It’s here: April Fool’s Day. A day in which tech sites decide to play a prank on any visitor that is unaware of the date. I am planning to update this throughout the day, so check back or feel free to add anything you find in the comments.
1. Virgle- Ah yes, you knew Google was going to get in on the April Fool’s action. Here is their offering for 2008:
From the site:
For thousands of years,
the human race has spread out across the Earth, scaling mountains and plying the oceans, planting crops and building highways, raising skyscrapers and atmospheric CO2 levels, and observing, with tremendous and unflagging enthusiasm, the Biblical injunction to be fruitful and multiply across our world’s every last nook, cranny and subdivision.
An invitation.
Earth has issues, and it’s time humanity got started on a Plan B. So, starting in 2014, Virgin founder Richard Branson and Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin will be leading hundreds of users on one of the grandest adventures in human history: Project Virgle, the first permanent human colony on Mars.
The question is, do you want to join us?
Ever yearned to journey to the stars? You can learn how to become a Virgle Pioneer, test your Pioneering potential, or join the Mission Control community that will help develop the 100 Year Plan we’ve outlined here.
And you know, I definitely applied for that beta.
It’s a great questionnaire. After successfully completing the 15 question multiple choice test, the following message appears:
Congratulations — you are ideally suited to be a Virgle Pioneer; so ideally so, in fact, that one wonders why you aren’t already living on a remote South Pacific island, serving as a biosphere test subject, washing dishes at a North Pole research station during the depths of winter or writing a highly intelligent, articulate political blog. At any rate, we want you for one of our upcoming Virgle launches. You’ll love it — the pay is great, the view from the spaceport should be spectacular, and we’re told that algae and spirulina actually start to taste good after the hundredth consecutive day. Anyway, if you want to give Virgle a try, you can submit your video here.
which brings us to………..
2. YouTube:
Here’s the video:
3. Google Docs Airplane:
(via TechCrunch)
If you create a new document in Google Docs
, you’ll see a number of options in the “File” pull down menu. One of those options, which as far as I can tell wasn’t there yesterday, is “New airplane.” It’s right there after “New document.”
Clicking on "New Airplane" will get you a pretty kickass paper airplane:
4. Google Wakeup Kit
Google is all about April Fool’s this year, and here’s yet another of their pranks:
From the site:
Wake yourself up with our new Google Wake Up Kit!
Do you have trouble getting out of bed in the morning? We do, too. In fact this problem became so serious at times that it sometimes resulted in lacklustre attendance at team meetings. To help solve the problem we’ve created an innovative solution called the Google Wake Up Kit.In combination with the kit, you can receive a new type of notification from Google Calendar, called the "wake up" notification. This notification is relentless in ensuring your timely awakening from restful slumber.
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. Learn more
5. ThinkGeek always has something good. This year it is a Betamax to HD-DVD Converter:
From the site:
Behold the Colossus Of Analog/Digital Convergence!
Here at ThinkGeek, we fully grok that digital convergence is all the rage. We’ve been stocking cassette and vinyl and other analog to digital media converters for years now. And for some reason you keep buying. But we felt like we were leaving out some folks. Specifically, many folks that recorded home movies between the year 1975 and about 1984. Think Air Supply, Pat Benatar, and ‘Who Shot JR?’ and you’ll get the idea. So we took a trip to Awesome Town and picked up this nifty Betamax to HD-DVD converter – at a price that shouts "Totally Tubular". Betamax and HD-DVD are like a match literally made in heaven (you know, that place you go when you die?), and now you can get a slice for yourself. Featuring simple one-touch record between either format, your media has never felt less obsolete.
I loved this one.
I don’t see anything yet on facebook, twitter, or friendfeed, but I’ll keep looking. Here are some other blogs tracking the April Foolery:
