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April 1, 2011

Google April Fools' Day 2011

This year, Google's hoaxes are less inspired and some of them aren't original either, but they're still funny. Here are some of them:

1. Google China invented teleportation. "Through the search is to let Google take you through time and space, most want to reach your arrival time, place, with an immersive way to perceive everything you want to perceive." (machine translation)


2. Gmail Motion is a new way to control Gmail using body language. "To use Gmail Motion, you'll need a computer with a built-in webcam. Once you enable Gmail Motion from the Settings page, Gmail will enable your webcam when you sign in and automatically recognize any one of the detected movements via a spatial tracking algorithm. We designed the movements to be easy and intuitive to perform and consulted with top experts in kinestetics and body movement in devising them."




There's also Google Docs Motion, "a new way to collaborate -- using your body".


Opera had a similar hoax two years ago: Opera Face Gestures.

3. Google hires autocompleters. "Are you passionate about helping people? Are you intuitive? Do you often feel like you know what your friends and family are thinking and can finish their thoughts before they can? Are you an incredibly fast Google searcher? Like, so fast that you can do 20 searches before your mom does 1?" If you have have "good typing skills (at least 32,000 WPM)", you're willing to "relocate to obscure places like Nauru and Tuvalu to develop knowledge of local news and trends" and you have a "certificate in psychic reading", then you can get a job at Google.



4. Search for Helvetica or Comic Sans using Google, and you'll have a little surprise. Google plans to use Comic Sans as the default font across all Google products, but you can use the Comic Sans for Everyone extension to browse the entire World Wide Web using Comic Sans. It's fun, fun, fun.


5. YouTube presents the top viral videos in 1911. "Today, we celebrate 100 years of YouTube, and we thought we would reflect on our inaugural year with a re-print of our first blog post from 1911. In honor of this milestone, today's homepage is a reproduction of how you might have viewed it 100 years ago. Check out some of the most popular videos of the time and be sure to try out our new upload mode which summons a horse-drawn carriage to pick up your video submission from your home."



6. Google Body Browser was replaced by Google Cow.





7. Google will buy Blogger once again. "This morning we're beyond thrilled to announce that Blogger has signed a definitive agreement to be acquired by Google, the Internet search company. This is exciting news not only for all of us on the Blogger team, but for our users, our partners, and most importantly -- the blogosphere itself."

8. Google AdWords offers a new ad format: Blimp Ads. "Imagine this: a baseball stadium, packed with thousands of fans. A home run flies through the air, and as the crowd looks up, they see your ad, bigger than ever, hand-painted on the side of a majestic blimp. Blimp Ads can make this a reality."


For those who are afraid to try new things, Google brings back old school ads: "Punch the monkey!", "Congratulations, you've won $100,000!", "Click here for smileys", pop-ups and more.

9. Another company has gone Google: Contoso, "a fictional company used by Microsoft as their example company and domain". The explanation is pretty clear: "As a subsidiary of a traditional software company, we went against the grain and switched all 1,200 Contoso employees across nine continents to the cloud. After previously considering Google Apps, we were finally convinced to make the move when Google Docs began supporting the Corsiva font. I still can't find track changes in Docs, but now we can use Corsiva from anywhere, on any device. We decided against Microsoft® Office 365 beta, because we'd heard for years that beta software was too risky."

10. Google Maps and Google Earth added 10 real-world sightings to the maps. "It all started with a recent visit to my friend Nessie in Boston. As I crossed the bridge into town, the car in front of me stopped short so I slammed on the brakes. The cars next to me were also stopped, so I got out to see what was causing the back up. There was a huge, red lobster sitting on the bridge."


Your mission is to find the other 9 sightings.

11. Google Voice Search now supports Pig Latin. "What is Pig Latin you may ask? Wikipedia describes it as a language game where, for each English word, the first consonant (or consonant cluster) is moved to the end of the word and an “ay” is affixed (for example, 'pig' yields 'ig-pay' and 'search' yields 'earch-say')." The nice thing is that this actually works: open Voice Search for Android or Google Search for iPhone, change the language to Pig Latin and try your luck. This English to Pig Latin translator might help.

"To configure Pig Latin Voice Search in your Android phone just go to Settings, select 'Voice input & output settings', and then 'Voice recognizer settings'. In the list of languages you'll see Pig Latin. Just select it and you are ready to roll in the mud! It also works on iPhone with the Google Search app. In the app, tap the Settings icon, then 'Voice Search' and select Pig Latin."

Here's a video that announces the new feature. Watch it and Mike LeBeau's fan club will thank you.



12. Chrome's team came up with Chromercise, a finger fitness program that helps you increase your hands' strength and dexterity. "Some existing finger exercise programs focus on upgrading your digits' cardiovascular strength and musculature; others focus on dexterity. Chromercise's unique blend of aerobic motion and rhythmic accompaniment covers all of the above while simultaneously tightening and toning your fingers' actual appearance," informs Chrome's blog.

Check out the video because it's really funny (probably the funniest Google hoax this year):



13. If Chrome is not fast enough for you, use ChromeLite, an extension that harnesses the power of text-only browsers. "In our never-ending quest for speed, our team members recently gathered to race the latest and greatest browser versions against each other. Much to our surprise, the winning browser was neither the latest version of Chrome nor another modern browser, but was instead an early text-based browser called Lynx," explains Google.

Coincidentally, Lynx was the Google Browser from my 2006 April Fools' joke and 2006 was the year when Google started developing Chrome.


