Google April Fools' Day 2012

April Fools' Day is now associated with Google and the countless pranks which show that Google hasn't lost its cheerfulness.

The first hoax for this year comes from Google Japan: you can now try the 8-bit version of Google Maps. Just click the "quest" button in the regular Google Maps interface.

"Our engineering team in Japan understood the importance of maps on retro game systems. With the power of Google's immense data centers, and support from Nintendo and Square Enix, we were able to overcome the technical and design hurdles of developing 8-bit maps. Today, we're excited to announce the result: a version of Google Maps for NES, with beautiful low-res graphics, simple and intuitive controls, and a timeless soundtrack," explains Google.




The 8-bit Google Maps hides some monsters from the Dragon Quest series.


Google Japan also came up with a simplified IME for Japanese (Google Translate) that only uses a single key: space.


Google China changed the search results page for [Qingming], but you'll only see the beautiful animated wallpaper if you use Chrome. "The Qingming Festival (...) is a traditional Chinese festival on the 104th day after the winter solstice (or the 15th day from the Spring Equinox), usually occurring around April 5 of the Gregorian calendar" (from Wikipedia).

"Use the Chrome browser, Google's search box, enter "Qingming", the results page is the past is not the same? Greeted by swaying willow branches, a symbol of spring in the air. "Green little Liulv the Yula have Qingming, the page will float to the surface ripples from time to time, and click a fish tail out of the water continued to click, but also do not like surprises! The bottom of the page are two cowboy, riding a piper playing in the back of a bull, quiet and lightly." (machine translation - Google China Blog)


Don't miss the underwater image search experience developed by Google China. It's so much fun to type your query.


Google Australia found a way to capture more Street View images for Australia: Google Street Roo. "Over the next four weeks, more than a thousand Big Red kangaroos will be equipped with a 360-degree head camera that will automatically capture images when the marsupial is on the move during daylight hours. The cameras on our Street Roo collection team will be powered by solar panels stitched into the back pocket of custom-made roo jackets. Images will be wired to Google in real-time. A GPS tracker embedded into the jacket will match the location of the kangaroo to ensure the image is accurately uploaded onto the new Street View layer."


Inspired by the Japanese IME and the Morse Code, Gmail's team introduces a new way to type on a mobile device. "Gmail Tap takes the keyboard from 26 keys to just two. Every letter of the alphabet is represented by a simple pattern of dots and dashes, and once you know them you can type without even looking at your screen. This makes it ideal for situations where you need to discreetly send emails, such as when you're on a date or in a meeting with your boss."


AdWords brings a new ad extension: click-to-teleport. "While features like call extensions and location extensions have aimed at solving the online to store marketing objective for multichannel advertisers, Click-to-Teleport shortens the offline conversion funnel by allowing a user to teleport directly to your business location by clicking on your search ad."


If you've already optimized your sites for mobile phones, you can now optimize them for rotary phones.


YouTube offers a way to enjoy your favorite videos even when you don't have an internet connection. The YouTube Collection lets you watch any YouTube video on DVD and you can still share your feedback.


Just click the "home" button from the YouTube player to watch a demo.


Chrome's engineers found a new way to multitask. "We call it Multitask Mode. Multitask Mode lets you have access to multiple mice at the same time, so you can make a chess move while you watch a dance move, or draw a horse while you draw on a friend for relationship advice. Chrome can handle as many mice, touchpads, styli, joysticks, trackballs, and other pointing devices as you can plug into your computer, so you and your friends can browse dozens of sites at the same time."


Jargon-Bot for Google Apps translates business jargon into plain English. " Jargon-Bot has been integrated across the entire suite of Google Apps so that next time you are on an IM chat with your manager, it will help you recognize and say no to unrealistic expectations. When you receive an e-mail from your supplier, Jargon-Bot won’t let you get ripped off by demystifying the fine print," explains Google.


Make sure you try the interesting new options from Google's search sidebar that let you find pages from the past: "Jurassic Era", "Victorian Era", "Enlightenment", "Once Upon a Time" and even tomorrow's pages.


Image Search lets you find images from "the Gilded age".


Here are the queries used by Google:

* Hadean Era: just us rocks, move along
* Jurassic Era: It's a UNIX system, I know this!
* Cretaceous Era: "dinosaur repellent" OR "time machine repair"
* New Kingdom Era: tetrahedral real estate listings
* Once Upon A Time: Poisoned Apple Antidotes
* Enlightenment: ego quaerere ergo ego sum
* Victorian Era: this query served from Google's Difference Engine cluster
* Past 5.391e-44 seconds [Planck time]: a photon passes, no new celebrity news, must refresh faster
* Tomorrow: todo: create tachyon web crawler

For even more search options, try Google Really Advanced Search. You can find pages with words "almost, but not quite entirely unlike" a word you enter, "this exact word or phrase, whose sum of unicode code points is a mersenne prime". You can narrow the results by font, textured background, "embarrassing grammatical faux pas" or "looping midi music".


Google's weather OneBox is now more powerful and it lets you change the weather. "Don't like the weather? Now you can change it in your region by selecting from the dropdown to change precipitation and setting your own temperature. Please notice, after submitting it takes approximately 45 minutes until your weather changes take effect," informs Google.


There's also a new Cloud API for the App Engine which lets you "gain cloud coverage in locations around the globe within minutes".

