Google has a tradition of
perpetrating
April Fools' Day
hoaxes.
April Fool's hoaxes
2000
Google announced a new "MentalPlex" search technology that
supposedly read the user's mind todetermine what the user wanted to
search for, thus eliminating the step of actually typing in the
search query. This always led to a page full of April Fool's
results.
2002
Google reveals the technology behind its
PageRank Systems—PigeonRank. Google touts the
benefits of this cost-effective and efficient means of ranking
pages and reassures readers that there is no animal cruelty
involved in the process. The article makes many humorous references
and
puns based on computer terminology and how
Google PageRank really works.
2004
Fictitious job opportunities for a research center on the moon.
Luna/X (a
pun to
Linux as
well as a reference to both the
Windows XP
visual style and
Mac OS X) is the name
of a new
operating system they
claimed to have created for working at the research center.
2005
Google Gulp, a
fictitious
drink, was announced by Google in 2005. According to the company,
this
beverage would optimize one's use of
the Google
search engine by increasing
the drinker's
intelligence. It
was claimed this boost was achieved through real-time analysis of
the user's
DNA and carefully tailored
adjustments to
neurotransmitters in
the
brain (a
patented
technology termed
Auto-Drink; as the "Google Gulp FAQ" suggests,
partly through
MAO inhibition). The drink was
said to come in "4 great
flavors":
Glutamate Grape (
glutamic
acid),
Sugar-Free Radical (
free radicals),
Beta Carroty
(
beta carotene), and
Sero-Tonic Water (
serotonin).
This hoax was probably intended as a
parody
of Google's then invite-only
email service
called
Gmail. Although ostensibly free, the
company claimed the beverage could only be obtained by returning
the cap of a Google Gulp
bottle to a local
grocery store: a
causal loop. In the Google Gulp
FAQ, Google replies to the observation "I mean, isn't
this whole invite-only thing kind of bogus?" by saying "Dude, it's
like you've never even
heard of
viral marketing."
2006
On April Fool's Day 2006, Google Romance was announced on the main
Google search page with the introduction, "Dating is a search
problem. Solve it with Google Romance." It pretends to offer a
"Soulmate Search" to send users on a "Contextual Date". A
parody of
online dating,
it amusingly had a link for "those who generally favor the 'throw
enough stuff at the wall' approach to online dating" to
Post
multiple profiles with a bulk upload file, you sleaze in
addition to
Post your Google Romance profile. Clicking on
either of these gave an error page, which explained that it was an
April Fool's joke and included links to previous April Fool's Jokes
for
nostalgia.
2007
Gmail Paper
At about 10:00 PM Pacific time (where Google has its headquarters)
on
30 March 2007,
Google changed the login page for Gmail to announce a new service
called Gmail Paper. The service offered to allow users of Google's
free webmail service to add e-mails to a
"Paper Archive", which Google would print (on "96% post-consumer
organic soybean
sputum") and mail via
traditional post. The service would be free, supported by bold, red
advertisements printed on the back of the printed messages. Image
attachments would also be printed on high-quality glossy paper,
though
MP3 and
WAV files
would not be printed. The page detailing more information about the
service features photographs of Ian Spiro and Carrie Kemper,
current employees of Google. Also featured are Product Marketing
Managers of Gmail Anna-Christina Douglas, and Kevin Systrom.
Google TiSP
Google TiSP (short for Toilet Internet Service
Provider) was a fictitious free
broadband
service supposedly released by Google. This service would make use
of a standard toilet and
sewage lines to
provide free Internet connectivity at a speed of 8 Mbit/s (2 Mbit/s
upload) (or up to 32 Mbit/s with a paid plan). The user would drop
a weighted end of a long, Google-supplied fiber-optic cable in
their toilet and flush it. Around 60 minutes later, the end would
be recovered and connected to the Internet by a "Plumbing Hardware
Dispatcher (PHD)". The user would then connect their end to a
Google-supplied wireless router and run the Google-supplied
installation media on a
Windows XP or
Vista computer ("Mac and Linux support
coming soon"). Alternatively, a user could request a professional
installation, in which Google would deploy
nanobots through the plumbing to complete the
process. The free service would be supported by "discreet
DNA sequencing" of "personal bodily output"
to display online ads that relate to culinary preferences and
personal health. Google also referenced the
cola-and-Mentos reaction in
their FAQ: "If you're still experiencing problems, drop eight mints
into the bowl and add a two-liter bottle of diet soda."
2008
Adsense for Conversations
Google releases Adsense for conversations
(http://adsense.blogspot.com/2008/04/introducing-adsense-for-conversations.html)
Blogger "Google Weblogs (beta)"
The Blogger dashboard featured an announcement for Google Weblogs,
or "GWeblogs," or "Gblogs," the next revolution in personal
publishing. Features include algorithms putting your best content
at the top of your blog (rather than publishing by reverse
chronology), automatically populating your blog's sidebar with the
most relevant content, posting directly into Google search results
for maximum visibility, blog headers refreshed with images from
Google's team of artists for anniversaries of a scientific
achievement (similar to
Google Doodle),
and automatic content generation ('Unsure of what to post about?
Just click "I'm Feeling Lucky" and we'll "take care" of the
rest!')
The announcement was followed by a link to a video tour of the
product, which actually
led to Tay Zonday's
cover of Rick Astley's "Never Gonna Give You Up."
Dajare
Google launches Dajare in Japan (google.co.jp), with the mission of
"organizing the world's laughter."
gDay
Google announces
gDay in Australia
(http://www.google.com.au/intl/en/gday/press.html), a new beta
search technology that will search web pages 24 hours before they
are created.
Gmail Custom Time
Gmail Custom Time feature hoax
Gmail's sign-in page and a banner at the top of each gmail inbox
announced a new feature, called Gmail Custom Time, that would allow
its users to "pre-date" their messages and choose to have the
message appear as "read" or "unread". The new feature uses the
slogan "Be on time. Every time."
Around 11:00 p.m. EST March 31, 2008, on the newer and older
version of Gmail, but not in the basic HTML version, in the upper
right corner, next to Settings, a link appeared labeled, "New!
Gmail Custom Time". The link led to a
404
error until April 1, when it led to the full Gmail Custom Time
hoax page. Clicking any of the three links at the bottom of the
page brought the user to a page stating that Gmail Custom time was,
in fact, their April Fool's Day joke.
Google wrote that the new joke feature "utilizes an e-flux
capacitor (a pun from the movie
Back
to the Future) to resolve issues of causality." Fake
testimonials are given by "beta users"; one example is, "I used to
be an honest person; but now I don't have to be. It's just so much
easier this way. I've gained a lot of productivity by not having to
think about doing the 'right' thing."
The feature only allows for ten pre-dated emails per year, claiming
that any more "would cause people to lose faith in the accuracy of
time, thus rendering the feature useless."
Google Book Search Scratch and Sniff
Google Book Search has a new section allowing users to "scratch and
sniff" certain books. Users are asked to "...please place your nose
near the monitor and click 'Go'", which then "loads odors". When
clicking on "Help", users are redirected to a page in a book that
describes the origins of April Fools' Day .
Google Calendar is Feeling Lucky
Google added the "I'm Feeling Lucky" button to its calendar
feature. When you tried to create a new event, you were given the
regular option of entering the correct details and hitting "Create
Event," and also the new option of "I'm Feeling Lucky" which would
set you up with an evening date with, among others,
Matt Damon,
Eric
Cartman,
Tom Cruise,
Jessica Alba,
Pamela
Anderson,
Paris Hilton,
Angelina Jolie,
Britney Spears,
Anna Kournikova,
Johnny Depp,
George
W. Bush, or
Lois Griffin.
Google Dialect Translation
Google announces
Google 사투리 번역 (
Google dialect
translation) for translating regional
dialects of Korean to and from Standard
Korean.
Google Docs
A little easter egg was added, where a user can click the file menu
and directly under new document is "New Airplane" which immediately
opens a copy of a Google branded paper airplane. To reach the file
menu, click the new menu, then "Document" then a new window opens.
The image that is embedded in the "New Airplane" document can be
seen
here.
Google Manpower Search
Google launches Manpower Search (谷歌人肉搜索) in China (google.cn). This
new feature is powered by 25 million volunteers who do the
searching around the clock. When the user entered a keyword,
volunteers will search any possible answers from a mass of paper
documents as well as online resources. The user is expected to get
the search result within 32 seconds.
Google Talk
Google announces plans to, on April 22, 2008 (Earth Day), shorten
all conversations over Google Talk thereby reducing the energy
required to transmit chats in an effort to reduce carbon output.
Google Wake Up Kit
Google launched their "Wake Up Kit" as a calendar notification
option.
The 'wake up' notification uses several progressively
more annoying alerts to wake you up. First it will send an SMS
message to your phone. If that fails, more coercive means will be
used. The kit includes an industrial-sized bucket and is designed
to be connected to your water main for automatic filling. In
addition, a bed-flipping device is included for forceful removal
from your sleeping quarters.
Google Wake Up Kit
Virgle
Google announces a joint project with the
Virgin Group to establish a permanent human
settlement on
Mars
(http://www.google.com/virgle/index.html). This operation has been
named
Project Virgle. The announcement includes
videos of
Richard Branson (founder
of Virgin Group) as well as
Larry Page
and
Sergey Brin (the founders of Google)
on
YouTube, talking about Virgle. An
"application" to join the settlement includes questions such
as:
I am a world-class expert in:
After you submit the application, the site notifies you that you
are not fit for space, or that your application is fine and "all
you have to do is submit your video" [as a response to their video
on YouTube]. As a result, an open source Virgle group has been
established,
OpenVirgle. On the FAQ page, the final question
is "Okay, come on -- seriously. Is this Virgle thing for real?" The
reply links to a page that tells the user it's an April Fool's
joke, and then mentions that the user "Dragged us out of our lovely
little fantasy world, to crush all our hopes and dreams."
[124017]
Virgle Application Page -
http://www.google.com/virgle/application.html
Yogurt
's
Orkut displayed its name as yogurt, Google
Bang, Inc.
YouTube
On April
1, 2008, all featured videos on the UK
and Australian homepages, and later, all international
homepages, of Google-owned YouTube linked to
a video of Rick Astley's song "Never Gonna Give You Up", causing
all users of the website who clicked on featured videos to be
Rickrolled.This was the first year
YouTube participated in Google's April Fool's Day tradition.
2009
google runs on Microsoft Windows IIS/3.0
google.com.au reported as if it ran on IIS/3.0 (on Linux) and
google.com on Apache/0.8.4.
CADIE
The announcement of CADIE was made on March 31, 2009 11:59 PM by
the CADIE Team, not on April 1. The announcement on the Google blog
was made at 4/01/2009 12:01:00 AM.
The introduction page and all of the references to CADIE in
Google's Products were taken down on April 2, replaced with a
message stating:
We apologize for the recent disruption(s) to our
service(s).
Please stand by while order is being restored.
However the technology page describing the technical capabilities
of the software remained at:
Technical Description
When using Google Books or GMail, a user would come across an
announcement dated March 31, 2009 at 11:59:59, declaring a new
"Cognitive Autoheuristic Distributed-Intelligence Entity". CADIE is
also
mentioned on the
gBall FAQ page: "Google's new CADIE
technology will interpret the data obtained from each ball to
provide useful tips to owners". There was also a link on Google's
Homepage for CADIE, and a
blog entry in Google's official blog.
CADIE technology is also used to generate
"senryu" (a type of Japanese poem similar to haiku)
based on search terms for certain Japanese queries.
The Google Search
homepage had a link to the
CADIE announcement, stating that "For several years
now a small research group has been working on some challenging
problems in the areas of neural networking, natural language and
autonomous problem-solving. Last fall this group achieved a
significant breakthrough: a powerful new technique for solving
reinforcement learning problems, resulting in the first functional
global-scale neuro-evolutionary learning cluster." The page links
to the blog below.
On mobile devices, a link shows up to
Brain Search, which uses CADIE technology to "index
your brain".
This is what it all looks like from a mobile
device.
YouTube
Screenshot of an upside video on
YouTube on April 1st, 2009
On April 1, 2009,
Youtube gave some users a
look at a
new "viewing experience" when they selected a
video within certain areas such as the "recommended for you"
section. This new interface caused the whole layout including the
video you were watching to flip upside down. Although the option
was not visible for some, it could be viewed by adding &flip=1
to the end of a video URL. Adding &flip=1 to the end of a video
URL no longer causes this effect, and the video loads normally. A
page on "tips for viewing the new layout" suggested users hang
their monitors upside down from the ceiling, although the layout
did not reverse mouse-control.
Gmail
When one is using the
Gmail service, they will
notice that it has a
new option, named "Gmail
Autopilot" in which the service would analyze an
email. On that page it says under the FAQ section,"You can adjust
tone, typo propensity, and preferred punctuation from the Autopilot
tab under Settings." However, if a person logs into their Gmail
account and goes under the Settings tab they will notice that there
is no Autopilot tab. The program could be customised to contain
certain types of grammatical or spelling errors, as well as
complexity and length of the sentence. It also has a way of
responding to relationship related messages, such as if someone
spoke aggressively, even in a humorous way, the system would
"terminate relationship."
Google Australia announced last week the development of a ball that
will change how Australian Football is played the world over.The
newest football technology - "gBall"-- is a prototype ball for use
in the Australian Football League with GPS.
Google
Australia announces ("New! Get the newest football technology -
gBall.") that they are developing a
prototype
ball for use in the
Australian Football League with
GPS. Apparently, the ball will measure the
location, force, and torque of a kick, and "vibrate if player
agents or talent scouts want to speak to you". Google claimed that
the ball will cost $10 with a cost-per-kick set of payments in
addition to the basic fee.
Google Analytics
A blog post to the Google Analytics Blog investigates the analytics
reports of CADIEs activities
http://analytics.blogspot.com/2009/04/cadies-google-analytics-reports.html
Google Maps
Google's CADIE has a recommended places to visit using Google Maps.
Viewing
"CADIE's recommended places for humans" one
will see each of her suggested places listed, that, when clicked,
displays a photo and humorous commentary.
There is also a "
CADIE's recommended places for humans." link in
Google Maps, which leads to the "Panda Mapplet" and includes
several marked locations with "CADIE's" commentary.
Under Redmond
WA
a link is listed which will rick roll the viewer.
Blogger
CADIE's personal blog/homepage
Google Chrome with 3D
A build of
Google Chrome was
offered rendering web pages in
Anaglyph
3D, "powered" by
CADIE.http://www.google.com/intl/en/landing/chrome/cadie/ A 3D
effect was actually possible with this browser, but it only made
the window appear to be sunken into the monitor.
Google Earth Powered by CADIE
Google announced a new
Google Earth powered by CADIE,
which supposedly allowed the user to:
1. See ocean terrain imagery from the world's most advanced
sub
2. Explore the deep sea
3. Soar with CADIE in real time
CADIE's Recommended summer Vacation
Chat with CADIE
Google Code
The
Google Code Search homepage is featuring
LOLCODE examples.
CADIE is set to
write code for you based on specified features,
however all that is returned is bad code or witty criticisms of
your request and choice of programing language, recommending the
use of
INTERCAL.
CADIE's source code was supposedly uploaded to Google Code
[124018]
[124019], but she changed her mind and replaced it
with a "fun program"
[124020] consisting of 31 lines of INTERCAL.
When executed, this program prints out the message "I do not feel
like sharing."
Google Book Search
CADIE recommends some books at
Google Book Search homepage. Also, when viewing
a book, there is a Generate book report button. When clicked it
says "Gotcha! It's April Fools' Day! Sorry, but you'll have to
actually read the book yourself."
Google Docs on Demand
Google has announced new
Google Docs features enhanced by CADIE
Add subliminal messages and images to documents.
If a person makes a new presentation and looks for the subliminal
message and image buttons under the insert menu they will notice it
is not there.
Upgrade your
Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level
automatically
And many other savvy new features.
Google Mobile
Google Mobile has a link to "
Brain Search". The instructions are to "Put
phone to forehead for brain indexing" and "Think your query".When
you click "Try Now", a page loads with "Brain indexing" status.
When indexing is complete, a button comes up with "search me". by
clicking this button, the user is directed to fake search results.
There are several possible results:
What's the name of that woman by the window?
She's my boss's boss, but, oh man, is it
Suzanne? Susan? Blanche?
Should I order the pizza? I don't remember if it makes me gassy.
Wow, cute guy. Should I go up to him?
Why is everyone looking at me so
strangely?
When is Mom's birthday? I should send her a card.
Google Knol
Knol was updated so that all of the featured
articles were about Artificial Intelligence, with a message from
CADIE indicating that this "improvement" was for the good of
mankind.
HTTP Headers
In keeping with the CADIE theme Google has altered the server HTTP
header to contain the name of various AI entities, including
HAL 9000,
WOPR and
GLaDOS
Other
server HTTP headers found were IIS/Bob (a reference to Microsoft Bob), IIS/Clippy (a reference to
Clippy), IIS/3.0, Netscape iPlanet,
Chrome/3.0, Google Operating System (BETA), CERN/3.0 (a reference
to CERN HTTPd), Apple (a reference to
Apple II), IRIX, MCP,
Apache/0.8.4, Conficker, and Skynet
.
Oil Tanker Data Center
During the last minutes of Google's
Data Center Efficiency Summit,
Urs Hoelzle presented in a "special topic":
Google had bought an
Oil tanker, the "M/S
Surgey", where Google's data center containers were being submerged
in oil tanks to enable extremely high-efficiency cooling. The
presentation can be seen from 0:41:20 in
the
video, and includes slightly customized wikipedia images from
thetopic
Oil tanker, including a
retouched photo of commercial oil tanker AbQaiq and the oil tankers
side view graphic.
Even though Google did apply for a US patent to build
data centers on cargo ships and
Oil cooling is an existing technology, summit
attendee James Hamilton believed this topic to be an April Fools
joke. The ship's name "M/S Surgey" is also likely to be a pun on
Google's Co-founder
Sergey Brin.
Halloween
In Halloween 2009, Google celebrates Halloween using this hoax. If
you clicked the Google logo, it would be replaced by a candy
wrapper version. Clicking it again, and more candy would cover the
candy logo. After clicking it again, and candy wrappers would
appear covering the logo. Clicking it for time final time, and it
takes you to the search results for "Halloween 2009". This would
happen when you clicked any Google logo.
Easter eggs
Google Street View production
team
Various Google services also hide
Easter eggs meant to be amusing
entertainment.
- Searching for "the answer to life, the universe,
and everything" will make the Calculator answer 42, a reference to
Douglas Adams's novel The Hitchhiker's Guide to the
Galaxy. In order for this Easter egg to be successful the
phrase must be entered in lowercase and without the quotation
marks. The same reference is made when speaking to an artificial
intelligence called meliza next to "the face on Mars" in Google
Earth. When the number 42 is typed, the AI produces the output "42
is the answer to the ultimate question about life, the universe,
and everything."
- Searching for "the number of horns on a
unicorn" produces the answer "1" in the Calculator. (Google
actually reads the strings "number of horns on a unicorn" and
"answer to life the universe and everything" as numbers. One can
also use these phrases in the calculator. For example searching for "number of horns on a unicorn usd in
euro" produces the current dollar / euro course or searching for "answer to life the universe and
everything*5" produces 210.)
- Searching for "once in a blue moon" shows the
result "1.16699016 × 10-8 hertz".
- Searching for "recursion" shows "Did you mean:
recursion".
- Google offers services in many languages, including
several uncommon ones like Swedish
Chef's Bork bork bork, Pig
Latin, Hacker (usually known as leetspeak), Elmer
Fudd, Klingon and Pirate
- When asked how to get from a location in North America to a
location in Europe or Africa, Google Maps included the instruction
"Swim across the Atlantic Ocean". This Easter egg is now
removed.
- When asked for directions from North America to Australia or
island in the Pacific ocean Google Maps includes the instruction
"Kayak across the Pacific Ocean". This also works
in Google Earth.
- When asked for directions from Japan to China, Google Maps
includes the instruction "Jet ski across the Pacific
Ocean".
- The
measurement tool in Google Earth allows users to measure distance
in smoots, a unit of length derived from a
tradition at MIT
.
- Taking the term Easter egg literally (and perhaps to celebrate
the Easter holiday), Google has an official
Easter Eggs page.
- If one sets the iGoogle theme to the "Beach" option, then at
3:14 AM every morning, the Loch Ness
Monster surfaces for 1 minute, then at 3:15 dives back under.
The reason for the timing of 3:14 is rumoured to be a tribute to
the number pi. Additional 3:14 eggs include the "Seasonal Scape"
showing off the Northern Lights, the "City Scape" with UFOs, the
"Spring Scape" with a monster, and the "Tea House" that has spirits
in the mist.
- On Google Earth, tapping out ctrl-alt-A will activate a hidden
flight simulator. (This is now an official feature.)
- Going on Google Street View, and heading to the rear of the
company's Googleplex headquarters in Mountain View, California, the
Google Street View's production team can be seen.
- In Chrome, Google's Web Browser,
entering "about:internets" into the address bar brings up a copy of
the Windows Screen Saver 3D Pipes, with the title "Don't Clog the
Tubes". In the event that this does not occur due to the fact that
the screensaver file does not exist in the system, the browser will
instead display a gray screen with the title "The Tubes are
Clogged!" This has been removed as of the 2.0.169.1 release.
- The Google Gear's Firefox add-on description line reads "These
are the gears that power the tubes! :-)"
- In Google's iPhone and iPod touch search application, swiping
downwards (past About) repeatedly in the 'Settings' interface
brings up a hidden menu item, called Bells and Whistles, allowing
customization of colors, sounds and more within the app.
- Entering the term "table" into Google Translate for
Spanish to English will return "Is there a striptease bar in the
town?" as a definition.
- On the Suggest a feature page for Gmail, it shows "Have Gmail
do the laundry" as a suggestion
- When using Google Chrome's
"incognito" function, the "New Tab"
page reminds users that incognito mode does not affect the
behaviour of other people, and suggests that they beware of
"Surveillance by secret agents" and "People standing behind
[them]".
- Searching "ascii art" will turn the Google logo into
ASCII art.
- For a few days in November 2009, visitors to google.com were
greeted with nothing but the Google logo and a message stating
"This page has been deliberately left blank"[124021]. On movement of the mouse the page
returns to normal.
Non-hoaxes
Google has chosen April Fool's Day to announce some of their actual
products, as a form of
viral
marketing.
- Shortly before midnight on March 31,
2004, Google announced the launch of Gmail. However, many people believed it was a hoax,
because free web-based e-mail with one gigabyte of storage was
unheard of at the time.
On
July 20,
2005, the
36th anniversary of the first human landing on the moon, Google
debuted a version of
Google Maps that
included a small segment of the surface of the
moon.
It is based entirely on NASA
images and
includes only a very limited region. Panning causes the map
to tile. The map also gives the locations of all moon landings, and
the Google Moon FAQ humorously mentions a connection to the Google
Copernicus hoax, which Google claimed to be developing. Supposedly,
by 2069, Google Local will support all lunar businesses and
addresses. Zooming to the closest level in Google Moon used to show
that the moon was made of cheese.
References
- gDay with MATE
- Sunday Contingency: Gmail Custom Time
- Gmail Custom Time - The ABCs of Gmail
- Gmail: Google's approach to email
-
http://books.google.com/books?id=Ci9JAAAAMAAJ&dq=april+fools+day&pg=PA358
- Virgle's YouTube page
- Netcraft Webserver Identification
- Google Maps directions from Seattle to
Sydney
- Google Maps directions from Tokyo to
Beijing
- Google Reveals Hidden Menu in iPhone App - Cult of
Mac
-
http://mail.google.com/support/bin/static.py?page=suggestions.cs
- Google Press Center: Press Release
- Hotmail currently offers 2MB of free e-mail storage. Yahoo
offers 4MB. Gmail will dwarf those offerings with a 1GB storage
limit.
External links
Google pages
Wikis
Quiz
Map
Search