According to the BBC, the black bar that currently runs horizontally across the top of Google’s homepage will be removed and replaced with a grey logo. When clicked, it will reveal seven services with an option to open a further eight. Experts think this is a way to promote more of the firm’s businesses without making its webpage messy.

At the moment, only few customers are using this revamped interface. Chris Green, principal technology analyst at Davies Murphy Group, stated that the move allowed Google to use icons remaining different from Yahoo, which has a busier design. Google is also making the page look like the Chromebooks operating system: whether customers are using Chromebook or the Google website, the interface remains the same.

Another consequence is that it now takes two clicks to enter services such as Images or News. Mr. Green said that the virtues of minimising the number of clicks have been praised and that this would appear as a retrograde step, but Google thinks that it’s better to have the extra click rather than an unclear page. Moreover, this may carry financial advantage to the corporation, because most users are likely to search directly through the search bar, which helps Google expose more people to advertising.

The game is played by four players on each team on a marked pitch of 100 metres by 70 metres, using a standard size polo ball. Two people ride each elephant; the elephants are steered by people called mahouts, while the players tell the mahout which way to go and hit the ball. Elephant polo is divided into two 7-minute “chukkas,” or halves, of playing time with an interval of 15 minutes. The complete ball must travel over the side line or back line, to be out, and completely across the goal line to be a goal.

The modern game originated in the Nepali village of Meghauli. Tiger Tops in Nepal remains the headquarters of elephant polo and the site of the World Elephant Polo Championships organised by the World Elephant Polo Association.Thailand hosts another event, the King’s Cup Elephant Polo Tournament, first launched by Anantara Hua Hin Resort & Spa in 2001. In 2006, the tournament moved to the Golden Triangle, another resort.

The Golden Triangle Asian Elephant Foundation is a 250-acre camp near the city of Chiang Rai, jointly run by the Four Seasons and Anantara Hotels. The camp provides a sanctuary for 30 former street elephants—domesticated animals once dragged around city street areas by mahout beggars. Elephants are a key symbol of Thailand’s history, and nothing but utmost respect is given to the pachyderms.

Wired.co.uk has recently published an article on business networking. Due to the Internet’s ability to connect people from all over the world, over recent years, business networking websites have grown. The biggest is LinkedIn, which has more than 100 million users, but it is not the only one. Here you can find another four useful business networking apps.

LinkOut is an app to turn virtual meetings into real-world ones using *LinkedIn*’s API. You register your networking goals, along with times and days when you are free; then, LinkedOut searches for calendars and LinkedIn networks and matches the right people at the right time.

Sonar is an iPhone app which tells you which of your contacts on Foursquare, Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin are in a certain place. This way if you are at a party or a conference you will be able to quickly and easily find who you want. Your connections don’t have to be using Sonar, but they do need to check in with either Foursquare or Facebook places.

The CrowdedRoom app helps you understand how you are connected to people near you. It is similar to Sonar, but it finds people with common interests by retrieving data from Facebook profiles. Another interesting feature is the “might go” status, meaning that a person can express their intentions to go to a particular party/venue so that others already there can persuade them to come.

Ndoorse is an exclusive professional network that you can only join if you have received a recommendation. It organises offline networking events for its members, a select group of business networkers and headhunters.