Top 10 Google April Fool's day hoaxes

The world’s most powerful search engine loves to celebrate April Fool’s Day. It has been an annual tradition for Google to put together some of the most creative and memorable hoaxes. Whether it’s the Manpower Search system, MentalPlex or Translate for Animals BETA, the people behind Google continue to prove every year that they can be extremely funny. Here are some of their best April jokes:

Google China launched in 2008 Manpower Search, a feature that involved human participation in order to produce trustworthy and relevant search results. The system was powered by 25 million Chinese volunteers who did the searching 24/7. The great part was that volunteers had access to both online resources and paper documents. The users were expected to get Google’s search results within 32 seconds. Google China required those who wanted to volunteer to submit their resumes to the  Human Search Volunteers Authority. It sounded too good to be true

In 2008 Google China launched Manpower Search, a feature that involved human participation in order to produce trustworthy and relevant search results. The system was powered by 25 million Chinese volunteers who did the searching 24/7. The great part was that volunteers had access to both online resources and paper documents. The users were expected to get Google’s search results within 32 seconds. Google China required those who wanted to volunteer to submit their resumes to the  Human Search Volunteers Authority. It sounded too good to be true

2007 was the year when Google introduced TiSP (BETA), a free in-home wireless broadband service. People who signed up right away had to receive their own TiSP self-installation kit, which included installation CD, fiber-optic cable, wireless router, spindle and a setup guide. The innovative system used toilet GFlush™ technology and provided wireless access by connecting the client’s TiSP wireless router “to one of thousands of TiSP Access Nodes via fiber-optic cable strung through local municipal sewage lines”, according to Google. The FAQ section was hilarious. One of the questions was the following: how can Google offer this service for free? Well…Google’s strategy was to analyze your poop and display online ads that were contextually relevant to the client’s health status and culinary preferences. Good joke, Google!

Installing TiSP was kind of gross. You had to attach the sinker to the loose end of the fiber-optic cable and drop the weighted end into the toilet. The next step was to grasp both ends of the spindle while flushing. Curious how it looks like in practice? Check out the next installation steps.

Google unveiled in 2009 CADIE, the world’s first artificial intelligence entity. The Cognitive Autoheuristic Distributed-Intelligence Entity claimed to be a great artificial intelligence system. CADIE was able to scan, read the user’s incoming emails and send an impeccable reply, all without human intervention. Gmail AutopilotTM by CADIE is my favorite. The above displays one of my favorite responses.  Here are some more

CADIE also introduced Google Brain Search for Mobile, enabled Google Chrome for 3-D glasses use and developed a must have Picasa feature to add red-eye to your photos. Right on trend… If you want to learn more about CADIE, visit her blog or YouTube channel.

Nobody knows what the future holds, except for God…and Google. Google Australia developed in 2008 a revolutionary beta search technology that allowed users to search web pages 24 hours before they were created. MATE stands for Machine Automated Temporal Extrapolation and was the core technology behind gDay. It was able to predict anything on the web: tomorrow’s lotto numbers, share price movements, sports results etc.

When the search engine was created, one key innovation was PageRank or PR, a technology that determines the relevance and importance of a webpage. The PR varies from 1 to 10. As most of us know, the system for ranking web pages was developed by Sergey Brin and Larry Page. Google revealed in 2002 that the technology behind its PageRank algorithm is actually PigeonRank. “PigeonRank’s success relies primarily on the superior trainability of the domestic pigeon (Columba livia) and its unique capacity to recognize objects regardless of spatial orientation. The common gray pigeon can easily distinguish among items displaying only the minutest differences, an ability that enables it to select relevant web sites from among thousands of similar pages,” announced Google. The higher the value of pigeon pecks, the higher the numeric value of PigeonRank. So, the web pages that get most of the pecks get ranked at the top of the search engine for certain keywords.

Which was Google’s conclusion in 2006? That love is just another search problem. And they have thought about it. A lot. And Google Romance™ was  the solution they came up with. The free dating service allowed its users to post all types of romantic information and search for love. By using Soulmate Search™, the search engine’s task was to return only those results that theoretically included the user’s soulmate. The next step was the  best part: a Contextual DateTM entirely paid by Google. Couples simply had to agree to experience contextually relevant advertising while dating. The slogan of the psychographic matchmaking service was Pin All Your Romantic Hopes on Google and…you’ll live happily, and contextually, ever after!

A revolutionary line of soft drinks – designed to maximize the user’s surfing efficiency – hit the beverage industry in 2005. Google announced a new product rollout, Google Gulp! According to the company, Google Gulp was making its users more intelligent, and less thirsty. The drink was available in four delicious flavors: Beta Carroty (beta carotene), Glutamate Grape (glutamic acid), Sero-Tonic Water (serotonin) and Sugar-Free Radical (free radicals).

“Think a DNA scanner embedded in the lip of your bottle reading all 3 gigabytes of your base pair genetic data in a fraction of a second, fine-tuning your individual hormonal cocktail in real time using our patented Auto-Drink™ technology, and slamming a truckload of electrolytic neurotransmitter smart-drug stimulants past the blood-brain barrier to achieve maximum optimization of your soon-to-be-grateful cerebral cortex,” wrote Google.

Did you know that way back in 2000 users were able to search faster and smarter thanks to Google’s MentalPlexTM? MentalPlex was an innovative search technology based on proprietary predictive search algorithms. The research and development team worked tirelessly for 13 years to develop MentalPlex and closely collaborated with some of the most reputable PhDs in the fields of parapsychology, artificial & pseudo-intelligence, and improbability.

MentalPlex was the only search engine capable of returning search results without requiring its users to enter a query. It supposedly ‘read’ the users’ mind to find out what they wanted to search for. Here are the instructions the users had to follow: they had to safely remove glasses and hat, but facial hair, earrings and makeup were ok. The next steps were to focus on the MentalPlex spiral and to mentally project the image of what they wanted to search for.

The last year’s April Fool’s joke was really funny! Many people were tricked into believing that Google finally created the world’s first animal translation system. Translate for Animals was an Android application that helped people better communicate with their pets. It translated animal sounds into human speech. The supported animals were cat, dog, hamster, tortoise, horse, sheep, donkey, bird, rabbit, guinea pig, chicken, and pig.

Google posted in 2004 a fake job listing seeking for  highly-qualified engineers willing to relocate. They had to be capable of surviving with restricted access to modern conveniences such as The Sopranos, low fat soy lattes and stable supplies of oxygen. The Google Copernicus Hosting Environment and Experiment in Search Engineering (G.C.H.E.E.S.E.), a lunar hosting and research center, had to be ready for opening in 2007.

Some of the candidates’ questions were: What happens to PageRank in the proximity of a black hole? Does spam go on forever?  Exactly how far does the Worldwide web extend? Can it become an interplanetary utility? Great April Fool’s joke!

Although Google didn’t conquer the moon and there are no job openings at G.C.H.E.E.S.E, the American corporation is sponsoring the Lunar X-Prize. $30 million in prizes are awarded to the first privately funded teams able to effectively land a robot on the Moon.

by Timeaa

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Top 10 hoaxes of all time April Fool's day

The first of April is widely recognized and celebrated as All Fools’ Day. The master of irony, Mark  Twain, once said that “April 1. is the day upon which we are reminded of what we are on the other three hundred and sixty-four”. Believe it or not, some of the biggest companies and governments get into the spirit of this ‘holiday’. So, to arm you for this crazy day, here are some of the greatest April Fool’s Day hoaxes of all time:

There are so many theories about the meanings and origins of April Fool’s Day, but the most original one was provided by Prof. Joseph Boskin during an interview. Boskin was interviewed by an Associated Press reporter. The notable history professor explained that April Fool’s Day originated during the reign of King Constantine. The fools and court jesters of the kingdom decided to unionize and wondered if King Constantine would allow one of them to be king for one day. They were convinced that they could better run the empire. King Constantine was so amused that he agreed to give up the throne for one day and let Kugel, one of the court jesters, to run the empire. (Kugel is a Jewish noodle pudding) According to Joseph Boskin, that was the first time in history when April 1 was celebrated. What the reporter didn’t realize was that the so-called theory explaining the Roman origins of April Fools’ Day was a hoax itself. The professor figured the reporter would catch on. When Associated Press published the article, Boskin got calls from many other popular newspapers, radio, magazines and TV networks to go into detail. The news spread very quickly, however, a few weeks later, the big hoax was revealed by Buskin and that’s how a professor fooled Associated Press.

After 188 years of ink, The Guardian announced on April 1, 2009 that they will become the world’s first newspaper to be exclusively published via Twitter. According to the famous British newspaper, any story can be told in exactly 140 characters.

The history of the British newspaper dates back to 1821 and The Guardian’s next ambitious project was to rewrite the entire archive in the form of tweets. Here are some of the ‘twittered’ stories: “OMG Hitler invades Poland, allies declare war see tinyurl.com/b5x6e for more”; “1832 Reform Act gives voting rights to one in five adult males yay!!!”; and “JFK assassin8d @ Dallas, def. heard second gunshot from grassy knoll WTF?”

Twitter and The Guardian were planning to also launch Gutter, an innovative service designed “to filter noteworthy liberal opinion from the cacophony of Twitter updates.”

