Gizmodo Australia » april fool

ThinkGeek’s Personal Soundtrack Shirt Becoming a Real Product

Jason Chen — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 19:50:00 +0000

One of ThinkGeek’s many fantastic April Fool’s products is now becoming real, following the same path as the 8-bit Tie last year. This one, the Personal Soundtrack Shirt, takes a little bit more engineering effort than a tie, so if you’re interested in one you’ll have to put yourself on their notification list. But think of it, being able to blast the Imperial March or Magnificent Seven theme or the Get Smart theme whenever you enter a room? That’s what we call quality. [Think Geek]

I Put Little Boy Into a Coma With Nothing But My Presence

Jason Chen — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 03:59:00 +0000

I’m going out the same way I came in. Pow! See you around, suckas. Hope you fools enjoyed my jibba jabba. Don’t do books, read milk, drink your drugs and respect yo mommas.

If You Don’t Get Your April Fool Out Of My Face I’m Gonna Turn You Into Chopped Liver

Addy Dugdale — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 22:00:00 +0000

Yo! I’M MR. T!!! What an awesome day it’s been, guest editing the Giz. Some of you think it’s Talk Like T Day. Well, I’ll squash the punk—squash him like a bug—who suggests that April 1 was TLT Day. It’s April Fool, FOOL!! And to all you naysayers who think that Gizmodo sucked today, you know that the only thing you can hear is your little pea brain rolling round your head. And when I finish with you, you won’t even be able to hear that! By the time I do let you girl scouts go, you’re gonna be big on PAIN! But first I’m gonna make you all suffer with the rest of the web’s April Fools.

• Nasa’s space station robot wants to be known as Dextre The Magnificent. Dextre The Fool!
• Find out if son—or daughter— of T is on its way yet with the ThinkGeek USB pregnancy test.
• Virtual peeing with new Wii game the Super Pii Pii Brothers. That’s crazier than Murdock.
• Nintendo goes VoIP with the Wii VoIP handset rumour. VoIP? That’s what my enemies say when I crush them into the dust!
• The IPCGA bans the HP Blackbird 002 from the International PC Gaming Tournament. Inside, it’s deadly!
• Aaargh! My ears! Improv Everywhere’s redesign. I wouldn’t give that paintjob to a Ford Tempo!
• Gearlog’s poop-brown iPod to support people with Irritable Bowel Syndrome. I can give jerks IBS with just one look.
• Google and Virgin want to colonise Mars?, Men don’t come from Mars, you know, crazy people do. And crazy people go there!
• Google came up with a couple others: Custom Time, and predictive searches, allowing you to search the future for things that haven’t happened yet. That’s just stupid jibber-jabber!
• I used to eat LEGO bricks for breakfast and some crazy dude is telling me they contain addictive substances? I Don’t Do Drugs!
• RIM is adapting its BlackBerrys to support Windows Mobile . Huh, I could do that with my welding torch.
• The mighty LP kicks the CD in the nuts, sales-wise. Did I say nuts? NUTS!
• Apple was due to reveal both its specs for OSXI, as well as the iPhone Enterprise Infrastructure Server, iPEnIS for short. Now that’s what I call takin’ Apple Fanboyism to crazy.

Green House Telephoto Kit Gives 8x Zoom to Mobile Phones, Superman, Fools

Haroon Malik — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 08:25:00 +0000

Hey, fool! Why would I need a 8x mobile phone zoom lens, complete with additional universal handset tripod and holder? That’s right, I wouldn’t, because B.A’s eyesight is better than Superman’s. Still, for those without Mr. T’s 40:40 vision, Green House is doing a good thing releasing their Telephoto Kit. B.A. don’t know nothing about pricing or shipping dates, but he does know that if Superman were ever to come up against him, he’d pity that fool. And if you need the Green House Telephoto Kit, I pity you, fool! Now, I’m gonna go crush Balboa’s head in. Balboa, you ain’t Rocky, you just cocky and I’m gonna snap you like a Pocky! Arghh! [Akihabara News]

Who’s The Real April Fool? Whirlpool, NineMSN or Google?

Nick Broughall — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 22:14:05 +0000

It’s April 1st, which means half of the stories you see here could be nothing more than an elaborate hoax. They’re not, but they could be.

A couple of tech companies have actually put in a heap of effort to come up with some fairly elaborate April Fool’s jokes. Google sent out a press release this morning about their new gDay technology, which allows users to Google search into the future.

