Millions of people noticed a very small web design update made by the search king, Google. Google extended the length of the search box on its homepage to accommodate longer, user, query strings. Google also expanded the font size for the input text and for the display text of Google Suggest.
This change in web design follows a recent acceptance by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for a patent application on the minimalist design of Google's homepage. The acceptance of this patent took the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office about 5 years to rule in Google's favor.
Here is a before and after screen shot of Google's homepage: