As is customary, Google has erected a giant statue earlier today on the grounds of its Mountain View headquarters that represents the latest version of Android: version 4.1 Jelly Bean, which is expected to make its debut very shortly at Google I/O. Created by Giovanni Calabrese of Themendous, the statue is a large, clear jar, fitted with the proper Android accoutrements, filled to the brim with 9-inch jelly beans.
The company has announced the unveiling on its blog, but we went behind the scenes with Giovanni to see how the statue was made in his New Jersey studio. According to him, there are over 180 jelly beans and each took six minutes to make, not including the hard plastic covering and painting. To help with time, the team also made a large jelly bean insert rather than making hundreds more to fill out the center part of the jar.
Gio tells me that he and Google sat down together when conceptualizing the product. Originally, he wanted to make a few large jellybeans (around 4 feet tall) with little Androids climbing up the side of them. Google nixed the idea, however, and opted for the jar full of jelly beans.
The project took one week to complete before shipping the parts to Google’s Mountain View headquarters. Even though the Android jelly bean jar was installed earlier today, that doesn’t mean that Gio and his team have run out of things to do — they’re touching up Google’s existing gallery of dessert-themed statues with some fresh paint.
Android is a software platform for mobile devices based on the Linux operating system and developed by Google and the Open Handset Alliance. It allows developers to write managed code in Java that utilizes Google-developed software libraries, but does not support programs developed in native code. The unveiling of the Android platform on 5 November 2007 was announced with the founding of the Open Handset Alliance, a consortium of 34 hardware, software and telecom companies devoted to advancing open standards...
Google provides search and advertising services, which together aim to organize and monetize the world’s information. In addition to its dominant search engine, it offers a plethora of online tools and platforms including: Gmail, Maps, YouTube, and Google+, the company’s extension into the social space. Most of its Web-based products are free, funded by Google’s highly integrated online advertising platforms AdWords and AdSense. Google promotes the idea that advertising should be highly targeted and relevant to users thus providing...
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