Web surfers are getting a glimpse
of fake Google products, pictures of cats instead of ads and a purported Sony
laptop the size of a quarter -- all spurred by April Fools' Day. With so many
amusing tricks, falsehoods and fabrications on the Internet, it could be hard
to find the best ones. PCWorld has done the work for you. Here are 20
website gems you'll find online Sunday for some great entertainment and fun.
Google Racing
You're probably familiar with Google's self-driving cars that have
already logged more than 200,000 miles on American roadways. But now co-founder
Sergey Brin announced that the company is taking that technology to the next
level by forming a new racing division in a partnership with NASCAR. The
announcement looks so legit it has had some people wondering if it’s for real.
It isn’t, of course. Brin writes in the Google blog: "Having skidded around a parking lot last
week myself, I'm pretty sure that none of those test miles were as hard as it
will be for one of our cars to hold its own in a field of 43 jacked-up,
800-horsepower beasts screaming down a straightaway within inches of each other
at upwards of 200 mph." A video featuring Brin says an autonomous racecar
will be entered in competition by the middle of next season.
AdBlock Cats
AdBlock,
the popular Google Chrome extension that blocks ads from showing up on the
websites you visit, has temporarily replaced ads with adorable pictures of
cats. AdBlock developer Michael Gundlach wrote in his blog that
because of the tremendous popularity of CatBlock, he will make a standalone
version for people who will support it with a monthly payment. No joke --
that's for real.
Chrome Multitask Mode
While you might think using two mice at once and making use of
your other hand might be confusing, Google says it will feel completely natural
in no time. In fact, with Chrome Multitask Mode you can use as many mice as you
can hook up to your computer. That'd be nice if it were actually true, but it's
fun to think about, for a day anyways. As Google puts it on its Chrome page, you can "Play a game while
you design a presentation. Purchase land while you meet the love of your
life."
Sony's Tiny Ultrabook
At the size of a quarter, the Sony VAIO Q is billed as the world's
smallest Ultrabook yet boasts 8GB of RAM, full HD 1080p resolution, AMD Radeon
HD 6650M (1GB) graphics and the sharpest screen on the market available. It's
the cutest thing -- if only it was real -- and the enthusiastic engineer in the
promotional video seen here unveils it from his front shirt pocket.
Gmail Tap
Realizing the silliness of trying to cram an entire 26-key
keyboard onto a smartphone, Google is replacing QWERTY with Morse code. With
only two keys, you can use Gmail Tap to send messages in the Gmail application
using just dots and dashes. Not only that but Google Tap offers a multitasking
mode that gives you two Morse code keyboards at once so you can send two
different messages to two separate recipients at once. "I think the people
who will be best served by Gmail Tap will be people with fat fingers,"
says Google engineer Mitch Fedenko in the company's promotional video. What
happens if you have thin fingers? The Gmail gag makes for a good giggle
anyways, as you can see here.
Reddit
Timeline
Reddit users are having an April
Fools' blast with a new Reddit timeline bar on the social news site's front
page. Knocking off the look of Facebook’s Timeline, you can adopt portions of
the timeline and post timereddits time stamped in the past, present or future.
Head back to 800 B.C., for example, and you can see an illustration of the
Trojan Horse titled "It's a trap!" or skip ahead to 2022 and you'll
find one called "Half Life: Episode 3 Released." The Reddit blog warns people not to violate
intergalactic law, because "exposing past peoples to knowledge from the
future can be extremely dangerous, and even risk temporal paradox."
Google Maps
Emulating old Squaresoft (now
Square-Enix) games from the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) era, Google
unveiled a new way to view Maps -- in an 8-bit version. To view
pixilated versions of your maps, visit Google Maps and click the 'Quest' option
at the top right corner of the page. From there, you'll see the transformation
and possibly even find hidden monsters.
Oh, what fun.
Voice of Hulu
Some ads can be fun, so you might want to use the ad blocker
sparingly. Hulu sent an April Fools' Day email that reads, "Apologies for
the confusion, but we had a minor mix-up on this fine first day of April. The
'Voice of Hulu' had a rough recording day recently and somehow his outtakes
snuck into some of our ad slates. As users come to Hulu, random ads may
surface. Please excuse our hiccup and enjoy your regularly scheduled
programming." In one jokester ad, The Voice repeated the "Unique New
York" tongue twister several times before stumbling into an introduction
of a TV clip.
YouTube Collection
For those times when you can't get online, the YouTube Collection
gives you DVD access to every video ever uploaded to the site since 2005. When
you sign up, YouTube will dispatch 175 trucks to deliver the collection to your
door. Videos also come with paper thumbs so you can send up or down votes to
video creators via snail mail. If this were real, it would add another
dimension to the piracy debate. Here's a peek at the gag.
Toshiba
One-Eyed 3D Device
3D still hasn't gone mainstream, but
Toshiba says using one eye to take it in is the way to go. Its 3D monocle is
the first and only one in the world (no wonder, since it's a joke) and was
created by melding two triangular polarizing lenses in parallel then encasing
them in black-plated tungsten carbide. And to make the eye piece comfortable,
Toshiba molded it into the shape of an average human eye hole. The man in the
photograph actually looks like he’s on a one-way trip to a migraine.
Kangaroos Instead of Cars
According
to the Official Google Australia blog,
in a faux project dubbed Street Roo, the company will be equipping more than
1000 kangaroos with 360-degree head cameras so as to capture images from the
remote Australian outback. The cameras will be powered by solar panels stitched
into the back pocket of custom-made roo jackets that leave the marsupial’s own
pouch accessible for the joey. Can't imagine how the hopping video will turn
out? Google says it has developed software to smooth it out. Images will be
wired to Google in real-time. Right.
Twilio
Telegraphs
Twilio, a web-service API for developers, has released a working
API for sending hand-delivered telegrams. As Twilio software engineer Chris
Corcoran tweets, "You can’t frame a text
message." To dispatch one of Twilio's "horses" with a telegram,
you need to make an HTTP POST request and include parameters such as Horse
Type, FeedBeforeDeploy, Singing, ArmMessenger and FillFlask. "The
FillFlask attribute takes the values whiskey, xxx, and false. If you fill your
messenger's flask, you may increase the chance of a 504 error, but you will
reduce the chance of a delayed message due to unexpected saloon stops. The
default is whiskey," is one note on Twilio's telegram
API page. Now, that's a sobering gag if we've ever seen one.
More Good Ones
There are many more good sites circulating on April Fools' Day. Make
sure to also peruse these: Google Adwords Click-to-Teleport Extensions, Google Really Advanced Search, Google GoRo, Google Jargonbot, Google Weather Control,
Gmail Motion, DocsMotion and Voice-alyzer. And new
ones are popping up every minute. But remember, it's about fun, not reality. So
don't fall for the jokes.
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