Monday 4 April 2011

'Motion-controlled' email and other April Fools' Web pranks

Search giant Google on Friday debuted a "motion-controlled" email system that lets users write digital messages by moving their bodies instead of typing on keyboards, which Google says are "outdated" and "inefficient."

"To open a message make a movement as if you were opening an envelope. To reply, simply point backward with your thumb," the company says in a video demonstration of the product, which seems to be a riff on Microsoft's Kinect gaming system. "To reply all, use both hands. To send a message, lick a stamp and place it down."

In case you didn't notice, Friday was April 1, the day many corners of the Internet start to look a lot like TheOnion.com.

Google, always the king of digital April Fools' jokes, played several pranks on the hopefully knowing public. Among them: motion-controlled email, a YouTube roundup of viral videos from 1911 and a statement that says Google soon will change all of its fonts to the much-reviled Comic Sans.

"Following some rigorous user testing of 41 different fonts, investigating how each affected user experience," Google writes, "we discovered one font consistently outperformed all others when it comes to user satisfaction, level of engagement, understanding Web content, productivity, click-through rates and conversion rates: Comic Sans."
Get Chitika Premium

We thank you & value your time for posting an enquiry and visiting our website. We request you to provide maximum information related to your travel plan in the "Requirements" field This will help us to process your information quickly and accurately




Sign up for PayPal and start accepting credit card payments instantly.






1 comment: