Google April Fools Pranks – 2014

Google are the kings of April Fools Day, they often deliver a multitude of pranks starting in our time-zone and continuing on into their own. As there’s usually a few, we’ll be adding them into this article as we find them – and encourage you to update the comments with any good ones you find (with screenshots) so we can add them as well.

First Up: Google Maps now lets you find and catch wild Pokémon.
Google has kicked off April Fools day in Japan, with Pokemon – Gotta catch ’em all!! The feature is live now in Google Maps on Android, hit the search bar and you’ll be given the option to ‘Press Start’. Once you do you’ll be taken to a location – I was transported to Sydney – where a lab is positioned as your starting point to start exploring and catching all 150 Pokemon.

There’s 150 to collect and clicking each Pokemon in your Pokedex will bring up a full bio of each Pokemon. There’s a video accompanying this which shows off the AR aspect of a possible ‘Real Life’ Pokemon game…this isn’t such a bad idea after all!

Source:Google Japan

Next, we have “Shelfies” or as Google call them Shareable Selfies.

Login to your GMail on the web this morning and you’ll see this new ‘feature’ that Google is rolling out to allow you to create and share selfie themes, the description says it best :

Source:GMail

That’s all we’ve found so far, but we expect more, including one from GMail Australia. We’ll update as the day progresses, shout out as you find more in the comments.

Translate to Emoji
Thanks to Deej for the headsup (and Adrian for following up with a screenshot). We have a new one. Google has added ‘Translate to Emoji’ to Chrome and Chrome Beta for Android. It’s not actually working, but if you select it from the drop-down menu the usual Google Translate spinner ‘Translating to Emoji’ comes up, before advising ‘Oops. This page could not be translated.‘ Seems like some terrible internet connectivity here meant this failed, but thanks to wjbeckett in the comments we got confirmation that this actually works.

There’s now a video for this :

This one is Google related but not quite ‘Google’, it’s from Tony Fadell (founder of Nest Labs which was recently acquired by Google) and Sir Richard Branson. It’s basically announcing that Nest and Virgin Airlines have teamed up to supply Nest Thermostats for each set on all planes in the Virgin Airlines fleet – an intriguing idea if you’ve ever flown internationally and had to share a climate with someone addicted to Air Conditioning.

Google Japan are apparently taking a second bite of the April Fools Day cherry, by introducing ‘The Magic Hand’. It proposes a mechanical input from a controllable finger which can then touch your screen for you.

The proposal includes a variety of different hand designs that will allow greater function or just be able to change with your mood.

There’s even a full spec list :

• The number of stick: One
• Number of buttons: One
• Size: 100mm (W) × 390mm (H) × 180mm (D) arm when folded
  580mm: the length of the arm during deployment
• Weight: 800g
• Operating sound: (Hand when using the cat) 30dB (standard) / 22dB
• Battery life: 17 hours up to
• Sensor: SOKUIKI laser sensor (Class 1 laser use), CMOS camera
• Interface: USB 2.0 (type A) × 2, Bluetooth, wireless LAN (IEEE802.11n/g/b), IrDA
• Accessories: Power adapter, mobile device stand, carry bag, quick instruction guide, warranty card
• Hand replacement: Right hand (three), left hand (three), the hand of the cat, scratcher, Trump Card

Check out the entry video:

Source: Google Japan

Next, it looks like Google is adding AdSense to their list of April Fools day pranks, listing the moons of planets in our Solar System in AdSense :

Thanks to Florian Popovici from PocketDroid for that one.

Hoff Photo Bombs!
Google has introduced another one, this time from the Google+ Photos team who have introduced Auto Awesome Photobombs, starting with your favorite celebrity: David Hasselhoff.

The concept actually sounds pretty cool, who wouldn’t want Michael Knight or Mitch Buchannon photobombing their photos?

The Google+ team also encourages you to tag The Hoff in any posts you make as well. From the initial post, it seems that David Hasselhoff has been keyed up on this one, with Google specifically tagging him and he did actually comment on the Google+ Post.

Source: Google+ Photos
Via: Android Central

Looks good – Keep them coming.

Updated 02/04

Ok, so overnight there was some more April Fools pranks as the time zone moved into Google’s home market.

First up, overnight I and many other Google City Experts received an email from Google which spruiked: Google City Experts for Dogs.

Of course dogs will have their preferred dog parks, dog friendly cafes etc….actually this isn’t a terrible idea. Of course clicking the ‘Learn More’ button takes you to the Google Search result for April Fools Day.

How about a Google Fiber April Fools Day prank? Well, they decided to go for Coffee to the Home :

It’s a pretty good video too :

Next up, how about a Cat Keyboard? Well, Francois Beaufort, well known Chrome Advocate announced a Cat Keyboard Chrome Extension.

The Chrome Extension description on the Chrome Webstore is pretty good, they even went to the effort of making an actual bug in the Chrome bug tracker. :

Check out the video which shows the keyboard in action, it’s literally Chromebook Everyone :

Source:Francois Beaufort Google+

Google Play Developers haven’t been left out of April Fools Day – how about Google Play Signature Edition Apps? The idea is that instead of the cold, impersonal data transfer with an actual unboxing experience. It lets developers deliver a USB drive and ship the app on a USB drive to the customer.

How about Auto-Awesome Résumés?
Google is bringing the idea of Auto-Awesome from their photos to your résumé. You can move your CV into a folder in Drive and Auto-Awesome it, if you have skiing as an interest, you’ll get snow falling. It sounds kinda Awesome :

Actually kind of cool, they say they’ll auto match it to the Google Jobs on offer. Now, that would be cool, although I suspect I wouldn’t qualify for much at Google.

Chromecast: A New Era of Squirrel Entertainment
Seriously, read the description and then watch the video. I offer no further comment except get this product to Australia Google!!

Google does a Doge April Fools Day prank, adding a Job listing for a Software Dogengineer. Such responsibilities :

• write much web-based code. very programming. so .
• so participation in code review. much scary. no cry pls.
• type type type on computer.
• very building. much system OS/corn. such complicate.
• wow.

Much lols, the full listing :

Source: Google Jobs

Still with the Dog (although not Doge) theme, Google Business has introduced Google Apps for Dogs :

Developing..