17 years ago, John Dvorak wrote in PC Magazine an April Fool’s joke article titled Drunk Driving on the Internet. According to Dvorak, Senator Patrick Leahy introduced the 04/01/94 bill designed to prohibit Internet usage while intoxicated. Information Highway was a popular term during the 1990s and it looked like Congress apparently thought that drunk driving on highways is very dangerous no matter what highway drivers/users were on. So many readers thought it was real when published. Lirpa Sloof was listed as contact person. Lirpa Sloof? Seriously? Well, try to read it backwards Dvorak’s article generated so much controversy, an explosion of phone calls, that Edward Kennedy’s office had to release a press release denying everything.

The Independent revealed in 2000 that American researchers developed Feralmone, a Viagra-like pill to help treat sexually frustrated animals: dogs, hamsters, guinea pigs, cats etc. Animal wellness consultants and veterinarians were said to have met the product with derision.

The Independent’s funny article emphasized that there are “few things as sad as a pet suffering from feelings of sexual inadequacy, noting that it’s not unknown for a guinea pig to sit in its cage thinking, ‘I haven’t had sex for months. Am I so unattractive?’”

Owners were instructed to crush the pill and sprinkle the contents into their pet’s normal food and mix it in. They were also advised to lay some newspapers on the floor once Feralmone starts to work.

The UK stands up when it comes to good old-fashioned humor. Sir Patrick Moore is a popular British astronomer who announced on BBC Radio 2 a major astronomical phenomenon in 1976. Pluto would pass behind the fifth planet from the Sun, Jupiter, temporary causing a once in a lifetime event, a gravitational alignment! Jupiter’s and Pluto’s conjunction was believed to decrease the Earth’s gravity. Moore said that anyone who jumped into the air at 9:47 AM, exactly when the conjunction was supposed to occur,  would experience a strange weightless sensation. BBC received thousands of notifications from its listeners claiming to have felt Jovian-Plutonian gravitational effect.

Despite its small geographic size, Belgium is a diverse country, a mix of languages, local governments, and population groups. Belgium is divided into the French-speaking Walloons and the Dutch-speaking Flemings and its 10.4 million citizens vote along ethnic lines. The multi-party political system (11 parties), the five regional parliaments and many other factors make it impossible to overcome Belgium’s political crisis, the longest political crisis in history!

As part of an April Fool’s joke on April 1, 2000, The Times published an article detailing the official negotiations undertaken to divide Belgium in half. The Dutch speaking (Flemish) communities of northern Belgium would join Netherlands and the Walloons France. The article was a hit. It fooled many journalists, expatriated Belgians, embassies, including former British Foreign Office minister Tristan Garel Jones.

The Sun’s European correspondent reported in 2005 that Brussels bureaucrats decided to ban April Fool’s Day because of mental and physical health damage caused by celebrating it. Many lawsuits were filed, so the holiday was labeled as dangerous for the population.

The EU directive UVBN 814/2005 stated that “in reflection to the 452% increase in compensatory claims with relation to the date of April 1, member states must cease to use the term ‘All Fool’s Day’ and in accordance they will not be recognized in law…”

The third place goes to one of the greatest hoaxes in history.

English and French researchers revealed an unprecedented archaeological discovery that dated back to the time of cartoon heroes Asterix and Obelix. The Independent confirmed in 1993 the discovery of a 3000-year old village located in Le Yaudet, near Lannion, France.

The buried remains were said to be Asterix’s home village. The spot of the discovery was exactly the same place where author Rene Goscinny located his hero’s village. The excavations, directed by Dr. Patrick Galliou of the University of Brest and by Oxford University Professor Barry Cunliffe, gave archaeologists an important body of information about Asterix and Obelix. The findings included “rare Iron Age menhirs (standing stones) of the precise size favored by the indomitable Obelix”, unique Celtic coins, Asterix-period pottery and a statue of bard Cacofonix. The back of the Celtic coins depicted the image of a wild boar. Obelix’s favorite food was roast wild boar which he usually hunted with Asterix.

On April 1, 1992, one of National Public Radio’s programs announced that Richard Nixon, the only American president to resign in disgrace, was running again for presidency. The slogan of the presidential campaign was “I didn’t do anything wrong, and I won’t do it again.” Funny stuff! The announcement was made through a series of radio spots. The president’s voice was impersonated by The Man of a Thousand Voices, incredibly talented Rich Little. It’s no surprise that listeners flipped out. They called in to express their outrage. The host revealed during the second half of the program that the announcement was a hoax.

Kjell Stensson was a well-known technical expert of the 60s who informed the viewers of Sveriges Television on how to turn black and white television into color. Sveriges Television was the only TV channel in Sweden at that time.

Kjell explained that viewers could experience the instant color effect at home with the help of nylon stockings. All they had to do was to pull the nylon stockings over the TV’s screen. The host of the program demonstrated the entire process and claimed that 25 denier nylons were preferred. 40 denier and tights were not recommended because they caused the TV screen to go very dark. Thousands of people gave it a try and were taken in.

by Timeaa

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