Google is about to launch its second Windows Phone app. This time, Google picked a service that was used by a few million users until it was discontinued last year: Google Reader.
While the new app won't be able to show the latest news from your feeds, it's a clear sign that Google started to embrace Microsoft's mobile platform. Apparently, Google was about to launch the app in January 2013, but developers were busy updating Google's apps for Android and iOS. A week ago, someone found the app and decided it's a good idea to release it. The application lets you login to your Google account and shows this message: "Google Reader has been discontinued. We want to thank all our loyal fans. We understand you may not agree with this decision, but we hope you'll come to love these alternatives as much as you loved Reader."
It's simple, minimalist and pretty late, just like Windows Phone.
To celebrate 10 years of Gmail, Google will launch a special Gmail interface that takes you back to 2004, when Gmail was launched. The retro interface doesn't include a contact manager, drafts, a rich text editor and other advanced features. Gmail will only show the most recent messages, since the storage is limited to 1GB.
Google is about to launch a free phone that will be called NS5. It's a free 8GB version of Nexus 5 ("Nexus Special 5") that will only be available in the US. You'll still have to pay $50, but you'll get $50 Google Play credit, so the phone is actually free.
NS5 will only be available online at the Google Play Store. It comes with a special version of Android KitKat that installs some new software, adds new features and restricts a few options. Chrome's data compression proxy is now used at the OS level, so all the traffic is routed through Google's servers and you can't disable this feature. Your phone is associated with a Google account, you can no longer disable location services or Google+ Auto Backup and there's a new sponsored card in Google Now that shows personalized recommendations. You'll also hear some relevant audio ads when calling companies or when you play your music.
It's a great opportunity for Google to test new software, find new ways to monetize its services and capture the value of free hardware. Building a platform that makes mobile phones accessible for everyone has always been at the heart of Android.
The latest version of Google Maps for Android adds an "I'm Feeling Lucky" button that automatically picks the destination when searching for directions. This only works when "my location" is selected as the starting point and Google has enough information to offer relevant recommendations.
The "I'm Feeling Lucky" option works especially well when it's obvious where you are going, for example when you're heading home from work. Google uses information from Gmail, Google Calendar, Google+, Google Search history, Google Maps history, Google Trends, Google Drive, Chrome and even Google Reader. The power of Google Reader's data is yet to be fully unlocked, but there's a lot of potential.
It's that time of the year: the day when Google's teams from all over the world come up with so many hoaxes that it's hard to list all of them. It's Google April Fools' Day.
Google Japan found an innovative input method for smartphones: the Magic Hand. "Once you have set in front of this device a smartphone on hand, just hold the lever afterward. Instead of you, magic hand takes care of operating the smartphone. Problem of the touch panel of the past, I can solve all. Operability of comfortable buttons and levers, will make for some of the space further, the mobile life of you." (machine translation) More details here.
Gmail celebrates its 10th anniversary by adding a new feature: Gmail Shelfie. "You all love setting selfies as your custom theme in Gmail, but you've told us there's one major problem: there isn't a way to share your selfie with others. As the pioneering platform for selfies, Gmail is committed to being at the forefront of innovation in the selfie space. Today, we're proud to free your selfies by launching Gmail Shelfie, the SHareable sELFIE. Gmail Shelfie is built on the idea that you shouldn't be selfish with your selfie. With just a few clicks, your mom, your aunt, or that girl you have a crush on can set your Shelfie as their Gmail theme so they can enjoy checking, reading, and writing emails while seeing your friendly face in the background."
Google Maps lets you find Pokémon. "If you think you're up to the challenge, grab your Poké Ball and the newest version of Google Maps for iPhone or Android. Then tap the search bar, 'press start,' and begin your quest. Leave no stone unturned or city unzoomed as you seek out wild Charizards and Pikachus to add to your Pokédex. Be vigilant — you never know if a wild Steelix will appear in Tokyo, Japan or New York City, USA."
Nest "teams up with Virgin America to reinvent the way people fly. Watch as Tony Fadell and Sir Richard Branson introduce Total Temperature Control, the newest product from Nest."
Google introduces Auto Awesome Photobombs, so that anyone can get a celebrity photobomb. "We're starting with surprise appearances by David Hasselhoff, everyone's favorite crime-fighting rockstar lifeguard. Upload a new self-portrait, or a group photo with friends, and leave some room for The Hoff. He might just make your photo a little more #Hoffsome."
Google Chrome announced "Google Translate support for Emoji, built directly into Chrome for Android and iOS. You can now read all your favorite web content using efficient and emotive illustrations, instead of cumbersome text. To view webpages in Emoji today on your Android and iOS devices, make sure you have the latest version of Chrome for Mobile from the Play Store or App Store. Then simply tap on the menu icon and select the 'Translate to Emoji' option. Tap 'Reload' to view the original page. This feature is currently only available in English.
There's also Chromecast for squirrels. "A new era of squirrel entertainment is upon us. No longer will squirrels be restricted to watching human music and videos on TV."
Waze announced "the acquisition of Israeli social enterprise software SingleSpotter, and the subsequent launch of its most social feature yet: WazeDates. After a successful limited beta in San Francisco and Tel Aviv, the feature will launch as an expanded pilot to all Wazers mid-April 2014, allowing drivers to take the same hands-on approach to their personal life as they do to fighting traffic. WazeDates, powered by SingleSpotter, alerts drivers to other likely singles on the road nearby. Wazers can adjust preferences to search for drivers based on age, sex, orientation and more. Once a desirable driver is found, users simply invite them to a destination by sharing their ride, or use Map Chat to say hello."
Google Play Signature Edition adds support for a new way to distribute Android apps. "With Signature Edition, you can bring back the physical connection to your users. App delivery is completed via USB drives shipped in carefully crafted boxes, each proudly bearing your signature. This not only gives your users the very latest version of your app, but also adds a personal touch that is so often missing in our modern digital age."
AdSense shows a list of the top planets and moons:
YouTube announces the upcoming viral video trends: clocking, baby shaming, Glub Glub, elaborate divorces, kissing dad and more.
Chrome can now detect cat input using the Qwerty Cats extension. "We've designed a cat-friendly on-screen keyboard, based on extensive Animal-Computer Interaction (ACI) research. You or your cat can install the kitty keyboard and try these features: four pawing modalities using your trackpad or touchscreen, mouse mode, cat translation technology (beta)."
AutoAwesome can make your resume stand out:
There's even a dogengineer job at Google. You need to "write much web-based code, very programming, so participation in code review, much scary, no cry pls, type type type on computer, very building, much system OS/corn, such complicate."
Google also launched "a full translation of Blockly in Klingon". This version of "Blockly has no syntax errors. This reduces frustration, and reduces the number of computers thrown through bulkheads. Debugging and bug reports have been omitted, our research indicates that in the event of a bug, they prefer the entire program to just blow up." Apparently, "less than 2% of Google engineers are Klingon". You can try a demo here.
Google Helpouts lets you "increase your pirate vocabulary". "Ahoy mateys, if ye wanta' speak like a pirate this be yer ship. From 'ahoy' t' 'yo-ho-ho,' ye'll sound like seven seas marauders faster th'n a scalawag gits scurvy".
{ Thanks, Mark Stead, François Beaufort and Scowlin' Guideon Scabb. }
This year, Google's hoaxes are less inspired and some of them aren't original either, but they're still funny. Here are some of them:
1. Google China invented teleportation. "Through the search is to let Google take you through time and space, most want to reach your arrival time, place, with an immersive way to perceive everything you want to perceive." (machine translation)
2. Gmail Motion is a new way to control Gmail using body language. "To use Gmail Motion, you'll need a computer with a built-in webcam. Once you enable Gmail Motion from the Settings page, Gmail will enable your webcam when you sign in and automatically recognize any one of the detected movements via a spatial tracking algorithm. We designed the movements to be easy and intuitive to perform and consulted with top experts in kinestetics and body movement in devising them."
There's also Google Docs Motion, "a new way to collaborate -- using your body".
3. Google hires autocompleters. "Are you passionate about helping people? Are you intuitive? Do you often feel like you know what your friends and family are thinking and can finish their thoughts before they can? Are you an incredibly fast Google searcher? Like, so fast that you can do 20 searches before your mom does 1?" If you have have "good typing skills (at least 32,000 WPM)", you're willing to "relocate to obscure places like Nauru and Tuvalu to develop knowledge of local news and trends" and you have a "certificate in psychic reading", then you can get a job at Google.
4. Search for Helvetica or Comic Sans using Google, and you'll have a little surprise. Google plans to use Comic Sans as the default font across all Google products, but you can use the Comic Sans for Everyone extension to browse the entire World Wide Web using Comic Sans. It's fun, fun, fun.
5. YouTube presents the top viral videos in 1911. "Today, we celebrate 100 years of YouTube, and we thought we would reflect on our inaugural year with a re-print of our first blog post from 1911. In honor of this milestone, today's homepage is a reproduction of how you might have viewed it 100 years ago. Check out some of the most popular videos of the time and be sure to try out our new upload mode which summons a horse-drawn carriage to pick up your video submission from your home."
7. Google will buy Blogger once again. "This morning we're beyond thrilled to announce that Blogger has signed a definitive agreement to be acquired by Google, the Internet search company. This is exciting news not only for all of us on the Blogger team, but for our users, our partners, and most importantly -- the blogosphere itself."
8. Google AdWords offers a new ad format: Blimp Ads. "Imagine this: a baseball stadium, packed with thousands of fans. A home run flies through the air, and as the crowd looks up, they see your ad, bigger than ever, hand-painted on the side of a majestic blimp. Blimp Ads can make this a reality."
For those who are afraid to try new things, Google brings back old school ads: "Punch the monkey!", "Congratulations, you've won $100,000!", "Click here for smileys", pop-ups and more.
9. Another company has gone Google: Contoso, "a fictional company used by Microsoft as their example company and domain". The explanation is pretty clear: "As a subsidiary of a traditional software company, we went against the grain and switched all 1,200 Contoso employees across nine continents to the cloud. After previously considering Google Apps, we were finally convinced to make the move when Google Docs began supporting the Corsiva font. I still can't find track changes in Docs, but now we can use Corsiva from anywhere, on any device. We decided against Microsoft® Office 365 beta, because we'd heard for years that beta software was too risky."
10. Google Maps and Google Earth added 10 real-world sightings to the maps. "It all started with a recent visit to my friend Nessie in Boston. As I crossed the bridge into town, the car in front of me stopped short so I slammed on the brakes. The cars next to me were also stopped, so I got out to see what was causing the back up. There was a huge, red lobster sitting on the bridge."
Your mission is to find the other 9 sightings.
11. Google Voice Search now supports Pig Latin. "What is Pig Latin you may ask? Wikipedia describes it as a language game where, for each English word, the first consonant (or consonant cluster) is moved to the end of the word and an “ay” is affixed (for example, 'pig' yields 'ig-pay' and 'search' yields 'earch-say')." The nice thing is that this actually works: open Voice Search for Android or Google Search for iPhone, change the language to Pig Latin and try your luck. This English to Pig Latin translator might help.
"To configure Pig Latin Voice Search in your Android phone just go to Settings, select 'Voice input & output settings', and then 'Voice recognizer settings'. In the list of languages you'll see Pig Latin. Just select it and you are ready to roll in the mud! It also works on iPhone with the Google Search app. In the app, tap the Settings icon, then 'Voice Search' and select Pig Latin."
Here's a video that announces the new feature. Watch it and Mike LeBeau's fan club will thank you.
12. Chrome's team came up with Chromercise, a finger fitness program that helps you increase your hands' strength and dexterity. "Some existing finger exercise programs focus on upgrading your digits' cardiovascular strength and musculature; others focus on dexterity. Chromercise's unique blend of aerobic motion and rhythmic accompaniment covers all of the above while simultaneously tightening and toning your fingers' actual appearance," informs Chrome's blog.
Check out the video because it's really funny (probably the funniest Google hoax this year):
13. If Chrome is not fast enough for you, use ChromeLite, an extension that harnesses the power of text-only browsers. "In our never-ending quest for speed, our team members recently gathered to race the latest and greatest browser versions against each other. Much to our surprise, the winning browser was neither the latest version of Chrome nor another modern browser, but was instead an early text-based browser called Lynx," explains Google.
Coincidentally, Lynx was the Google Browser from my 2006 April Fools' joke and 2006 was the year when Google started developing Chrome.
14. Search for [kittens] using a mobile phone and the top results will show a lot more than you expect. Refresh and everything will seem random.
"For this animal, the dog still, cats, pigeons are just the future, cows and horses, hamsters, frogs, and plans to expand into. Voice Search a variety of potential animal, you try all means, exchange'd appreciate help with animals. Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful to the people around the world. You are also feeling the animal to be able to access, will continue to continue research, and Nakajima are saying."
There's also Google Translate for Animals, a new Android application that "allows you to record animals sounds and have the sounds analyzed and translated by Google Translate into any of the 52 supported languages".
Google Australia is now able to "Optimise for Colloquial Cultural Articulation (OCCA) - which means our products can now be tailored specifically for the typical Strayan user. (...) OCCA greatly reduces the latency between a user's thought and ability to pinpoint information; a boon for local users who'd have Buckleys makin' sense of American English."
Google Street View is now available in 3D, but you need to click on an icon to go 3D:
Google's search results pages use some interesting units of measurements to estimate how long it took Google to obtain the results: Plunk, gigawatts, warp, centibeats, skidoo, femtogalactic years, velocity of an unladen swallow.
YouTube has a new text-only mode: TEXTp. "It's great news that there are 24 hours of video uploaded to YouTube every minute, we support 1080p and HD uploads are rising quickly, but that's also meant increasing bandwidth costs cutting into our bottom line. (...) TEXTp is the result of months of intense transcoding efforts by our engineers, who toiled for weeks to ensure that a large chunk of videos on the platform could be reduced to their most basic elements. By replacing the images in the video with a series of letters and numbers, the videos are far less taxing on our system -- and have the added benefit of promoting literacy!"
You can try the new mode by appending &textp=fool to YouTube URLs (like this).
Google Docs lets you store ANYTHING. "Ever wish you could CTRL+F your keys? Store your keys and other objects you commonly lose with Google and you'll never have to worry about finding them again. We're testing a new mail courier network integrated with our Street View fleet. We'll show up within 3 hours to pick up anything you choose to store in Google Docs, guaranteed. At $0.10 per kg, you can store a grand piano for the price of lunch."
Standard Voicemail Mode brings your voicemail back to something reminiscent of 1997, with features like:
* Automatic voicemail deletion: messages will be deleted automatically after 14 days * Numeric keypad access: access to voicemail will only be available via your phone * Beeper interoperability: your beeper will be paged every time a voicemail is left * Message maximums: store a maximum of 10 messages at any given time * Numeric page: people leaving you voicemails will be given the option to send a numeric page
Google Mobile Search found a way to return better results for queries like "where am I". Try this query on your mobile phone and you'll find a lot of interesting results:
Gmail's login page no longer uses vowels and greets users with a short message: "Wlcm t Gml".
ThinkGeek discovered a very useful tool that helps you get rid of long cords and troublesome cables.
"Now you can put anything in any room you want - even outside. Every once in a while, though, a long cord across the floor can be more dangerous than helpful. Sure you could just put a carpet or tape over the cord, but why bother? Let technology solve its own problems. Grab some Wireless Extension Cords, and leave the wires where they belong - somewhere else!
Just plug the Wireless Extension Cord (WEC) base unit into a standard wall outlet, and plug whatever you need into the satellite unit. The WEC uses microwaves in the 7.2GHz range, so it won't interfere with wireless networks, Bluetooth components, etc."
I wonder, is it dangerous to use this Wireless Extension Cord?
"Our marketing department has done extensive research over the last 3 quarters and discovered that our audience is strangely disproportionately skewed towards males. Like, 98.3% males to be precise. To correct this oversight, we have decided to subtly tweak Slashdot's design and content to widen our appeal to these less active demographics."
"Opera Models is a groundbreaking new online photo library that aims to offer realistic images of normal people and how they really use technology in their everyday lives. Opera Models was started as an alternative to the polished style of existing photo libraries that reinforce traditional stereotypes of beauty and trendy lifestyles rather than accurate representations of reality."
"Ever been on a date and wondered "What on Earth am I doing with this person?" Or perhaps you wished there was a way that you could instantly find your perfect match, and then go on a date during which everything just went right?
Wish no more: Google Romance, a beta product currently incubating in Google Labs, uses cutting-edge personal search algorithms to help you find your soulmate, then sponsors your first Contextual Date with said soulmate-to-be in exchange for showing you highly relevant advertising that just might help Cupid's arrow find its mark. Does it really work? Ask our internal beta testers -- if you can find them, that is. Not a single one has shown up for work in days." (Google Blog)
"Our internal projections say Contextual Dating is going to be unbelievably huge, just a total cash cow," said Google CEO Eric Schmidt in prepared remarks placed into the notes section of an executive PowerPoint presentation and intended solely for internal use but promptly leaked onto the web and then roundly mocked on Digg and Slashdot.
Use Google Romance and "you'll live happily, and contextually, ever after."
Philipp Lenssen has information that Google Rooms is Google April Fool's prank for this year. In fact, Philipp Lenssen is so sure that Google Rooms is this year's hoax that he photoshopped posted some screenshots. Google Rooms shows a map of Larry Page's room with pictures of Playboy magazine, Marissa Mayer as Larry's ex-girlfriend and Star Wars stuff.
