April Fool’s Day roundup
It’s kind of become tradition in the technology industry to put out a fake announcement on April 1 of some cool experimental technology that will revolutionize the industry and is usually completely implausible. Google always leads the way. Today is no exception as they have already started pouring in.
- Google announced a join venture with Virgin Airlines (dubbed Virgile) that will take people to mars by 2014. Do you want to be a “Virgle Pioneer?”
- Googlesightseeing.com announced infrared and thermal imaging added to Google Maps and Google Earth.
- PostgreSQL shut down
- Doctrine became a PECL application that now runs “4x faster”
And there are so many more that I am unaware of. It seems everyone is doing some type of April Fool’s joke in the tech community.
Google has been the king of these pranks. A few past Google announcements from April 1:
- Google TISP: Google Wireless Broadband through the sewer system. TISP = Toilet Internet Service Provider. (my favorite)
- Gmail Paper: Order your emails printed and shipped to you by Google
- Gmail Custom Time: Customize the time you send an email
Checkout a list of all Goolge’s Hoaxes.