News: Google has honoured American graphic designer Saul Bass with an animated doodle based on his iconic Hollywood title sequences and movie posters.

The doodle, which celebrates what would have been Bass' 93rd birthday, animates Google's logo to play on the designer's best-known work.

Bass created the opening sequences and posters for dozens of movies over five decades, including Alfred Hitchcock classics Vertigo and Psycho, Stanley Kubrick's The Shining and Martin Scorcese's Goodfellas.

He also designed corporate logos, including the bell and globe icons for telecommunications firm AT&T and United Airlines' tulip logo. He died in 1996 aged 75.

Last year Google paid tribute to architect Mies van der Rohe with a doodle celebrating his 126th birthday.

Alexander Chen from Google Creative Lab recently discussed Google Glass and the future of user interface design in a movie filmed for our Dezeen and MINI World Tour – see all news about Google.

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Chen presented a number of his personal projects at Design Indaba, which involve novel ways of making music on a computer. "I grew up playing the viola and I've always written and recorded my own music," he explains. "I was learning that alongside computer programming and visual design [so] I always wanted to combine the things together."

For a project called Mta.me, Chen created a virtual stringed instrument based on the New York subway system (above). "I'd just moved to New York and I started to think 'what if the lines on the subway map could be a musical instrument?'" he says.

In Chen's map, the different subway routes become strings, which vibrate at different frequencies based on their length. Chen then animated the map so that the strings are plucked by other subway lines that intersect them. "I took it one step further," he says. "I looked up the subway schedule and using computer code had the subway performing itself."

Chen then goes on to talk about his work at Google Creative Lab, where he helped to produce the original concept video for Google Glass, as well as the final movie demonstrating the new user interface, which Google released in February.

He believes that wearable technology like Google Glass demonstrates how digital technology in future will be more integrated into our lives. "Technology continues to disappear more and more," he says. "I don't know if I want to make any strong predictions, but I hope that technology disappears more and more from my life and you forget that you're using it all the time instead of feeling like you're burdened [by it].

"I hope it becomes more like the water running in our house and the electricity running through our buildings: we use it when we need it and then we forget about it for the rest of the day and just enjoy being people."

This movie features a MINI Cooper S Countryman.

The music featured is by South African artist Floyd Lavine, who performed as part of the Design Indaba Music Circuit. You can listen to Lavine's music on Dezeen Music Project.

See all our Dezeen and Mini World Tour reports from Cape Town.

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Google's Field Trip app, which provides contextual information about your surroundings via your smartphone, is now available to download for Apple iOS and features content from Dezeen.

Launched for Android-operated smartphones in December last year, the app uses your location to show stories from a selection of publishers including Dezeen about architecturally interesting buildings, shops, bars, restaurants and more, shown either as a list or tabs on a map.

Tapping on map pins brings up the project name and source, then tapping again brings up a range of images of the project that can be scrolled through, plus a few paragraphs of text about them.

A link at the bottom of these pages takes you to the full article on Dezeen. You can also pan across the entire map to search for content in other cities or specific spots.

Features of the app include voice notifications while walking or driving, options to set the frequency of notifications and the choice to share articles via social media. It is available to download from the Apple App Store or Google play.

We will continue to geo-tag stories as they are published to keep the content up to date. Find out more about Dezeen's collaboration with Google in our previous story here, and read an interview with head of Google Maps John Hanke in which he talks about the app here.

Google recently unveiled plans for a vast new California campus and a preview of a voice controlled, wearable headset.

See all our stories about designs by Google »

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News: Google has teamed up with global architecture firm NBBJ to design a new 100,000-square-metre campus for San Francisco Bay, California.

The new Bay View campus marks the first time Google has designed its own offices from scratch rather than taking over existing offices and refurbishing them to meet its own needs. It will be more than twice the size of the company's existing headquarters at the nearby Mountain View Googleplex.

The initial rendering, which the internet giant previewed in US publication Vanity Fair this week, shows a cluster of bent rectangles organised to form large and small courtyards. The nine structures are all connected by bridges, one of which leads to a green roof with a cafe and meeting space, while all cars are hidden from view.

To convey its needs to architects NBBJ, Google gathered masses of information on how its employees work and what kind of spaces they want. "We started not with an architectural vision but with a vision of the work experience," according to David Radcliffe, a civil engineer who oversees Google's property. "So we designed this from the inside out."

No employee will be more than a two-and-a-half minute walk from any other to encourage a "casual collision of the workforce" and the spread of ideas throughout the company, said Radcliffe.

Social media giant Facebook is also planning a new campus in the Bay Area, which has been designed by architect Frank Gehry to be the largest open-plan office in the world, while Apple is currently constructing its own hoop-shaped headquarters by Foster + Partners in Cupertino, California.

Last month Google purchased nearly a hectare of land in London's King's Cross Central development, where it plans to build an enormous headquarters for its UK operations. Sources told Reuters that Google's £650 million investment in the site could be worth up to £1 billion when the building is complete in 2016.

This week Google posted a video preview of its new Google Glass technology, the voice-controlled wearable headset that can take pictures, record movies and search the web, and invited "creative individuals" to apply to get their hands on one.

Other Google campuses we've featured on Dezeen include the firm's garden-themed London headquarters where staff can grow vegetables in allotments and its Tel Aviv campus where slides connect the different floors – see all projects by Google.

Image by NBBJ.

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The video is shot from a first-person perspective as Google Glass wearers use voice commands to control the device.

By uttering the phrase "okay Google", followed by one of the recognised commands, wearers can search the web, take pictures and record movies.

Other features appear to include video chats, weather reports, map directions and an onscreen translation service.

Google has also announced plans to expand its pre-order programme to "creative individuals who want to join us and be a part of shaping the future of Glass."

The Glass Explorer initiative will allow the general public to try out the headset and offer feedback on how Google can develop the hardware and its features.

Hopeful applicants are invited to write up to 50 words explaining what they would do with the headset and post them on Google+ or Twitter along with pictures or short movies.

The #ifihadglass competition is open to US residents over 18 only, and selected participants will still need to purchase their own headset for $1500, plus tax.

John Hanke, head of Google Maps, recently told Dezeen that smart glasses and wearable computers will soon guide people through airports and shops and allow them to pay for goods and services. "In the future the whole transaction could happen through Google Glass, payment and everything," he said.

Last year we published a glimpse of Google's data centres around the world, which feature primary-coloured pipework and cooling rooms that glow green – see all Google projects on Dezeen.

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