Update (September 2008): After two years, Google has released an open source browser. It's called Google Chrome and you can download it from http://www.google.com/chrome. This post has been written for April Fools' Day 2006.
You want a browser that doesn't use all your RAM. Firefox is a memory hog.
You want a secure browser. Internet Explorer is not secure.
You want a fast browser. Opera is fast, but not that fast.
You want a cross-platform browser. Safari is definitely not cross-platform.
You want a browser that doesn't care about JavaScript. Netscape cares about JavaScript - they invented JavaScript.
Presenting you Google Browser, a fast, versatile and secure text browser for the Internet. Google Browser is free, already out of beta, and the installer has only 1.68 MB.
Just open it, type g (that's from Google), enter a URL, press enter and visit the web through Google's eyes.
What hoax will get out of the Googleplex this year for April Fool's Day? They made a tradition from making fun of their products, their corporate culture and their geekiness.
Let's take a guess:
1) Google will take over the world. Google will produce a device that will scan your important information (documents, bills, pictures, favorite colors, what you say, SIM content, hard-drive content), organize it, upload it to your Google account and make it searchable. EGoogle device.
2) Google will drop its simple and clean homepage in favour of the Personalized Home, that will also contain ads. Furthermore, you won't be able to search Google unless you have a Google account and you are logged in.
3) All mails from Gmail will be deleted. The Gmail team released it's so inefficient to type so many emails every day, so they will introduce AudioGmail, where you can record, search and organize voicemails. The new AudioGmail has another advantage: spam will be easier to recognize.
On a more serious note, everybody waits for the Google Calendar and there are some people out there that still hope that Gmail will go public.
Google announced a new "MentalPlex" search technology that supposedly read the user's mind to determine what the user wanted to search for, thus eliminating the step of actually typing in the search query. Of its origins, Google comments that "As with the Internet itself, MentalPlex began as a highly classified Dept. of Defense initiative under the direction of Al Gore." In the FAQ, Google co-founder Larry Page said that "typing in queries is so 1999."
Google MentalPlex gives some funny error messages:
* Error 01: Brainwaves received in analog. Please re-think in digital. * Error 005: Searching on this topic is prohibited under international law. * Error 008: Interference detected. Remove aluminum foil and remote control devices. * Error 8P: Unclear on whether your search is about money or monkeys. Please try again. * Error 666: Multiple transmitters detected. Silence voices in your head and try again. * Error: MentalPlex(tm) has determined that this is not your final answer. Please try again.
In 2003, Google decided to ignore April Fool's Day. But in 2002, Google explained that "the heart of Google's search technology is PigeonRank™, a system for ranking web pages developed by Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin at Stanford University."
"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.
By collecting flocks of pigeons in dense clusters, Google is able to process search queries at speeds superior to traditional search engines, which typically rely on birds of prey, brooding hens or slow-moving waterfowl to do their relevance rankings."
"Google is interviewing candidates for engineering positions at our lunar hosting and research center, opening late in the spring of 2007. This unique opportunity is available only to highly-qualified individuals who are willing to relocate for an extended period of time, are in top physical condition and are capable of surviving with limited access to such modern conveniences as soy low-fat lattes, The Sopranos and a steady supply of oxygen.
The Google Copernicus Hosting Environment and Experiment in Search Engineering (G.C.H.E.E.S.E.) is 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. This center will provide a unique platform from which Google will leapfrog current terrestrial-based technologies and bring information access to new heights of utility."
If you emailed Google about the supposed jobs, you would've got an auto-reply:
"Thank you for contacting Google about our Copernicus Research Center.
We've received an overwhelming response to this opportunity and are not currently accepting additional resumes. We will, however, keep your information on file should we have an opening in the future. At the current staffing levels, we anticipate that we may need additional applicants on or around April Fool's Day in 2104. Until then, we appreciate your interest in Google and your taking the time to write us.
"At Google our mission is to organize the world's information and make it useful and accessible to our users. But any piece of information's usefulness derives, to a depressing degree, from the cognitive ability of the user who's using it. That's why we're pleased to announce Google Gulp (BETA)™ with Auto-Drink™ (LIMITED RELEASE), a line of "smart drinks" designed to maximize your surfing efficiency by making you more intelligent, and less thirsty.
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. Plus, it's low in carbs! And with flavors ranging from Beta Carroty to Glutamate Grape, you'll never run out of ways to quench your thirst for knowledge. "
