This year, Google’s hoaxes are less inspired and some of them aren’t original either, but they’re still funny. Here are some of them:
1. Google China invented teleportation. “Through the search is to let Google take you through time and space, most want to reach your arrival time, place, with an immersive way to perceive everything you want to perceive.” (machine translation)
2. Gmail Motion is a new way to control Gmail using body language. “To use Gmail Motion, you’ll need a computer with a built-in webcam. Once you enable Gmail Motion from the Settings page, Gmail will enable your webcam when you sign in and automatically recognize any one of the detected movements via a spatial tracking algorithm. We designed the movements to be easy and intuitive to perform and consulted with top experts in kinestetics and body movement in devising them.”
There’s also Google Docs Motion, “a new way to collaborate — using your body”.
Opera had a similar hoax two years ago: Opera Face Gestures.
3. Google hires autocompleters. “Are you passionate about helping people? Are you intuitive? Do you often feel like you know what your friends and family are thinking and can finish their thoughts before they can? Are you an incredibly fast Google searcher? Like, so fast that you can do 20 searches before your mom does 1?” If you have have “good typing skills (at least 32,000 WPM)”, you’re willing to “relocate to obscure places like Nauru and Tuvalu to develop knowledge of local news and trends” and you have a “certificate in psychic reading”, then you can get a job at Google.
4. YouTube presents the top viral videos in 1911. “Today, we celebrate 100 years of YouTube, and we thought we would reflect on our inaugural year with a re-print of our first blog post from 1911. In honor of this milestone, today’s homepage is a reproduction of how you might have viewed it 100 years ago. Check out some of the most popular videos of the time and be sure to try out our new upload mode which summons a horse-drawn carriage to pick up your video submission from your home.”
5. Chrome’s team came up with Chromercise, a finger fitness program that helps you increase your hands’ strength and dexterity. “Some existing finger exercise programs focus on upgrading your digits’ cardiovascular strength and musculature; others focus on dexterity. Chromercise’s unique blend of aerobic motion and rhythmic accompaniment covers all of the above while simultaneously tightening and toning your fingers’ actual appearance,” informs Chrome’s blog.
Check out the video because it’s really funny (probably the funniest Google hoax this year):
