Google received the royal seal of approval on Thursday when it added a picture of the Queen to the logo on its British homepage to mark her visit to its London offices on Thursday. The image, known as a Google Doodle, shows the Queen in profile and a golden crown above the letter E of Google. The “Google doodle”, which changes periodically to mark national holidays or anniversaries of major events, features a profile of the monarch and a crown. The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh will tour the Internet search giant's British headquarters, a short walk from Buckingham Palace in central London. The royal party will meet Google executives and hear about the company's search engine, advertising and mobile phone technology. During the visit to Google's offices the Queen, accompanied by the Duke of Edinburgh, will meet Nikesh Arora, president of Google Europe, Middle East and Africa, and senior management. They will be shown a series of demonstrations explaining Google's various operations from its popular search engine facility to Google Earth, where users can access detailed maps and satellite images of the planet. They will also learn how Google Earth, an online map, is being used to help save the Amazon rainforest. The Queen and Duke will also meet 16 schoolchildren, all winners in a competition to design new doodles for Google. The Royal Family has embraced technological changes over the decades and last Christmas launched the first Royal Channel on YouTube. The channel has 54 royal videos and has been viewed 1.6 million times by internet users. Later at a reception the royal couple will chat to members of the YouTube community whose videos have proved popular with internet users. The Queen will then be invited to upload a video to the royal family's official channel on YouTube, the video-sharing site owned by Google. The address is www.youtube.com/theroyalchannel.