Meanwhile, Whirlpool posted a press release on their site this morning announcing that they had been purchased by nineMSN for an undisclosed sum and would be integrated into the nineMSN family.

Of the two, the Whirlpool announcement was a lot more convincing (although some commenters on the news.com.au Google story were taken in by the joke). Hit the jump for the full April Fool’s releases, if that kind of thing interests you…

Looking ahead: Google announces technology that searches tomorrow’s web, today

SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA, 1 April 2008 – Google Australia today announced the launch of gDay™, a new beta search technology that will search web pages 24 hours before they are created.

View the gDay™ page for more information, user testimonials and Q+A.

gDay was developed in Google’s Sydney engineering centre and can accurately predict future events and internet content. It does this by using machine learning and artificial intelligence techniques from a system called MATE™ (Machine Automated Temporal Extrapolation).

Using Google’s index of historic, cached web content and a mashup of numerous factors including recurrence plots and fuzzy measure analysis, gDay creates a sophisticated model of what the internet will look like 24 hours from now – including share price movements, sports results and news events. Plus, using language regression analysis, Google can even predict the actual wording of tomorrow’s blogs and newspaper columns.

Then, to rank these future webpages in order of relevance, gDay uses a statistical extrapolation of a page’s PageRank, called SageRank.

Only Australian websites are included in the beta.

“Google’s Australian engineers have a history of major technological innovations, from Google Maps™ to Mapplets™ to Traffic for Google Maps. Giving humankind the ability to see 24 hours into the future is just a natural progression – of sorts,” said Alan Noble, Head of Engineering for Google Australia & New Zealand.

“Users – particularly those who like a casual flutter – will really benefit from this feature. Maybe you want to see tomorrow’s rugby scores. Maybe you want to see tomorrow’s lotto numbers. Maybe this is the greatest freakin’ product ever.”

See today’s post on the Google Australia Blog.

gDay, MATE, SageRank, PageRank, Google Maps and Google Mapplets are trademarks of Google Inc.

And Whirlpool:

Sydney, Australia — ninemsn today announced the full acquisition of
Australia’s leading online broadband and technology discussion site,
Whirlpool.

The acquisition demonstrates the strategic importance
of user-powered content to ninemsn’s vision of delivering content and
services to customers, where, when and how they want it; and connecting
advertisers with a broad, engaged audience wherever they are accessing
these services.

According to Tony Faure, ninemsn CEO, Whirlpool
represents the changing face of media and technology in Australia.
“More and more consumers are turning to sites such as Whirlpool for up
to date information, research and discussion. Whirlpool will provide us
access to a diverse and technologically aware user base, and allow us
in turn to provide our clients with an innovative and cutting-edge
marketing solution.”

“We’ve recognised the expertise of the
Whirlpool team in nurturing the largest discussion forum in Australia.
Certainly though there are new opportunities to combine Whirlpool with
the strength and depth of the ninemsn brands and services. We intend to
position the site towards a more mainstream audience, while retaining
many of the technical aspects for which it is currently renowned.”

“There
are also opportunities for synergy between Whirlpool and Windows Live
Spaces. Both sites let you stay in contact with your friends, explore
and discover new people, or share with your friends and family. Spaces
also has a powerful user profile system with themes, layouts and
colors. Whirlpool will really benefit as we integrate the ninemsn user
experience into the site.”

Simon Wright, founder of Whirlpool,
said “Whirlpool has gone further than I ever imagined. It’s been great
to see it become what it is today — the premier resource on broadband
and technology-based discussion in Australia. Now, as it moves into its
next phase, I’m looking forward to seeing ninemsn apply their proven
track record to the Whirlpool concept.”

“Both teams are excited by the opportunities to combine their resources on new projects in technology and broadband content.”

Also
unveiled today was a new design for the Whirlpool website. The design,
scheduled to be implemented in the coming weeks, brings the site into
line with other ninemsn network sites, and includes a new colour scheme
and advertising positions.

Financial terms for the acquisition were not discussed.

About ninemsn
ninemsn
is Australia’s number-one interactive media company. Over 8.6 million
people visit ninemsn each month, representing 73 per cent of active
Australian Internet users. Formed in 1997, ninemsn is a 50:50 joint
venture between the Microsoft Corporation and PBL.

Were there any other April Fool’s jokes that we missed? Tell us about them in comments.