Gaming Technology was born in 1940, when associate research director and nuclear physicist Dr Edward Uhler Condon designed an electromechanical machine which played the ancient strategy and numbers game of Nim, and displayed it at the New York World Fair.

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I love the new gaming themes for the iGoogle homepage. But first, for those of you who don’t know what iGoogle is, here’s a brief explanation.

iGoogle is a highly customizable and personalized homepage. It’s a RSS reader as well as a home for Google Gadgets. My iGoogle has several different tabs for things like gadgets, games, sports, and shopping. I’ve got RSS feeds from all sorts of gadget sites mixed in with games that can be played right from my homepage. I can also access my email and check out the latest news in one place. You can have everything you want on your very own personalized home page. Anything from The New York Times to Sudoku and from Amazon.com to a RSS feed from gadgetteaser.com.

One of the things I like best about iGoogle is the themes. You get everything listed above added into a colorful, distinctive, and unique layout. Google has all kinds of themes that will make your homepage look and feel the way you want it. They have themes that change with the weather; characters on your homepage pull out umbrellas when it starts raining in your zip code. They have themes created by artists and musicians like Radiohead, Bob Dillon, and even Jackie Chan. And, you can even create your own themes and submit them to Google.

So what was the point of all this? Oh yeah, they just added gaming themes and they are awesome. I love pulling up Firefox and seeing Mario throwing fireballs across my homepage. I switch tabs to see Mega Man in all his glory. iGoogle didn’t stop there though. They have gaming themes from The Sims 3, Guitar Hero, Spore, Call of Duty: World at War, Street Fighter IV, and of course, World of Warcraft. And there are many more. They even have a theme from Galaga. How cool.

So if you already have an iGoogle homepage, check out the new themes. They are great. If you don’t have an iGoogle homepage, what are you waiting for?