14. Search for [kittens] using a mobile phone and the top results will show a lot more than you expect. Refresh and everything will seem random.



{ Thanks, everyone. }

39 comments:

  1. You forgot the Comic Sans and Helvetica prank...

    ReplyDelete
  2. How about Chromercise?

    http://chrome.blogspot.com/2011/04/improving-finger-dexterity-for-faster.html

    ReplyDelete
  3. Search for helvetica on google

    ReplyDelete
  4. Really funny.. Google spent lots of money to create all these funny stuffs...some bloggers (leading) even count some of the above stuffs are as real and published on their blog...

    ReplyDelete
  5. Google also has an extension to have Comic Sans on every webpage
    http://www.google.com/landing/csfe/

    ReplyDelete
  6. I think there's something in Maps, too. When I was looking at the Coliseum in Rome, there were heads stuck in the ground.

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  7. Look up Washington DC on Maps. Zoom in on the West Capital steps and you will see politicians with their heads up their a$$es!

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  8. When i searched directions this morning on google maps, the diagram showed the bottom of the country, my route going into the sea and then reaching all the way upto scotland... the map was totally wrong, when i went to print that it correct itself.. FUNNY googlemaps.

    ReplyDelete
  9. RT @googleio: Pardon our dust! Systems are on the fritz this morning. In the meantime, we've updated our #io2011 sessions

    ReplyDelete
  10. Sorry. I've found all the sightings now at 3d warehouse. :p

    ReplyDelete
  11. Search for kittens on Google on a mobile.

    ReplyDelete
  12. you forgot autocompleter in google jobs

    http://www.google.com/intl/en/jobs/uslocations/mountain-view/autocompleter/index.html

    ReplyDelete
  13. I'm wondering about Google +1 - hoax or for real?

    http://www.google.com/+1/button/

    ReplyDelete
  14. If you don't have a mobile device, use this

    @Beth: Autocompleter is at #3.
    @Armanda:Google +1 is for realz.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Try typing in an invalid URL on the Google site to get a 404 error, such as www.google.com/blah (note the page title as well).

    Maybe it's always like that, I don't know. I've never noticed it before.

    ReplyDelete
  16. http://adsense.blogspot.com/2010/04/announcing-wingdings-as-new-font.html (no comments)

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  17. Is there a reason google usa has stopped adjusting their banner for special days? March 14 ~ nothing. Today nothing.

    Google used to be a fun site now it sucks, check that rather google has become blah and boring.

    Remember when they changed there banner to look like Pac Man. That was awesome.

    ReplyDelete
  18. I saw a link in Gmail for the April Fool's Day's Gmail Motion prank but I had already seen it on Gmail's blog, though for a second there I might it might have been a new feature. It was kind of funny.

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  19. Install the ChromeLite extension and go to YouTube, then scroll to the bottom of the page.

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  20. Google is of course king of pranks. Check out this one from an alarm company in MA: http://simplisafe.com/blog/burglar-alarm-company-simplisafe-helping-burglars-find-new-jobs

    ReplyDelete
  21. Sweet!! love 'em all baby!
    GOOGLE ROCKS!!!!

    ReplyDelete
  22. You also missed the Voice-alyzer. http://googlevoiceblog.blogspot.com/2011/04/introducing-voice-alyzer.html

    ReplyDelete
  23. Is there a way to make the youtube 1911 feature come back?

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  24. if you notice that in the end the "Google Search Through" takes you to a page of search results about the (physical stone-made) Great Wall events in history, and if you are aware of how China's so called "Great Firewall" project has been harassing Chinese netizens using Google products, you may see this hoax not only funny but simply genius.

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  25. SJR: Add &vintage=1911 at the end of the URL.

    (and according to Techcrunch, certain other dates also do something)

    ReplyDelete
  26. Really yesterday when i saw a post about start a new service in google "Gmail Motion prank"
    on digg.com I surprised when tried just looooool.

    ReplyDelete
  27. Picasa had a small April Fools Day joke as well, "New features in Picasa 4.1":
    http://picasa.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=93773
    (You may have to reload, sometimes it shows for me, sometimes not)

    ReplyDelete
  28. The subtitle of Google Homepage in Chinese also mean time travel, while the authroity of broadcasting in mainland China imposed restriction recently against TV or movies with content of time travel, citing about correct political view of history.

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  29. hahha .it was so funny..
    i never expect such things frm google :P
    bcoz we know making even google motion e-mail is possible 4 google.
    anyway..only google fooled me in dis April fool...

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  30. Happy April FOOOL's Day everyone! =)

    -

    Christine @ web design sydney

    ReplyDelete
  31. Can’t get enough of April Fool’s Day? Then check out these bloopers I saw on the GreenopolisTV channel on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ee8LgCtq0Os.

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  32. I laughed when I came across the "sightings" on google maps. I was doing a search and thought it was a funny picture. Then I realized it was a real google map.

    I wanna work for google.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I fulfilled the dream of working with google.

      I worked for 1year in Google Maps, Hyderabad, India., and now came to US for MS

      Delete
  33. Yeah, bro!

    "http://chrome.blogspot.com/2011/04/improving-finger-dexterity-for-faster.html"
    and
    "http://adsense.blogspot.com/2010/04/announcing-wingdings-as-new-font.html"

    Why they did that? LOL

    ReplyDelete
  34. What`s up with the Google Cow project? :)

    ReplyDelete
  35. I wonder what the 2012 prank will be.

    ReplyDelete

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