This year's April Fool's Day
April Fool's Day, 2009
The Conficker Virus
Computer experts have warned that a computer virus, the Conficker virus,
is expected to activate in millions of computers on April 1st. However,
exactly what it will do when activated is not known. Despite the date of
its expected activation, the virus itself is not a hoax!
Gmail Autopilot
Google unveiled Gmail Autopilot, a feature that automatically reads and
responds to your email, saving you the time of doing this. It boasted
that Autopilot could mirror any communication style, could also work for
Gmail chat, and would work even if both sender and recipient had
Autopilot on:
Two Gmail accounts can happily converse with each other for up to three
messages each. Beyond that, our experiments have shown a significant
decline in the quality ranking of Autopilot's responses and further
messages may commit you to dinner parties or baby namings in which you
have no interest.
YouTube Flipped
YouTube flipped its videos upside-down. The effect displayed for
visitors who opened the home page and then went to a video from there.
It was also possible to activate the effect by adding the code &flip=1
to the end of a youtube URL. YouTube wrote that it had introduced the
new format because, "Our internal tests have shown that modern computer
like how it's best to rotate your mattress every six months." To see the
new format, it advised viewers to either 1) Turn your monitor upside-
down; 2) Tilt your head to the side; or 3) Move to Australia.
Fake Panda Bear Scandal
The Taipei Times reported that pandemonium broke out at the Taipei Zoo
when it was discovered that the zoo's two panda bears were in fact
distinctive black-and-white appearance." Suspicions were first raised
when it was observed that the bears were spending almost their full
waking hours having sex. (Pandas are notorious for their low libido.)
This behavior caused chaos among zoo crowds. "Children screamed and
parents became irate." The pandas had been received as a gift from the
contaminated milk scandal, when melamine that had been added to watered-
down milk sickened 300,000 victims across China and led to a recall of
diary products in countries including Taiwan." Chinese foreign ministry
spokesman Qin Gang was said to have issued a statement: "We understand
that our compatriots in Taiwan are very upset. We wish to assure them
that we have taken steps to address their concerns. We hope that our
Taiwanese friends enjoy the gift of two extremely rare Wenzhou brown
forest bears."
Google gBall
Google Australia announced it had partnered with the Australian rules
football league to develop the gBall:
The gBall contains inbuilt GPS and motion sensor systems to monitor the
location, force and torque of each kick. The data is interpreted by a
new curvilenear parabolic approximation algorithm developed in Google's
Sydney office, known as DENNIS ("Dimensional, Elastic, Non-Linear,
Network-Neutral, Inertial Sequencing"), which plots the ball's
trajectory, accuracy and distance.
Using artificial intelligence technology, Google can provide users -
from amateurs to professional players - with detailed online kicking
tips, style suggestions and tutorials based on their gBall kicking data.
Kicking data is also sent to national talent scouts and player agents.
The gBall will vibrate if talent scouts or player agents want to make
contact with the user. Users can log in to their gBall account to make
contact.
Association of Swiss Mountain Cleaners
The Swiss Tourism Board announced it was seeking volunteers to join the
Association of Mountain Cleaners. It claimed, "The Association of
Mountain Cleaners... makes sure that our holiday guests can always enjoy
perfect mountains. Using brooms, brushes, water and muscle power, they
clean the rocks of any bird droppings." Visitors to myswitzerland.com
were invited to take a Mountain cleaner aptitude test and submit their
name for a chance to win a week's holiday in Switzerland. (YouTube
video)
Categories: Switzerland, 2009. [Permalink]
Free Childcare at Political Offices
An advertisement that appeared on page five of the Australian newspaper
claimed that Prime Minister Kevin Rudd had volunteered the use of the
electorate offices as a child-minding service: "Each MP's electorate
office will today be accepting newborns for a free child minding
service. This is another example of Labor's commitment to working
families." The advocacy group Get Up later claimed responsibility for
the ad.
GM and Chrysler ordered out of NASCAR
Car and Driver Magazine revealed that the White House had ordered that
"GM and Chrysler must cease participation in NASCAR at the end of the
2009 season if they hope to receive any additional financial aid from
the government." The White House was said to have released the following
statement: "In order to receive this money, corporations must
demonstrate they will spend it wisely. Racing has been said to improve
on-road technology, but frankly, NASCAR almost flaunts its standing
among the lowest-tech forms of motorsport. NASCAR is not proven to drive
advancements that transfer from the racetrack to the road, and this
options, such as inviting Korea's Hyundai corporation to compete in GM
and Chrysler's place.
Categories: Sports, Cars, Magazines and Journals, United States, 2009.
[Permalink]
Reddigg
Popular social news site Reddit changed its layout to resemble that of
its rival, Digg. It also rebranded itself "Reddigg". It proclaimed: "At
last, change has come to reddit. Let us rejoice."
Mannequins for Climate Justice
On March 31 a mannequin was found chained to the doors of a Bank of
America branch in Boston. The mannequin wore a sign, "The real dummies
evict people & fund climate chaos." A group calling itself Mannequins
for Climate Justice took responsibility, saying it was getting a head
start on Fossil Fools Day, an initiative to use April 1st as a day to
mock and resist the fossil fuel industry.
Playboy Invests in Rotorua
The tourism board of Rotorua, New Zealand (a town famous for having a
peculiar rotten egg smell caused by sulphur released from nearby geysers
and hot thermal springs) announced that scientists from Italy's
University of Naples had discovered a positive link between the town's
smell and male sexual arousal. As a result, playboy founder Hugh Hefner
had decided to convert the Rotorua Museum into his Holiday Mansion.
Rotorua Tourism Marketing general manager Don Gunn was quoted as saying
that the Playboy Holiday Mansion development would likely raise a few
eyebrows in the local community, but that he expected the long-term
benefits for local tourism to be huge.
Hotline for Mr. Don Key
Anticipating the annual flood of prank calls on April 1st, the Blank
Park Zoo in Des Moines set up four hotlines that pranksters were invited
to use. The hotlines were for "Mr. Albert Ross," "Mr. C. Lyon," "Ms.
Anna Conda," and "Mr. Don Key." Each hotline played a prerecorded
message to let callers know they'd been fooled.
Ocean Youth Association
Yachting Monthly inserted a joke item in its April issue about the Ocean
Youth Association, an organization that supposedly allowed children to
compete in wold sailing stunts. What Yachting Monthly didn't realize is
that the name of their fictitious organization was similar to the names
of several real organizations, Ocean Youth Trust and the Association of
Sail Training Organisations, both of which subsequently began to receive
inquiries from people seeking clarification about the Yachting Monthly
article.
Free internet access through digital radio
Australia's Courier Mail reported that the roll-out of digital radio in
Queensland had the unintended side effect of making high-speed internet
access freely available through old radio receivers. The paper
interviewed the University of Queensland's head of frequency physics
Prof Sayd al Lio who said, "the technicians had tapped into something
that had eluded researchers for decades." To access the free internet,
readers were instructed to place a radio on a surface outdoors in a
direct line towards the Mt. Coot-tha radio towers:
Tune in to any AM station with a moderate volume, not so loud it annoys
the neighbours. Place your laptop behind the radio receiver, again in a
direct line with the towers, and open your favourite internet browser.
Experts say that today, April 1, otherwise known as April Fool's Day,
should produce the strongest signal.
|
|