Google Analytics promise to add support for interplanetary reports, just in case your site has visitors from another planet. "While currently you only get a partial picture of website visitor location, we want to expand beyond Earth to help you understand visitor activities from neighboring stars and planets. You’ll also be able to drill down on each planet to see greater detail. For example, which colony or outpost your visitors came from similar to the city drill down available for Earth today."


Self-driving cars are becoming a reality, but happens if you bring self-driving cars to NASCAR? "Our autonomous cars have now been test-driven (or rather, test-ridden) for more than 200,000 miles without a single machine-caused mishap. And today we're moving the project one great leap forward with Google Racing, a groundbreaking partnership with NASCAR to help self-driving vehicles compete in the world of stock car racing."


Google is bringing an ultra high-speed fiber network to Kansas City, but also releasing a Fiber Bar. "Google Fiber starts with 100 times more fiber than any source of fiber available today. Tested in labs across our Mountain View campus, we found that in just the right synthesis, psyllium and vitamins C and D morph into a byproduct we have coded as Fiberlicious. This smarter fiber delivers just what the body needs to sustain activity, energy and productivity up to 100 times more than you have experienced before."


{ Thanks, everyone. }

Google Account Stats

Google added an interesting feature that shows stats for services like Google Latitude, Gmail, Google Search and more. If you go to the Account Activity page, you can opt in for a monthly report that provides a "summary of your account activity across many Google products".

It's like a personal Google Analytics, but it's less detailed and it focuses on security features. For example, Google shows a list of locations and browsers detected when you've signed in. If you never use Opera, but the browser is included in Google's list, then it's likely that someone else found your password. The activity page also includes the number of emails you've sent and received, the number of Google searches and stats from Google Latitude, Picasa Web and YouTube.


I've enabled this feature and Google says that my "next report will be ready in a few days" and I'll receive an email notification when it's ready. It would be nice to aggregate the data in real time and integrate Account Activity with Google Dashboard, which already shows some stats.

{ via Google Blog }

Google Experiments With a Collapsible Search Sidebar

Google tests a new search interface that hides the options from the sidebar by default. You need to click a small arrow icon to see the list of specialized search engines and some advanced search options that let you filter results.

Essentially, this experiment hides the sidebar's content, but the sidebar still takes up space. Back in 2009, the sidebar was hidden by default and Google made it more visible one year later.

Now that the navigation bar no longer includes many specialized search engines, it doesn't make sense to hide the sidebar. Another issue is that the sidebar highlights advanced options that are relevant to your query, but few people will find them if the sidebar is collapsed by default.


{ via Websonic. Thanks, Akos. }

Google Play, Added to the Navigation Bar

There's a new service in Google's navigation bar: Google Play. The link replaces Google Music and it's prominently placed next to popular services like Google Maps and YouTube. For now, the link takes you to the Google Play homepage and your query is ignored.

It's interesting to notice that Google's navigation bar changed its purpose from showcasing popular services to promoting new services. Ever since it was launched, Google+ became the first service from the navigation bar, even if Google Search was the most popular service. Then Google added links to services like Google Offers, Google Wallet and a page that lists Google's mobile apps.

Google Play is more than a new name for Android Market, it's Google's attempt to sell digital content across different platforms: from apps to music, from books to movies, from magazine subscriptions to TV shows and more. It makes sense to integrate Google Play with Google Search and maybe include the top results in an OneBox, assuming that they're relevant.

{ Thanks, Joshua, Kartik, Thomas, Marian, Shimmy, Matan and TechDows. }

Labels

Web Search Gmail Google Docs Mobile YouTube Google Maps Google Chrome User interface Tips iGoogle Social Google Reader Traffic Making Devices cpp programming Ads Image Search Google Calendar tips dan trik Google Video Google Translate web programming Picasa Web Albums Blogger Google News Google Earth Yahoo Android Google Talk Google Plus Greasemonkey Security software download info Firefox extensions Google Toolbar Software OneBox Google Apps Google Suggest SEO Traffic tips Book Search API Acquisitions InOut Visualization Web Design Method for Getting Ultimate Traffic Webmasters Google Desktop How to Blogging Music Nostalgia orkut Google Chrome OS Google Contacts Google Notebook SQL programming Google Local Make Money Windows Live GDrive Google Gears April Fools Day Google Analytics Google Co-op visual basic Knowledge java programming Google Checkout Google Instant Google Bookmarks Google Phone Google Trends Web History mp3 download Easter Egg Google Profiles Blog Search Google Buzz Google Services Site Map for Ur Site game download games trick Google Pack Spam cerita hidup Picasa Product's Marketing Universal Search FeedBurner Google Groups Month in review Twitter Traffic AJAX Search Google Dictionary Google Sites Google Update Page Creator Game Google Finance Google Goggles Google Music file download Annoyances Froogle Google Base Google Latitude Google Voice Google Wave Google Health Google Scholar PlusBox SearchMash teknologi unik video download windows Facebook Traffic Social Media Marketing Yahoo Pipes Google Play Google Promos Google TV SketchUp WEB Domain WWW World Wide Service chord Improve Adsence Earning jurnalistik sistem operasi AdWords Traffic App Designing Tips and Tricks WEB Hosting linux How to Get Hosting Linux Kernel WEB Errors Writing Content award business communication ubuntu unik