Skip to main content

Google embraces April Fools’ Day with Google Nose, YouTube closure and more

google nose
Image used with permission by copyright holder

Ah, so that’s what Google engineers do with their ‘20 percent time’ – think up wacky April Fools’ Day ideas like Google Nose, Treasure Mode for Maps, and Google Glass – no, wait, that last one made it through.

The Web giant has been busy rolling out lots of jokes and pranks  Monday, letting everyone know that it does indeed have a sense of humor.

Recommended Videos

Check out Google Nose, for instance. “Smelling is believing”, Google says on a webpage dedicated to a product it calls “the new scentsation in search”. Under a photo of a woman filling her nostrils with an aroma emanating from her mobile phone, Google urges us to “go beyond type, talk, and touch for a new notation of sensation” and explore its Aromabase of more than 15 million “scentibytes”.

Basically, Google Nose lets you search by smell and smell your search.

“By intersecting photons with infrasound waves, Google Nose temporarily aligns molecules to emulate a particular scent,” one Google engineer helpfully explains.

The Mountain View company has even taken the time to put together a video (below) explaining all about Google Nose. The thing is, one day, whether it’s in five years or 50, Google Nose won’t be a joke. It’ll be real.

The team has also come up with Google Maps Treasure Mode, a tool enabling you to find hidden treasure around the world (how about that?). Check out the video (below) for the weird, wacky and rather amusing ways you can help Google to crack the codes to reveal the locations of the treasure.

Oh, and Google-owned YouTube is closing down tonight. The site posted a video thanking everyone for their entries over the last eight years (it’s been one big long-running competition, you see) and wishes everyone luck in having their entry chosen as the world’s best video.

Google says its team of 30,000 technicians will spend the next 10 years going through the entries to find the best YouTube video. The winning entry will be posted on the site when it relaunches in 2023, and will be the only video on the site. The company put together an amusing little piece (below) for this joke too, which even features appearances by YouTube celebrities from years gone by.

There are plenty more Google gags too. Whereas most firms might roll out one joke on April Fools’ Day, the Web company has gone all out and evidently spent a few bucks on its efforts. Fall for any of them?

Topics
Trevor Mogg
Contributing Editor
Not so many moons ago, Trevor moved from one tea-loving island nation that drives on the left (Britain) to another (Japan)…
PayPal vs. Venmo vs. Cash App vs. Apple Cash: which app should you use?
PayPal, Venmo, Cash App, and Apple Wallet apps on an iPhone.

We’re getting closer every day to an entirely cashless society. While some folks may still carry around a few bucks for emergencies, electronic payments are accepted nearly everywhere, and as mobile wallets expand, even traditional credit and debit cards are starting to fall by the wayside.

That means many of us are past the days of tossing a few bills onto the table to pay our share of a restaurant tab or slipping our pal a couple of bucks to help them out. Now, even those things are more easily doable from our smartphones than our physical wallets.

Read more
How to change margins in Google Docs
Laptop Working from Home

When you create a document in Google Docs, you may need to adjust the space between the edge of the page and the content --- the margins. For instance, many professors have requirements for the margin sizes you must use for college papers.

You can easily change the left, right, top, and bottom margins in Google Docs and have a few different ways to do it.

Read more
What is Microsoft Teams? How to use the collaboration app
A close-up of someone using Microsoft Teams on a laptop for a videoconference.

Online team collaboration is the new norm as companies spread their workforce across the globe. Gone are the days of primarily relying on group emails, as teams can now work together in real time using an instant chat-style interface, no matter where they are.

Using Microsoft Teams affords video conferencing, real-time discussions, document sharing and editing, and more for companies and corporations. It's one of many collaboration tools designed to bring company workers together in an online space. It’s not designed for communicating with family and friends, but for colleagues and clients.

Read more