London 2012 table tennis doodle hits google homepage in ongoing olympics series

Google has been running doodles related to the Olympics on its homepage every day since the opening ceremony.

Yesterday it was field hockey. The day before that it was gymnastics. The day before that it was fencing. And so on. You can get a look at more recent Google doodles here.

Google seems to be using its doodles to showcase its new Knowledge Graph search results. When the user clicks on the Olympics doodles, they’re presented with special Knowledge Graph boxes from the official London 2012 site, with information on the sport, the relevant dates, the medal count, the leaders, the schedule, etc.

It’s worth noting that this info is supplemented with “knowledge” from Wikipedia, which gives us the backstory on the Table Tennis. For example, it informs us that it has been in the Summer Olympic Games since 1988, with singles and doubles events for both men and women. It also tells us that athletes from China have dominated the sport, winning 41 medals in 24 events (including 20 gold medals).

Sources: http://feedproxy.google.com/