Google’s April Fool’s Hoaxes
I find Google’s April Fool’s hoaxes quite funny. They’ve started this tradition of theirs since 2000. I have only come across their hoaxes last year though. Three of these many hoaxes they have had I will share with you.
Okay, have you ever wanted or wished you could go to the moon? Apparently in 2004, Google had an open job opportunity to actually work in the moon! “Google Copernicus Center is hiring.” How cool could that be? Well unfortunately, this turned out to be a hoax.
They did not and are not going to build “a fully integrated research, development and technology facility at which Google will be conducting experiments in entropized information filtering, high-density high-delivery hosting (HiDeHiDeHo) and de-oxygenated cubicle dwelling” like they said on the Google Job Opportunities page.
Another one is Virgle. Last year (2008), Google announced a joint project with Virgin Group to establish a permanent settlement on Mars. The announcement included videos of the founders of both Virgin Group and Google.
They had this online application form with some sort of serious questions but with some choices that were a bit funny. After submitting the application, the site notifies the user that he/she is not fit for space, or that the application is fine and “all you have to do is submit your video” [as a response to their video on YouTube].
Third. As more and more everyday communication takes place over email, lots of people have complained about how hard it is to read and respond to every message. So Google introduced this year the Gmail Autopilot to help users reply to emails easily.
They said that it could actually match your personal style in writing as it sends autopilot responses. The more Gmail messages Autopilot can sample, the better. That means with fewer than 100 messages, there may not be enough data to calibrate Autopilot effectively. Really quite funny concept, isn’t it? Again, it’s purely another hoax.
So did you fall for any of those pranks by Google? [Laughing]
Tech-Life in Pink 