Apparently, while I was away, Google launched Google X, some sort of JavaScript / DOM experiment that provides "a quick fun way to access all of Google's services," and posted about it on their corporate weblog. By the time I followed the link, though, it was gone.

I was going to speculate about what this may have been, but since nothing ever goes away on the web, I don't have to. Google Weblog has a link to a mirror copy of the brief experiment, so we can all see what it looked like.

It turns out it's an alternate Google homepage that mimics MacOS X's dock, with icons that zoom in size. A cute DOM scripting trick, although it's a bit clumsy in Firefox.

It's also gone, and Google refuses to comment. I think they might have pulled it because it just isn't cool enough to include the letter "X" in its name, unlike Ajax, or because it doesn't fit Google's style of using JavaScript to create very functional things rather than just cute effects. I can't think of another reason—Apple isn't in the habit of suing websites, after all.