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Friday, Oct 17, 2008
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Queen Elizabeth II visits Google

The Queen Of England comes face to face with the tools and trends of New Media

— PHOTO: AP

MONARCH’S MARK: Queen Elizabeth II with Google employees in London on Thursday.

LONDON: She was the first monarch to send an e-mail. She has her own website. And on Thursday, Queen Elizabeth II uploaded video to YouTube during a visit to Google’s British headquarters.

The company celebrated the visit by creating a special version of its google.co.uk home page, which featured a silhouette of her head as the second ‘G’ and a regal crown atop the ‘E’ in their logo.

During the visit, the queen and her husband, Prince Philip, saw a demonstration of the company’s technology and met schoolchildren who won a competition to design their own Google “doodles” — what the California-based company calls special editions of their blue, green, red and yellow logo.

The royal couple met users of the Google-owned YouTube video website, including Peter Oakley, an 81-year-old known as ‘Geriatric1927.’ Mr. Oakley’s videos on the site earned him a nomination for a YouTube award in 2006.

The queen herself has a presence on YouTube — she launched the Royal Channel in December. There are 54 videos on the channel, which range from the Queen’s 1957 Christmas message to a day in the life of Prince Charles. On Thursday, she uploaded archive footage to the channel of a 1969 reception at Buckingham Palace for British Olympians.

After their visit to Google, the queen and Prince Philip planned to host a reception for nearly 600 British Olympians at the palace, the monarch’s London home. — AP

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