noticing to the Google olympic logos is the addition of more greens.  You can look back through all of the Google Olympic logos and see that initially, the logos were very much favoring blues.  But over the past couple of days, greens and yellows have received more highlighting in the images.

Here’s Google Olympic Logo Day 8

I think the Google Olympic logos are great, and from the comments I’ve been receiving, a lot of people are really enjoying this particular Google logo series.

You can learn more about the downhill skiing event at the Olympics by visiting the official downhill skiing page at the Vancouver 2010 Olympics website.

Google Olympic Logo Day 7

Today is February 18th, 2010 and marks the 7th day of the 2010 Winter Olympic Games. 

Google is continuing is celebration of the Olympic games with their Google Olympic logo series.

Google is featuring the luge competition in today’s Google logo.  However, today they are displaying a forward facing luge racer.  On day 2 of the Olympics, Google started the day with a “feet first” facing luge racer and was criticized for the art work.  This was due to it being the same sport that the Georgian luge racer died in during his practice runs.  So Google changed the logo mid day to a snowboarder.

Here’s Day 7 of the Google Olympic Logo Series:

You can check out all of the Google Olympic logos by visiting our Google Olympic Logo Series page.

However, yesterday afternoon things changed.  Germany picked up the #1 seat for the country to have the most medals, knocking the United States down to #2.

Tonight, however, could easily put the United States back in the #1 position for total medals.  There are 3 big events that will play out tonight – women’s downhill skiing, snowboard half-pipe, and speed skating.  All 3 of which has someone from the United States as the favorite.

And with Germany having only 1 more medal than the United States, we (the US) could quickly get back on top tonight.  It will be exciting to watch!

Olympic Medal Counts

Google has made it super easy for you to get Olympic medal counts this year.  Simply type one of the keyword phrases below into Google’s search bar, and you’ll instantly get the top Olympic medal count.

Here’s some of the phrases that trigger the Olympic medal counts in Google:

• olympic games
• vancouver 2010
• winter olympics
• olympic medal count 2010
• olympic medal count

There are probably a lot of other variations of these keyword phrases that would trigger the Olympic medal counts, but these are some of the prime phrases.

The Men’s and Ladies Cross Country Spring Classics quarter finals, semi finals, and medal events are all today.

You can catch the schedule times for each event at the Cross Country page on the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics website.

Today, Google is highlighting cross country skiing.  You can read more about the sport of Cross country skiing at the official Vancouver Olympics website.  What’s different about today’s Google Olympic logo is the color additions to the surrounding trees.  Up to this point, the colors used on the trees have been blue and yellow.  Today brings a nice addition with the color purple and green.

In today’s Google Olympic logo, three purple trees have been added along with one green tree right up front.  The cross country skier looks to be a woman who is very intently focused on winning the Olympic gold!

Here’s the Google Olympic Logo for day 6:

Google Olympic Logo Series – Day 5

Today  is day 5 of the 2010 Winter Olympic Games and Google continues it’s celebration with their Google Olympic Logo series.  Today, Google is highlighting the sport of Curling.  Check out the official Curling page for the Winter Olympic Games, and get the latest news, schedules, medal counts, and more.  There are even links where you can learn more about Curling, and take a Curling quiz.

Here’s Day 5 of the Google Olympic Logo Series:

Medal Count for 2010 Winter Olympics

You can get a quick snapshot of the most recent, up to date medal counts for the 2010 Winter Olympics simply by going to Google and searching various phrases that are related to this year’s Winter Olympics.

Here are some example phrases that will give you an instant snapshot of the current medal count for the 2010 Winter Olympics in Google.

As I said, just go to Google.com and search any one of these phrases to trigger the medal count element.  And then try some variations of your own to see if you can get the medal count element to appear:

• olympic games
• vancouver 2010
• winter olympics
• olympic medal count 2010
• olympic medal count

Here are some example phrases that trigger the Winter Olympics medal count:

• olympic games
• vancouver 2010
• winter olympics
• olympic medal count 2010
• olympic medal count

There are probably a whole lot more phrases and variations that can trigger the Olympic medal count element in Google’s search results, but those are just a few that I’ve checked.

The day started out with the Google Logo representing a luge athlete.  However, this was only one day after the Georgian luge athlete was killed in a tragic accident.  So it seemed that Google was criticized for having a luge racer as a Google logo and decided to change the image out to a snowboarder instead.

Today, day 3 of Google’s Olympic Logo, features a figure skating team!

Here’s Day 3 of the Google Logo for the 2010 Winter Olympic Games:

Google also added a bit of color to this new logo by adding yellow trees to each of the right and left flank.

Check out the second Google logo for day 2 of the 2010 Winter Olympics:

Follow tweeting olympians here >> 

This year’s 2010 Olympics is going to like none other before it.  And it will go down in history as the the Olympics of tweeting olympians!

The athletes that make up the 2010 Winter Olympic Games are part of a tech savvy generation.

They walk around with iPhones and mobile devices, and it wouldn’t surprise me if there isn’t a wireless cloud over the 4000 square miles that make up the area where the Olympic games are players.

And this means that olympians are tweeting!  You can follow all of the verified olympians on the official Olympians Twitter List (@verified/olympians).