I woke up this morning excited at the prospect of another year April Fool’s hoaxes.Over my morning coffee, I flicked through newspapers websites: the Union-Tribune, Washington Post, New York Times: Nothing (the Washington Post claims “Yoga for Dogs” is real). I thought even Google, famed for the lunar headquarters joke in 2006, had let me down. Not so. I just discovered this snappy new application for Google Calendar, the Wake Up Kit:
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.
If you know of any other news pranks, by all means, post below.
Update: An emailer just sent me a link to the New York Times Lede blog, which compiled a few hoaxes from today. My favorite among them was the CNet.com article describing a classified Wikipedia-like site called Intellipedia for spies. The article detailed an edit war over which episode of Buffy the Vampire slayer was the best. CIA chief Michael Hayden likes “Hush“, but Cheney prefers “Once More, With Feeling“)
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As a Yahoo user, you did not see Google’s other hoax, which is a new feature on Gmail that allows you to backdate your emails to whenever you want (e.g. before your grandma’s birthday) and set whether or not you want them to arrive as already marked “read” in the recipient’s email box.
Also, see the email I just sent you re: the NIH.
Umm . . . and Google’s other other hoax (with Virgin): Virgle! Branson and Page and Brin on Mars! With Open Source!
http://www.google.com/virgle/index.html
adamoooo