Google celebrates 14th birthday with animated chocolate cake (by Dara Kerr of Cnet)

Let Google eat cake. Today, the Web giant turns 14 years old, and to celebrate, it's serving up an animated chocolate cake filled with Google-colored candles on its homepage.

It seems like just yesterday that the tech company was born, and now it's old enough to go to high school.

Last year when Google officially became a teenager, it celebrated with a doodle that showed a cake, some balloons, candles, and a few party hats -- but it wasn't animated. Apparently, this year it has upped its sophistication.

Google Doodles are an integral part of the company's Web design. It has made drawings for Pac-Man's anniversary, Einstein's birthday, the World Cup, the Fourth of July, Persian New Year, the Olympics, U.S. elections, and just about everything in between. The doodlers are Google's band of artists who have the job of translating special events into colorful, whimsical versions of Google's corporate logo.

Now that Google is 14, let's hope that going forward it doesn't turn into one of those rebellious teens.

Battered Dollar Slides to Four Month Lows Vs. Euro

Battered Dollar Slides to Four Month Lows Vs. Euro By: Reuters

The dollar fell against most currencies on Friday, hitting a four-month low versus the euro, a day after the Federal Reserve announced a fresh round of monetary stimulus to boost a still lackluster U.S. economy. 

Despite the move away from the safe-haven dollar, the yen fell broadly on speculation Japanese authorities could intervene to cap its recent gains against the dollar. Expectations that the Bank of Japan could ease policy next week in response to the Fed's action will also likely undermine the yen, some traders said.

The dollar [JPY=  78.21    0.73  (+0.94%)   ] rose 0.9 percent against the yen to 78.15 yen. Commodity currencies including the Australian and Canadian dollars also rallied against the greenback, pushing the dollar index to 78.729, its lowest level in more than four months.

Some market players said the Fed's announcement on Thursday that it will pump $40 billion a month into the U.S. economy until the jobs market shows a sustained upturn, along with the European Central Bank's plan agreed last week to lower peripheral euro zone borrowing costs, could see an the euro extend its rally toward $1.35 in the near term.

"Recent moves by both the Fed and the ECB to bolster growth have helped usher in a wave of risk-taking which has seen demand for lower-yielding, safer investments such as the dollar evaporate," said Joe Manimbo, senior market analyst at Western Union Business Solutions in Washington.

The euro [EUR=  1.3138    0.015  (+1.15%)   ] hit a peak of $1.3120 and was last at $1.3099, up 0.8 percent on the day, as a drop in peripheral bond yields prompted investors to buy the currency. The euro rose to an eight-month high against theSwiss franc [EURCHF=  1.2157    0.0007  (+0.06%)   ] of 1.2178 francs on trading platform EBS and hit a four-month high against the yen of 102.37 yen [EURJPY= 102.77    2.13  (+2.12%)   ].

The dollar [CHF=  0.9252    -0.0097  (-1.04%)   ] fell to 0.9265 Swiss francs, its lowest level since mid-May. The Australian dollar [AUD=  1.0557    0.0016  (+0.15%)  ] hit a one-month high of US$1.0605 as riskier assets rallied. Risk-taking was also helped by better-than-expected U.S. retail sales last month, which rose 0.9 percent, the largest gain since February.

Chart of the Day: The drain on Spain...

Credit: Mike Foster / Financial Times

Whisper it softly, but accelerating capital flows out of southern Europe probably gave Mario Draghi all the excuse he needed to authorise the European Central Bank’s use of unlimited monetary firepower to purchase stressed sovereign bonds in the eurozone.

Darren Williams, senior European economist at asset manager AllianceBernstein, has pointed out in his latest strategy note that this year Spain alone has suffered a €220bn capital outflow.

Of this total, €84bn comprised the sale of Spanish securities by foreigners; €91bn was withdrawn from loans or deposits by overseas banks, and banks in Spain shifted a further €61bn.

The sums involved are equal to 41% of Spain’s gross domestic product, seriously eroding the cumulative inflows Spain has enjoyed since 1999, as the attached graph illustrates. Spain was heavily depended on inflows prior to the credit crisis to pay its way in the world. To make good the loss, the Bank of Spain has been forced to borrow €237bn. Private sector risk has shifted decisively onto the public sector balance sheet.

The terrible thing about capital flight is that it almost invariably accelerates unless action is taken to restore confidence. Which was why the UK government had to step in to rescue Northern Rock as soon as customers started queueing to withdraw funds. And so on, and so forth.

As Williams says: “It is hard to see how policymakers can prevent past capital flows into Spain from reversing and spilling onto their own balance sheets, except by soothing investor concerns. Perhaps this is one reason the ECB is now ready to intervene more aggressively."