Google was on top form again this year rolling out numerous pranks online, but the search giant was not the only one to try and pull industry's leg:
Eight-bit Google Maps
In an official blog post on Saturday, Google said that in its “pursuit of new digital frontiers,” it had realised it was neglecting users using classic hardware like the Nintendo Entertainment System.
“Our engineering team in Japan understood the importance of maps on retro game systems. With the power of Google's immense data centres, and support from Nintendo and Square Enix, we were able to overcome the technical and design hurdles of developing eight-bit maps.”
Google even went to the trouble of making a 'limited trial' available on Google Maps.
Gmail Tap
Imagine replacing the traditional keyboard with just two keys? Now imagine learning Morse-code. In another one of Google's elaborate pranks, the search giant claimed it had landed on the future of typing e-mails on the go.
Gmail Tap is said to be a “revolutionary new keyboard” available as an app download for iOS and Android. In the accompanying tongue-in-cheek promotional video, one Google representative says of the traditional keypad: “It's so many keys, I feel constricted by the keyboard.” While another says: “I just feel very overwhelmed. There are so many buttons.”
“Morse code is perfect,” says one of the fictional developers. “It's just a dot and a dash, what's simpler than that?” Any attempts to download the supposed app were met with an error message. However the promotional video can be viewed on the special page created here.
Google search also got a “really advanced” option that allows users to define searches by including elements such as 'rhyming slang for' and 'subtext and innuendo for'. Other Google pranks included Chrome Multitask Mode, Google Racing, Click-to-Teleport, Google Street Roo, Google voice for pets, Jargon Bot, inter-planetary analytics and Web site optimisation for rotary phones.
Conan buys Mashable
Popular tech news site Mashable turned orange yesterday, and featured an intrusively large pop-up of Conan O'Brien's head.
During his short tenure as Mashable CEO, O'Brien claimed to have “turned the company around” and unveiled a number of tech “firsts” including “the scoop of the century” when he revealed the long-awaited Apple TV or “iTV”. O'Brien also revealed what he believed to be the future of Twitter; 'manual tweeting'. According to O'Brien, manual tweeting solved Twitter's core issues of being too slow and not working on paper. O'Brien's reign of terror was ended when he realised he had not bought Mashable, but instead purchased a fan site for the old TV series 'Mash'.
Notebook company rebrands
On the local front, The Notebook Company claimed it would rebrand to become 'The New iPad Company' in light of the dawn of the post-PC era.
The tongue-in-cheek press release quoted The Notebook Company MD Christopher Riley saying: “We know there might be trademark infringements, but we have discussed it with our legal advisors - and have set funds available to defend such trademark infringement battles.
“We are not new to this as we had to re-brand one of our Web sites to Laptop.co.za/Dell instead of DellLaptop.co.za - and have quite a lot of experience receiving letters from copy right attorneys, Adams and Adams.”
Reddit Timeline
Making online time travel a reality, yesterday reddit announced it was launching the 'reddit
Xhead = Dude, where's my iPhone?
Don't be an April Fool ANCYL site hacked again
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